My point being that for some stuff, you just can’t describe things as bags within bags, irrelevant of where you are on the scale, at least not being without quite dishonest and oversimplifying. I am not saying I am on too of the scale, I am saying I’ve met and worked with people on top of the scale (and couldn’t keep up), and they don’t explain things with bags within bags.

Eh I don’t really agree, depending on how simple you’re talking. Bags within bags, or dumbing things down to a grade school level, then sure, there are topics that can’t be described succinctly. But if you’re talking about simplifying things down to the point that anyone who took a bit of undergrad math/science can understand, then pretty much everything can be described in simple and easy to understand ways. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen many people at the top who can’t, but in every case, it’s not because of the topics inherent complexity but either because they don’t actually understand the topics as well as they may seem, or because they lack the social skills (or time / effort / setting) to properly analogize and adjust for the listener.

Anyone who took undergrad maths/science is not layman’s term. I also disagree with this for the record but that’s besides the point.

It is for a white collar job where most people have degrees.

“amongst the people who understand the jargon and notations, jargon and notations are layman’s term” Sure, I guess that’s true if you limit your sample, this is not what I took the meme to mean but ok.

No, I’m talking about engineers and scientists communicating with project managers and designers, legal, business people, and the many many other people who work in the same industry but do not have technical backgrounds.

And I am talking about the fact that believing that nothing is complicated and that complexity is always made up can be a dangerous, anti-intellectual and anti-academic argument. Of course, if you’re talking with people who don’t need the actually do the job and only understand enough of it you still speak like to a specialist, you’re not only in the middle, but also potentially (but not necessarily) kind of a dick. But reading this and you’re example, and the fact we seem to be miscommunicating somewhat, I do wonder this: English is not my first language, what do you include in “technical science job”. Is it a specific job or group of jobs? I took it to mean any job with tech or science workers.

I agree with everything you’re saying, but even speaking specialist to specialist, or say to a group of specialist colleagues who might not be working on exactly what you’re working on, you still often simplify away the technical parts that aren’t relevant to the specific conversation you’re having, and use specific language on the parts that are, because that inherently helps the listener to focus on the technical aspects you want them to focus on.