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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

#141

Post by [deleted] »

a9h74j wrote: post #102
Bakary wrote: post #55

I really don't see the point of all that productivity in every facet of life. It sounds like cargo-culting to me. Generally, people who do fascinating things don't need to analyze their own productivity since they are naturally drawn to their projects and work on them on their own and for their own sake. People who do things out of ambition don't need the boost either, by definition. And for people who just want to e…

As you suggest, there is something so transparently ironic or off about his path in particular. For me his videos were part of a quick off-ramp from the productivity porn. In the irony department, I am reminded of a woman who once billed herself as the smartest person alive or something. My thought was: You are the smartest person alive, and you are writing articles for the Sunday supplement in my local newspaper?

[deleted]

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#142

Post by dougmwne »

mcguire wrote: post #123
dougmwne wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

But keep in mind, data is not information, information is not knowledge, and knowledge is not understanding. A quick question: Is the plot summary on the Wikipedia page for Hamlet equivalent to watching the play, or to reading the play with timeouts to look up the references?

Hamlet is a good example of the non-primacy of books. Hamlet was meant to be performed, not read silently. It's far better to have access to a recording or taped performance to study it than the text alone. And yes, a plot summary or additional commentaries could be a big help as well. In our current information golden age I can pull up a dozen full performances on YouTube including a 360 degree VR experience where you can stand on stage with the actors. In 1990 such a thing would have been pure science fiction and you would have never encountered a person to even discuss the topic of serious Shakespearian study.

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#143

Post by TeaDrunk »

waxpoeticwhy35 wrote: post #120
TeaDrunk wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also enjoyed his writing but I can most certainly see his biases. He has a peculiar way of thoroughly researching some assumptions but then apparently having a complete blindspot to others, which is only made more apparently by how critically thinking all his posts are. I guess that's most people, though, they just rarely do so with the precision and eloquence of scott.

Have you seen this? https://twitter.com/ArsonAtDennys/status/1362153191102677001

No, I haven't. Thanks for sending this over. I don't know the parties reporting.

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#145

Post by psychomugs »

ohduran wrote: post #27

I have a contrarian view about reading productively, which is: READ WHAT OTHERS AREN'T READING. It's as if there is a similar process as the Efficient Market Hypothesis happening with books: the best-sellers define our shared reality, and apparently (at least for me), they aren't worth reading. For example, think of Outliers, by Malcom Gladwell. Virtually everyone has heard of the 10'000 hour rule. That means that th…

"If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking." - Haruki Murakami

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#146

Post by nescioquid »

dawg- wrote: post #131
ravitation wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I think is somewhat interesting, is that there are numerous pieces of his/her comment, like the piece you quoted, that essentially imply the need for articles like the one posted here. The idea that you can "learn just as much about [...] the world" from things other than what, until very recently, has been the primary mode of inter-generational human communication is pure absurdity. An idea whose absurdity is i…

Ah! You quoted me but you put a very convenient [...] in place of learning about "yourself". I think the reason you did that is because your criticism is only coherent if you zero in on learning about "the world" and leave out that messy other business of self-discovery. But learning about yourself is pretty important for personal growth, too, in my opinion so important that I even listed it first when writing that s…

I think his argument still holds when you also include "about yourself": in the 18th century people recognized the novel as having a power to help us exercise "moral imagination". I fail to see why reading cannot help one understand oneself. EDIT: and I see that you were not arguing against that, in any case.

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#147

Post by pjfin123 »

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 think I've learned a lot more from Wikipedia rabbit holes than a lot of books I've read.

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#148

Post by goostavos »

mcguire wrote: post #122
j7ake wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst is some arbitrary goal of reading X books per year. That clearly optimises for short, easy to read books (eg New York Times Best Sellers) and avoids more technical and difficult books (eg Art of Computer Programming)

Please try to avoid gatekeeping in public, particularly with regards to what people read. Please?

Please try to avoid gatekeeping gatekeepers with regards to where they gatekeep.

Also, is it actually "gatekeeping" to say that arbitrary numeric goals optimize for a different kind of reading than what you'd get with different kinds of goals?

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#149

Post by cratermoon »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #130
cratermoon wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not everything can be learnt from books I'd argue that you can't actually learn anything from reading. Mortimer Adler argues in "How to Read a Book" that you can only actually learn by action, which means doing something with what you read.

Can I learn from what you wrote, or do I need to do something to learn I can't learn anything from reading?

touche.

The only way to test it is to not put it into action, then see if you learned it, but then ... that process of testing it is an action, so... ???

I applaud your meta-inquiry.

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#150

Post by mujina93 »

jodrellblank wrote: post #93
Balgair wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing about reading is the ROI aspect. Internet comments take ~5 minutes to write, 30s to read (6x ROI). Blog posts are ~4 hours to write, 10m to read (24x). Magazine articles are ~3 months to write, 30m to read (960x). Books are ~5 years to write, 8h to read (1300x). Obviously, books are one of the best reading ROIs. Now, of course, you've got to balance the book quality, your interests, the thesis, the author's…

Internet comments have room for your current thought. Is there any reason to think that your current thought is in some way less informed by your experiences than a book is? Blog posts give you 4 hours to write, backed by years of life experience, probably based on things you've had on your mind for a while. Magazine articles pay you to write what the audience/advertisers want to see. They've got to be a net negative…

I'm curious. What is the blog post that tore "Why we sleep" apart?
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