I came to a similiar conclusion a few weeks ago and have just finished setting up a system to try and record anything interesting I learn or find out in life in text and/or video form. I can't wait to get it rolling. Merely being able to read digests of what I've read or learn before should, I hope, bring most of the ideas back. Is there a name for this sort of recording?
You Can’t Take It With You
21–30 of 40 posts
Re: You Can’t Take It With You
#22There's an entire field devoted to this: Knowledge Management (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_management).
Re: You Can’t Take It With You
#23Quick poll: When you were in school, especially college, were the best teachers young or old?
There are young teachers with talent, but in my opinion, the most outstanding lecturers were older and had a depth and variety of experience that the young ones couldn't match. Older teachers have the fabled 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to account for, as well as a diversity of experience and the time necessary to assemble some perspective on all of it.
So here's a big +1 for hiring adjunct professors from outside the usual pool of fresh young faces. Let the young people work, and the old people teach.
Re: You Can’t Take It With You
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Now, now, trial by combat has a long and venerable history... Seriously, though, before you can defend against a strategy, you have to recognize and understand it.
It's important to remember that the legal system isn't perfect. It's just more perfect than the known alternatives. Trial by combat was no joke. It was the process for centuries. It presumably had the virtue of resolving disputes in a manner short of war or century-long blood feud, and its obvious bias -- toward the better fighter -- was, I'm guessing, a design feature: In the absence of government police, any judici…
I said it was a venerable history ... and like you, I prefer the wimpy modern version. Less interesting as a spectator perhaps, but much to be preferred as a participant.
Any type of trial is based on the notion that the outcome will be Fair and Just. What people consider Fair and Just changes depending on the people and the time; in some communities simple consistency is apparently enough...
Having now revealed my relativist leanings, I will point out that there are certain politicians and telemarketers that I would like to subject to that other time honored judicial fiction, er, system: Trial By Ordeal.
The trick will be finding a pond big enough and a large number of heavy stones.
Re: You Can’t Take It With You
#25Quick poll: When you were in school, especially college, were the best teachers young or old? There are young teachers with talent, but in my opinion, the most outstanding lecturers were older and had a depth and variety of experience that the young ones couldn't match. Older teachers have the fabled 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to account for, as well as a diversity of experience and the time necessary to ass…
Both (I think).
When getting my master's the most interesting instructors were the about-to-retire grey hair teaching Software Project Management who had decades of PM war stories mostly from massive Government projects.
At the other end was the young guy (looked like he was the youngest instructor in the program) teaching Introduction to Networks. He was absolutely amazing: there seemed to be nothing that he didn't know on any aspect of either circuit-switched or packet-switched networks! I think only once did he say "I'll have to research that and let you know next week." He was probably older than he looked since he'd worked quite a while at either Alcatel or Nortel.
Re: You Can’t Take It With You
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hmm, but: I’ll use misdirection to get the opposing counsel thinking I’m heading in one direction This is the wrong lesson. He's good at exploiting the legal system, that's all. It's not about who is right, it's about who has the cleverer lawyer. All this guy's "experience" is zero-sum, he's creating no wealth, he's purely parasitic. He's like a salesman who sells you something you don't want just because he's good a…
In an adversarial system like the US and the UK each side in the case is expected to put up the best argument possible presenting their side of the case - it's not about them presenting the "truth" (although they obviously can't lie).
You got the word order wrong on that last - it should be "they can't obviously lie".
Re: You Can’t Take It With You
#27Because non-tech knowledge, being harder to reverse-engineer, is harder to pass down. The main point seems kind of like Asimov's Foundation, keep from falling back too many generations by leaving key checkpoint materials while cutting out some of the initially necessary but essentially unworking steps that we just go through to reach a solution (assumption -> oh this would be no that can't be -> ok reduction ad absurdum -> next possibility).
Re: You Can’t Take It With You
#28[deleted]
Re: You Can’t Take It With You
#29I worry we may be heading for a future in which only a few people plot their own itinerary through no-land, while everyone else books a package tour.
That's been the case for the majority of human history. It's mostly the case now. Most non-religious, progressive thinking people, don't actually think through most issues for themselves. They believe in institutions - academia, NPR, etc. Most people believe what they do about nutrition for instance, not from reading studies themselves, but through accredited officials (PHD's) as interpreted by the NYTimes.
Re: You Can’t Take It With You
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hmm, but: I’ll use misdirection to get the opposing counsel thinking I’m heading in one direction This is the wrong lesson. He's good at exploiting the legal system, that's all. It's not about who is right, it's about who has the cleverer lawyer. All this guy's "experience" is zero-sum, he's creating no wealth, he's purely parasitic. He's like a salesman who sells you something you don't want just because he's good a…
Again, the point remains (and should not be clouded by animosity towards lawyers) that its a huge win for everyone if leaders in every field teach the young their hardearned lessons. Perhaps the OP would have been more effective describing a less controversial field.
"Perhaps the OP would have been more effective describing a less controversial field."
Exactly! As I read the article, my feeling was he was being disingenuous, condescendingly mocking the lawyer and his profession.
Then the final two sections, generalizing his advice to the lawyer for other professionals, seemed like a gloss.