But this falls apart immediately, in much the same way as the rest of it.
If someone tells me I'm incapable of driving because I had a glass of wine with dinner, I'm likely to laugh at them and disregard everything they say after that, because I now perceive them as someone who understands neither drinking nor driving.
It doesn't take a PhD to understand that people react differently to alcohol (etc, etc). Most people I know figured that out before they were 18 and had a pretty robust understanding by their early 20's.
The right level of discussion, IMHO, is not paternalistic, absolutist condescension, but one that promotes self-awareness and enables people to appraise individual risk in specific situations. (Be careful: if you assess wrong, you die or go to jail!)
I'd also disagree that the people who excuse their behavior like this are seizing upon nuances of academic discourse, but rather rejecting an insultingly-simplistic slogan held up as some kind of absolute truth.
It reminds me of a line from this thing my dad had framed, to the effect of "Be wary of giving advice: the fool won't heed it and the wise don't need it." Somewhere in the middle are reasonably-intelligent, non-sociopathic adults who need to understand the limits/risks/benefits so they can make informed decisions.
To the original point, I think we'd have seen much better results and much less collateral/residual damage if we were in the habit of "ELI18" and not "ELI5".
I look forward to seeing your evidence for that theory. But you write a lot about what you want and what you find personally offensive, but not at all about your experiences getting people to do things, so I don't see much reason to think your personal tastes tell us much about how people actually change behavior.
If someone tells me I'm incapable of driving because I had a glass of wine with dinner, I'm likely to laugh at them and disregard everything they say after that, because I now perceive them as someone who understands neither drinking nor driving.
It doesn't take a PhD to understand that people react differently to alcohol (etc, etc). Most people I know figured that out before they were 18 and had a pretty robust understanding by their early 20's.
The right level of discussion, IMHO, is not paternalistic, absolutist condescension, but one that promotes self-awareness and enables people to appraise individual risk in specific situations. (Be careful: if you assess wrong, you die or go to jail!)
I'd also disagree that the people who excuse their behavior like this are seizing upon nuances of academic discourse, but rather rejecting an insultingly-simplistic slogan held up as some kind of absolute truth.
It reminds me of a line from this thing my dad had framed, to the effect of "Be wary of giving advice: the fool won't heed it and the wise don't need it." Somewhere in the middle are reasonably-intelligent, non-sociopathic adults who need to understand the limits/risks/benefits so they can make informed decisions.
To the original point, I think we'd have seen much better results and much less collateral/residual damage if we were in the habit of "ELI18" and not "ELI5".