Another major source of needless words is instructions. The main thing you need to know about instructions is that no one is going to read them —at least not until after repeated attempts at “muddling through” have failed.
"If we turn this wonderful technology we have for knowledge into a weapon for disinformation," he told me, "we are in deep trouble." Why? "Because we won't know what we know, and we won't know who to trust, and we won't know whether we're informed or misinformed. We may become either paranoid and hyper-sceptical, or just apathetic and unmoved. Both... See more