توجه، فید، و خشمAttention, feeds and outrage

Unintended consequences: the grammar of "nobody meant this"

برخی از جالب‌ترین چیزهایی که در انگلیسی می‌شود گفت دربارهٔ نتایجی است که کسی انتخابشان نکرده، و به گرامری نیاز دارند که نیت را از نتیجه جدا کند. امتیازیِ شگفتی: and yet، even so، and despite that، all the same. «Nobody intended it, and yet it happened anyway.» همان and yet واقعاً کار می‌کند — شکاف میان علت و نیت را نشان می‌دهد. WITHOUT + ing برای کنشی که پیامدی داشته که کننده‌اش ندیده: «They optimised for time without asking what time would come to mean.» بندِ نتیجه با turn out و end up، که هر دو مشخصاً یعنی نتیجه نقشه نبوده: «Outrage was what time spent turned out to mean»، «We ended up rewarding the angriest post.» این را با come to مقایسه کن که رانشی کند و ناخواسته را نشان می‌دهد: «The word came to mean something else.» فاعلِ برآمده — یک سامانه، نه یک شخص، به‌عنوان کننده: «the algorithm learns»، «the incentive rewards»، «the design selects for». این از نظر دستوری عادی و از نظر بلاغی بارِ سنگین دارد، پس جایی به کارش ببر که درست است و جایی که واقعاً شخصی تصمیم گرفته پرهیز کن. و تیزترین حرکتِ متن، تفضیلیِ پارادوکس است: which is worse, in a way — پذیرفتن اینکه نسخهٔ بی‌مقصرِ یک ماجرا می‌تواند نگران‌کننده‌تر باشد.

Some of the most interesting things to say in English are about outcomes nobody chose, and they need grammar that separates intention from result. THE CONCESSIVE OF SURPRISE: and yet, even so, and despite that, all the same. "Nobody intended it, and yet it happened anyway." The and yet is doing real work — it marks the gap between cause and intention. WITHOUT + -ING for an action that carried a consequence its doer did not see: "They optimised for time without asking what time would come to mean." THE RESULT CLAUSE with turn out and end up, both of which specifically mean the outcome was not the plan: "Outrage was what time spent turned out to mean", "We ended up rewarding the angriest post." Compare this with come to, which marks a slow unintended drift: "The word came to mean something else." THE EMERGENT SUBJECT — a system, not a person, as the doer: "the algorithm learns", "the incentive rewards", "the design selects for". This is grammatically ordinary and rhetorically loaded, so use it where it is true and avoid it where a person actually decided. And the sharpest move in the reading is the comparative of paradox: which is worse, in a way — conceding that the blameless version of a story can be the more troubling one.