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To me, all these new terms that have no actual meaning to what they are trying to describe is very annoying. Terms like "phishing", "gaslighting", "bike shedding", "yak shaving", "dog whistle", "gatekeeping" are extremely confusing to understand because there's no direct connection to what they are trying to imply. You literally have to memorize what it means and it's generally unguessable.


Terms like these are often not intended to be understood from just context. They're short references to complex topics that it is assumed the listener is already comfortable with, and will need to be explained if they are not. Just like understanding technical terminology improves your ability to share complex ideas in a technical space, political/social terminology improves your ability to share complex ideas in the social space.


That's what language is though.

Think of the word melancholy it has a complex definition and connotations but how could you guess what that means.




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