Welcome to Ideothetic Flow! A passion project where I share my reflections on being a better person and building a kinder world.
If this resonates, do subscribe so we can stay connected. New post every 2 weeks.
Hi!
A few weeks ago, I volunteered to help facilitate a climate change dialog. My group’s focus issues were climate change in education, and rules for corporate disclosure of emissions.
While preparing, I was quite frustrated with how difficult it was to quickly get precise information. Information was buried in walls of text within long white papers or reports, often without good structure. A long stretch of intense reading would be necessary to process the information for it to be useful. As a volunteer, I had limited time to spend. The end of day fatigue, and the pull of my various computer games, made it even harder.
As information increases and becomes more complex, I worry that we are not doing enough to make information easy to proces. Everyone should pay more attention to better design , simplifying text, and improving structure .
Our minds naturally prefer a path of least resistance. This is part of our survival instincts to make quick decisions. Faced with overwhelming details, chaotic information, or simply too much to read, we look for what is easy. We get distracted by preferring to check out phones instead. We look for the simplest information, even if it is incomplete or biased.
This leads to poorer decisions. Rather than read fine print, or do added research, we trust the claims of others who may have a conflict of interest. We succumb to marketing and social signals. We choose less meaningful activities for leisure.
Dishonesty becomes easy. When complex is the norm, it becomes easier to hide and misdirect using complexity. If everything is easy to understand, things which are trying to mislead will stand out.
We are unable to gain the knowledge we need to improve our world or community. In preparing for the dialog session, I managed to get enough information not to sound ignorant or foolish. But, it was not enough to equip me to make an impact. If I could download the knowledge faster, I would have more time to reflect, think of new solutions, and better understand the nuances at play. I feel this problem repeats itself in many places. It is difficult to understand long parliamentary documents, complicated company policies, or the nuances of the latest technology.
Knowledge becomes linked to money. With information so hard to absorb, we need an added incentive before we will put in the effort to go through it. I barely read any of the many contracts I sign for my personal life, yet I read every word of a contract I am reviewing for work. Knowledge is exclusive to those those paid to become experts. This troubles me. The application of that knowledge becomes directed by the paymasters. A regular person trying to get informed on relevant issues of public concern has too many obstacles to being equipped to effectively assess or criticise policies or business practices.
We don’t lack the skills to design better. Entertainment, marketing, or communication experts are great at capturing our attention, or getting a message in our heads. Programmers learn techniques to minimise processing power, and to make code easy to understand. These skills can be applied in other fields.
What needs to change is mindset. Our lazy minds assess things by equating length and complexity with intelligence. Make something too short and simple, especially on a serious topic, and it is assumed to be incomplete. Even though we do not want to read them, we need to see long paragraphs and complicated diagrams to be convinced. We need to move past this, and realise that simplicity actually requires more effort.
I am inspired to try and write better, clearer, and simpler. Lawyering is a huge culprit of increasing complexity and illegible documents. I want to change that, demystify my work, and make it easy to understand. I also start trying to use tools like Hemingway to test my writing for clarity.
“the uber map is a psychological moonshot, because it does not reduce the waiting time for a taxi but simply makes waiting 90% less frustrating”
― Rory Sutherland, Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
Have a good week!
James
Thanks for reading! I do hope to hear about your thoughts or ideas!
You can reply this email, leave a comment, or reach me at jameschanwz@hey.com.