Explain it to me like I'm ten

bbookofjoe about 4 hours ago 22 commentsRead Article on timharford.com

ES version is available. Content is displayed in original English for accuracy.

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Discussion (22 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

FinnLobsien•about 3 hours ago

I think constraints essentially force you to reevaluate the thing from base principles because you add a condition that’s incompatible with the default way of doing things.

I think this is also why hackathons work: You can’t afford the bikeshedding we often do to avoid the hard work because you need to ship something by a deadline 1/500th of most of your normal deadlines, so all of your effort is concentrated into what moves the core work forward.

What gets proven in hackathons often become features, products, or companies later - even if they’re things that would be ruled out in any planning meeting because they seem too hard/laborious.

bariumbitmap•about 1 hour ago

I'd say a lot of the value in "explain it to me like I'm ten" is just expending more time and effort in explaining something. People of all ages respond to engaging writing and clever analogies, and that tends to accompany the style of writing for a younger or broader audience.

hny6epwg93•about 3 hours ago

I disagree but respect the reasoning

01284a7e•about 3 hours ago

"fusillades of acronyms"...

Fusillades? No ten year old knows that word.

rpdillon•about 3 hours ago

The blog post isn't directed at 10-year-olds. In fact, you're pulling a phrase from a paragraph that's describing exactly how you should not speak when talking to a 10-year-old.

> The simplest constraint for anyone trying to explain a complex topic is to accept the request to “explain it to me like I’m 10 years old”. What’s packed into that request is, vividly exaggerated, the reminder that what seems obvious to an expert is often incomprehensible to the listener. Technical jargon and fusillades of acronyms are often used to convey an explanation that has been denuded of all the foundations and context that might allow it to make sense.

01284a7e•about 3 hours ago

My point stands. The author can't explain explaining it like I'm ten like I'm ten.

nemosaltat•about 3 hours ago

It might be helpful to note that this article was written for the FT (as he mentions at the very bottom.) While it aphoristically may make a “pre out of you and me,” I presume neither the author, nor the subscribership of FT _are_ indeed (or wish to be) constrained to the language of a typical 10-year-old. Presumably the same would apply to the readership of HN.

We don’t know if the author _can_ explain it like we’re ten, but I think we can be reasonably certain they understandably chose not to.

kelnos•about 1 hour ago

The author can do that, but didn't for literary effect. And he can do that because his audience is FT readers, not 10-year-olds.

AnimalMuppet•about 3 hours ago

Ten-year-olds don't need advice on how to explain something like the listener is ten.

atoav•about 3 hours ago

Good thing they never claimed to be writing in that style then. Not sure what you're working yourself up over here. Authors are allowed to write about a method of writing without having to apply it themselves.

Chris2048•about 3 hours ago

Is "explaining it like I'm ten" a complex topic?

rzzzt•about 3 hours ago

It's when multiple soldiers are ordered to fire their guns very quickly, either everyone at once or one after another.

vova_hn2•about 2 hours ago

I think that the author is doing it deliberately, to put the reader in the shoes of someone who has a hard time understanding some of the words, and reinforce his point.

As a non-native English speaker there are 4 words in this article that I had to look up, which is significantly higher than a typical article from HN frontpage (usually it's 0, occasionally 1).

If anyone curious, the words are: pellucid, fusillades, pram (idk, why I never heard it. I knew the word "stroller", of course, but I never thought about different kinds of strollers), octogenarian (this one I could have guessed from Latin roots and context, was lazy).

hn_go_brrrrr•about 2 hours ago

Pram is common in British English. I'm guessing you learned US English, which doesn't use it.

pm215•about 1 hour ago

Though even in the UK I think it has a slightly old fashioned feel -- I feel like parents are more likely to have a pushchair than a pram.

KineticLensman•about 2 hours ago

Yes, as slang for ‘perambulator’, which is basically ‘stroller’

thaumasiotes•about 2 hours ago

The word pram doesn't exist in American English, true, but you'll learn it anyway if you ever read Peter Pan.

thaumasiotes•about 2 hours ago

> No ten year old knows that word.

Why would you think that?

esikich•about 1 hour ago

Because they pretty much just learned to read?

ranger_danger•about 3 hours ago

I don't think the article itself was intended to be written for a 10-year-old to understand it.

nemosaltat•about 3 hours ago

Neither did the author

> If you are reading this column you definitely aren’t a typical 10-year-old, but the image of the bewildered 10-year-old gives the expert an anchor to help them slow down and simplify [0]

[0] TFA

nemosaltat•about 3 hours ago

Indeed, TFA isn’t exactly pellucid