It’s kinda interesting seeing what, IIRC, was originally a subreddit name which spawned from an AskReddit thread, is now a common marketing phrase in the tech world.
replySimilar to the sub itself, it’s now just shorthand for “describe using the first principles the expected audience should understand.”
I imagine a lot of people in the industry also fondly remember the 2010s reddit experience.
The phrase was in an episode of The Office prior to that. I think it's fairly old.
replyNot sure how long the subreddit has existed but I always assumed it was inspired by the episode of The Office where Michael asks Oscar to explain what a surplus is like he's 5. The broader usage on social media and the ELI5 shorthand are definitely the result of the subreddit though.
replyThis article is definitely abusing the terminology, because I wouldn't expect even tech-knowledgeable people to know what Nostr is or does.
It’s way older than Reddit, it’s older than the Office. I remember Denzel Washington saying it in some movie when I was a kid, and I doubt it originated there. Doesn’t Einstein have a quotation about it, too?
replyI remember someone saying it in high school back in the late 90s or early 00s.
replyAre you smarter than a five year old, kinda show
reply"If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself." - Albert Einstein (allegedly :))
replyI always thought that the quote was with "5 year old" and that it was the reason for ELI5 :)
In this article, it's just an AI-generated TL;DR, tagline, sub-title box that was badly prompt-engineered and the website owners didn't care about its quality. I am pretty sure the entire website is an AI generated news aggregator.
replyHah, I used to tell my agents “eli5 (this task)”, then I started to worry that it will actually explain things as you would to a 5yo…
replyIt’s just an irrational fear I have, in the end agents are not the HN comment section and they usually understand what I actually mean.
Seriously, what's hope is left for adults when a 5 year old understands signed Nostr events? The ELI-SWE is the docs I guess? I want to get off the Silicon Valley marketing express.
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replyThe goal is to replace these 5 year old with a team of Nostr aware agents. /s
replyI imagine that's all very understandable to the average Bay Area five-year-old.
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