So the complexity is for people in the know. The strategy is to pick the topic that matters most to your audience. That's why I said that if you dislike any singular one of the problems it is enough to be against the system. If you don't know your audience, don't pigeonhole your argument. That's all I'm saying here. Doesn't need to be complex, despite the issue being so. But also you're complexifying my argument.
I would also argue that part of the reason we've gotten to this point is because we try to hide complexity from people. People are both smarter and dumber than you think. But people don't like to be treated like they are dumb, so don't.
Audience-specific arguments are definitely a good way to compartmentalize complexity. So niche communities are covered more effectively, but which argument should CNN choose? MSNBC? Other mainstream news sources with large audiences?
> But also you're complexifying my argument.
Assume good faith, I'm not trying to argue against you, but reach a novel conclusion by discussing with you. This is why my reply began with "I don't know".
> But people don't like to be treated like they are dumb, so don't.
I don't assume a given individual is dumb, and I reject such a generalized classification. Very intelligent people can have extremely simple perspectives about issues outside of their expertise. Simplicity/complexity is not strictly related to intelligence. It's far more a function of time and available energy one has to spend learning about an issue. I'd prefer to dispense with the metric of intelligence altogether and focus on reduction of wasted complexity.
> but which argument should CNN choose? MSNBC? Other mainstream news sources with large audiences?
I would expect them to cover multiple points, not just one. The news's job is to distill complex topics to a wide audience. I fully expect them to talk about the major points: turnkey tyranny, nation state actors, and how this harms children. Assuming good faith. Covering a singular aspect is not in their cards as they are disseminating information to the masses.
> I'm not trying to argue against you, but reach a novel conclusion by discussing with you.
I misunderstood the sentiment, sorry. But I'm not trying to call you dumb or attack you.
> I'd prefer to dispense with the metric of intelligence altogether and focus on reduction of wasted complexity.
I'm totally fine doing this.
> It's far more a function of time and available energy one has to spend learning about an issue.
But this is also why I am advocating for this strategy. If the news isn't going to distill this information to the masses then it is our job as the tech literate crowd to do so. Since it specifically is a topic we are willing to spend more time and energy on to understand. Unfortunately that also means we need to spend more time and energy understanding our perspective audiences and take extra care to make arguments that are both informative and relevant to them. The advantage of our position, over the news, is that we have smaller audiences and so it is easier to be adaptive. But our disadvantage is our smaller audiences, lower reach.
I would also argue that part of the reason we've gotten to this point is because we try to hide complexity from people. People are both smarter and dumber than you think. But people don't like to be treated like they are dumb, so don't.