The Utility of Digressions

My post about that written by humans button continues to deliver the goods! I’ve had so many thoughtful comments from people from all over the shop that it’s hard to keep up. Thank you all for sharing; I apologise if I haven’t quoted you yet.

In my original post I joked that my blog is often full of nonsensical or meandering digressions. This is because I have an odd sense of humour, but it’s also fun making connections between disparate things. Crossword fiends talk about a similar buzz when they finish a cryptic puzzle (I started writing crossword “friends”, but “fiends” is amazing).

I wish I could remember that self-anointed blogging “expert” I read years ago, but their comment that blogs should focus on a singular topic remains the worst piece of advice I’ve ever read. Digressions and tangents are one of the key ways that human writing is interesting. I’ve gone down so many wonderful rabbitholes just by reading a digression note on a blog I first read because we had a common interest. A FreeBSD developer talking about astronomy; an anime fan mentioning how much they love antique toasters; a software engineer sharing their photos; it’s all wonderful.

Those following at home may have realised I’ve taken a long digression here too. Because to get back to the whole idea of human writing, digressions have also been a way for me to signal that there’s a real human behind the words you read. A chatbot likely won’t make a pointless comment about the wrong trousers in a discussion about the moon. WENSLEYDALE! It’s human experiences, and a touch of silliness, that make reading and writing such a fun and wonderful thing.

Mary chimed in with a YouTube channel she watches by Evan Edinger who talks about how to spot AI writing, though it was his point about tangents I found most interesting:

I do get comments from people that seem oddly incensed that I go off on tangents in my videos, as if every video needs to be robotically following one topic. Like in this very video, I need to take that photography tangent […] but I really love photography, and I figured it was a relevant enough fact people would be interested in knowing it.

He was right to do so! I would not have made the connection between the Rule of Thirds and AI text, yet here we are.

Tangents at this stage are a pretty good sign of human writing, as our minds can make relevant connections to other things we know, to make conversations that much more interesting.

When you think of some of your favourite stories, there’s a good chance the narrative isn’t direct from A to B, but is a satisfying journey to get there.

I expect Evan and I will continue to comments from people angry that we don’t spend enough time on specific topics, and go on tangents and digressions instead. He gets them from YouTube comments, I get them from Hacker News and their ilk. Their milk? WENSLEYDALE!