What If You Could Walk Through an Idea?
Let's design understanding like we design everything else.
You’re not stupid.
You’re not unqualified.
You’re not confused — you’re overloaded with noise, spin, and jargon.
The systems that hold knowledge —
the whitepapers, the policy briefs, the expert panels —
they were built like fortresses, not bridges.
And the people who design them?
Often trained to prove, not to translate.
To defend, not to reveal.
To win, not to listen.
What if we treated understanding like an interface?
What if we designed comprehension
the way we design apps or spaces —
with friction, flow, and clarity in mind?
That’s what Knowledge Translators do.
They aren’t simplifying.
They’re not “dumbing down.”
They’re rendering complexity visible —
without losing its soul.
A good translator doesn’t just paraphrase.
They show you the mental scaffolding.
They reveal where the same word
carries different stakes.
Where an engineer says “safety” and means mechanical thresholds —
but a parent means emotional security.
Where a researcher says “success” and means statistical significance —
but a policymaker means public approval.
Where a scientist says “uncertainty” and means margins of error —
but the public hears “we have no idea.”
They co-create visuals, stories, simulations —
not after the experts finish,
but with them, from the first question.
They don’t collapse nuance.
They format it
so you can move through it without drowning.
Imagine this:
You’re not handed a 90-page agriculture policy brief
with footnotes longer than your grocery receipt.
You’re handed a shelf.
Interactive. Responsive. Alive.
You scan an apple.
It tells you who picked it,
what they were paid,
how much water it drank,
what chemicals clung to its skin,
and why it cost less than it should.
You scan a burger.
It shows you subsidies,
carbon,
land theft.
It tells you a story of feedlots and futures markets
and the policies that made cruelty affordable.
You move through food like time travel:
backward, to decisions and policy changes made decades ago.
Forward, to what might grow instead.
You choose your access point:
Follow the numbers.
Or the stories.
Ask the AI translator to walk you through
in plain language or poetic metaphor.
Or just start with a tl;dr on how your meal got priced —
enough to feel your footing
without drowning.
Not because you can’t handle complexity —
but because you deserve a way in.
This isn’t “science communication.”
This is justice in how we share knowledge.
Because the way we share knowledge
is itself a power structure.
And if the door to understanding is locked
behind jargon, formatting, or assumed context —
then intelligence becomes gatekept,
and the future gets designed without us.
So next time you feel confused,
ask not “what’s wrong with me?”
Ask “who designed this knowing?”
And then ask:
Where’s the translator?
Where’s the bridge?
Where’s the person whose job is to say:
You’re not lost — this was never made to be found.
Infochasm (n.)
The canyon between what experts know and what the public can feel.
“AI ethics lives in the infochasm right now.”
Meaningload (n.)
The emotional and cognitive weight a reader carries when trying to decode unfamiliar terms.
“The meaningload was too high for the average reader to stay with it.”
Knowcliff (n.)
A sharp drop-off in comprehension built into the structure of information.
“The intro was clear, then came the knowcliff.”
If this hit home — write me. I’m listening.