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The negation of:

"Most people are actually pretty bad at explaining things in a clear, concise, helpful way, very often especially people well-versed in the field they are trying to explain. Communicating complex concepts to non-experts is indeed a fairly rare skill."

is not:

"nothing but highly effective teachers".



Why not?


Because the negation of 10% is 90%, not 10%.


Except that we are not talking about numbers, we are talking about human behavior. Applying a formula to that, as you are attempting to do, is not going to give you the conclusions you expect.


FYI he's applying logical operations to sentences as logical propositions, which is valid and precise. Not hand wavey, and condescending like you are doing.


I don't perceive the tone you are projecting onto the OP, fwiw.


Looks like all three of us are being a bit condescending here.

Here is the actual logic: if people are not inherently bad at teaching, that means they are mostly effective at it, right? Were most of the teachers you've had in your life effective at teaching? Mine certainly were not.

Perhaps you were having problems with the use of my word "nothing" instead of "mostly," which is just a colloquialism. Idioms of language rarely respond to logic in the way numbers do.


You changed your wording from "highly effective" to "mostly effective". It's a crucial change, and so I infer you accepted my point :-)


No I didn't? It still says "highly."


Look at your post I just replied to. It does not say "highly".


I thought you meant I edited my original post that spawned your objections, which I haven't.

I'll admit to being surprised at such a reaction over the choice of either of these words over the other. My meaning was clear in either case.


Don't be too surprised. Hackers tend to treat natural language like a programming language, unfortunately. Challenge them on it, and get ridiculed.

Your point has been lost in all the nonsense, but I agree with it.


Not just you're (derogatively named?) hackers but anyone who uses natural language for precise meaning; lawyers, mathematicians, philosophers. People who say what they mean, and mean what they say.


It's clear you are arguing for the sake of arguing and this community is worse for it.


That's an unfair assumption to make. Calling me hand-wavey doesn't add anything to the community either.


I think @marktangotango is trolling you. Best to ignore.




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