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The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

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Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#81

Post by [deleted] »

jodrellblank wrote: post #77
dawg- wrote: post #26

I have noticed an interesting trend in our discourse about reading lately - there seems to be more and more moralizing and virtue signaling. So much self-help and "motivation porn" focuses on reading books, as if it's a magical activity that will unlock the best version of oneself. It's part of the new aspirational message - imagine yourself rich, happy, driving a Lamborghini, living off dividends from your stonks, a…

Have employer/employee relationships always been so squeezed, so antagonistic, that the aspirational message included "living off dividends from your stonks" and "leanFIRE" because the only thing worth aspiring to is getting out from wage slavery? It can't be a healthy economy when so much of the public discussion is how unpleasant work is, and not because the work itself is bad, but because the management/expectatio…

[deleted]

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#82

Post by fenderbluesjr »

dawg- wrote: post #26

I have noticed an interesting trend in our discourse about reading lately - there seems to be more and more moralizing and virtue signaling. So much self-help and "motivation porn" focuses on reading books, as if it's a magical activity that will unlock the best version of oneself. It's part of the new aspirational message - imagine yourself rich, happy, driving a Lamborghini, living off dividends from your stonks, a…

I see your point and I think the messaging about books is often a bit wishy washy, however I really do think books are a different beast.

I read a lot of biographies of legendary figures. Whether its Stalin, Oppenheimer, Teddy Roosevelt or Robert Moses, they are nearly always big readers. They tend to treat it quite seriously too. Not a few books per year, but 50-100+.. Teddy Roosevelt had 4 hours~ of his days' schedule blocked off for reading particular books, during an election campaign!

For me (and I believe, for them too), reading is serious business and the rewards really are great. This is not 'curl up by the fire with a nice story' and I will suddenly incur some magical benefits. Rather there are some things that are not easily achieved otherwise. Books allow you to efficiently deep dive and when you dedicate lots of hours to it, you can really make staggering progress. Reading all of the books on a particular topic becomes an achievable task. I could spend some hours scouring the internet trying to learn about a particular topic, or I could blast through a 200-300 page book on the topic. When you start treating books as your primary source of learning about new topics, and you build up a sort of grit for getting through books, you become a bit of an information processing machine and it is a bit magical.

I nearly always have a stack of books on my desk now and I just plow through them one after another. I would never absorb so much useful information reading articles on the internet or watching videos. Books are #1 for efficiency..

Right now I'm primarily reading Shirer's The Rise And Fall of The Third Reich.. It's a massive book (1100+ pages) and will take me over 2 weeks. It's hard to imagine how I could possibly get this much information on the same topic any other way. Try and find some documentary series? Follow my nose on wikipedia clicking around? Crap options, mostly. If I do this with two or three more books, by almost any measure, I have become somebody who knows a lot about WW2 and nazi germany. Now follow process with many other topics..

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#83

Post by herbertl »

dawg- wrote: post #26

I have noticed an interesting trend in our discourse about reading lately - there seems to be more and more moralizing and virtue signaling. So much self-help and "motivation porn" focuses on reading books, as if it's a magical activity that will unlock the best version of oneself. It's part of the new aspirational message - imagine yourself rich, happy, driving a Lamborghini, living off dividends from your stonks, a…

I definitely appreciate this. Your point reminds me of what Beeple once said about art and creative work:

"Looking at creativity as something that’s much less precious will help you stick with it long-term. Along with that, people around you will be a lot more supportive if you’re a bit more flexible and a bit less douchey about it. Like you’re not so pretentious in terms of, 'I’m an artist, I need to blah blah blah.' If you take it down a notch and just look at it as something you have to do today, just like taking a dump or eating supper, then it will be more sustainable in the long run."

https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/3/21046790/beeple-mike-winke...

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#84

Post by codersteve »

gen_greyface wrote: post #38
tines wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But ultimately you could learn just as much about yourself and the world by doing pottery, woodworking, kayaking, knitting or whatever else you like to do with your spare time. I agree with the rest of your post, but this sentence is a hard disagree. Books let you live a version of the lives of other more intelligent people from almost any point in history. How can pottery and kayaking do that?

Doing pottery and kayaking is a better choice for me than reading someone do pottery and kayaking. Edit: and not everything can be learnt from books

That's really taking it out of context.

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#85

Post by brudgers »

If you have to understand what you read, you will avoid challenging books.

You will avoid experts writing for experts.

You will avoid books that are way over your head.

And if your reading has to be efficient, what you read will be ever more dumbed down.

Ever more a landscape of mowed lawns and two car garages.

Never a dark wilderness sky.

Never a smelly sidewalk crowd in harsh noon sun.

There's nothing wrong with the missionary position.

But the world is bigger.

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#86

Post by dawg- »

tines wrote: post #80
dawg- wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be clear, I agree with you 100% that accessing other people's best thoughts through reading is very valuable and very awesome. On the other hand, you don't need a thousand other lives to live one good one. As Thoreau wrote, "It takes more than one day to extract the wealth of a day." And as a Buddhist saying goes, "You can learn everything about the entire universe from the head of a pin".

> You can learn everything about the entire universe from the head of a pin This is just not true haha.

Understandable to disagree, you're not gonna learn to drive a car or do calculus or speak another language from the head of a pin. Nevertheless, I think there's a valuable philosophical perspective in it.

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#87

Post by Moodles »

dawg- wrote: post #26

I have noticed an interesting trend in our discourse about reading lately - there seems to be more and more moralizing and virtue signaling. So much self-help and "motivation porn" focuses on reading books, as if it's a magical activity that will unlock the best version of oneself. It's part of the new aspirational message - imagine yourself rich, happy, driving a Lamborghini, living off dividends from your stonks, a…

Reminds me of the xkcd about older generations always complaining about younger generations no matter what, but with technology reversed.

“Look at them reading! How sad! A completely linear storyline! Never changes with a re-do, not even a bit. Sitting there, in silence! No social interaction. That can’t be good for their brains. Why don’t they play video games instead?”

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#88

Post by guidoism »

dougmwne wrote: post #50
dawg- wrote: post #26

I have noticed an interesting trend in our discourse about reading lately - there seems to be more and more moralizing and virtue signaling. So much self-help and "motivation porn" focuses on reading books, as if it's a magical activity that will unlock the best version of oneself. It's part of the new aspirational message - imagine yourself rich, happy, driving a Lamborghini, living off dividends from your stonks, a…

I've been thinking about the halo around books on and off for years. I think whatever special value books used to represent in our society from before the internet is long gone. I remember the pre-internet times when the information world you had access to was small. You could consume silly low-information things on the tv or radio or you could read a book on the topic, which had a much higher information density and…

It’s not that books are better than YouTube, in many cases (like visualizing math) books are much worse than video, but for a lot of topics books are the only source that goes in depth on a topic. It won’t necessarily be the case a hundred years from now, but right now if you want to study a topic that had been around for more than 30 years you’ll probably have to invest time in books. And the part that isn’t mentioned here is that most of those books are out of print so you will need to dig through libraries and maybe even use the Inter-library loan system.

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#89

Post by dominotw »

dawg- wrote: post #57
dominotw wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have noticed an interesting trend in our discourse about reading lately >imagine yourself rich, happy, driving a Lamborghini, living off dividends from your stonks, and reading books. This is bill gates, warren buffet. He says this is his secret, who am I to question someone who has actually done it. https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Summer-Books-202... "Whether you’re looking for a distraction or just…

I don't see Bill Gates attributing reading to his success at all. This is just a blog post saying he likes to read when he's bored around the house?

> I don't see Bill Gates attributing reading to his success at all.

He did many many times.

"Every book teaches me something new or helps me see things differently. I was lucky to have parents who encouraged me to read. Reading fuels a sense of curiosity about the world, which I think helped drive me forward in my career and in the work that I do now with my foundation."

https://time.com/4786837/bill-gates-books-reading/

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#90

Post by matthewh806 »

dawg- wrote: post #26

I have noticed an interesting trend in our discourse about reading lately - there seems to be more and more moralizing and virtue signaling. So much self-help and "motivation porn" focuses on reading books, as if it's a magical activity that will unlock the best version of oneself. It's part of the new aspirational message - imagine yourself rich, happy, driving a Lamborghini, living off dividends from your stonks, a…

This is a great comment that really hits the nail on the head for me about how I feel when I see articles like this.

I'm not going to deny that reading more effectively & efficiently can be desirable in certain technical reading where the aim is to absorb, digest & learn the material. But in the general sense its kind of the antithesis of why I would read anything. I don't want to knock off as many paper backs as quickly as I can so that I can rattle off a meaningless number and increase my cultural capital.

I also find it weird and slightly creepy that people elevate book reading to this almost infinite pedestal. If people get more enjoyment and fulfilment out of playing video games, for example, then that's an equally valid use of time. More so if they're not interested in reading.

For me it comes down to if you enjoy reading in and of itself as a hobby then you'll hopefully find time to do it and be enriched because of it. But just trying to force yourself to blitz through as "effectively" as possible loses the magic. Especially when you consider how much time and thought the very best writers put into every single construction.

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