Against 3x Speed • Hacker News Board

Re: Against 3x Speed

#271

Post by serjester » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 4:44 PM UTC

JimTheMan wrote: post #14

I'd argue that 95% of all learning, is learnt by doing. Merely listening to something without properly interrogating your understanding of it.. you will end up with a bunch of shallow and untested knowledge. At best, a boffin. It's imperative to build, discuss, interrogate, trial and fail.

I’m not a fan of this dichotomy - you assume the two are mutually exclusive. There's analysis paralysis (no “doing”) on one extreme and blind ambition on the other (no book knowledge). I doubt many people advocate either.

Why can’t you build things while setting aside time to learn from other peoples mistakes?

Re: Against 3x Speed

#272

Post by alexfoxgill » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

alexanderchr wrote: post #128

porker wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The few podcasts I listen to, I do so in 0.2x speed or even less. Not by slowing the playback speed, obviously, but by pausing and rewinding very often to think about what has been said and even take notes if I find something that resonates with me Which podcasts have you found that contain thought provoking information? I've tried to get into podcasts but haven't found the ones to keep my interest yet.

Sean Carrol’s mindscape sometimes can be very good.

+1, i also like Sam Harris's Making Sense which is a little more pompous but still interesting

Re: Against 3x Speed

#273

Post by will4274 » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 4:52 PM UTC

someRandoJunk wrote: post #155

saivan wrote: post #4

I get the point you're making - but honestly I have to raise the counter argument, which I think is equally valid. Take for example, the average lecture video. The information density is so low, that I'd imagine that a 60 minute video could be compressed into 10-12 minutes without any loss of information. It really depends on what you're listening to/watching.

I think some of the replies and likes to your reply are kinda hilarious. You went through the entire article, misunderstood the point (aka he's talking about people who are cramming information, not people who are using it to skip filler content and contemplate over the actual information like you do), and this misinterpretation is fair, it happens to all of us. Few people corrected you in the reply. But a lot of peo…

I don't agree at all. The author doesn't mention filler content. He seems to implicitly assume that Mike's podcasts have no filler content. And he assumes Mike's motive to be trying to learn faster - rather than skipping filler - without presenting any evidence that Mike believes this.

I'd say the author constructs what is probably a strawman, that Mike is consuming so fast because he desires to learn as fast as possible, rather than the other obvious hypothesis - Mike is probably consuming so fast because he finds the content a little boring.

I don't think saivan is misunderstanding the author by pointing out the authors (mis)assumption - I think the author is misunderstanding Mike and you are axiomizing the author's misunderstanding to criticize other commenters.

Re: Against 3x Speed

#274

Post by weird-eye-issue » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 4:54 PM UTC

JohnWhigham wrote: post #205

weird-eye-issue wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always hated school and I just recently realized why. When I could pay attention everything felt wayy too slow for me. But when I couldn't pay attention I'd miss critical information in what felt like seconds

But when I couldn't pay attention I'd miss critical information in what felt like seconds Time flies when you're having fun! It's also why we always hear "It just came out of nowhere! It all happened so fast!" when referring to automobile accidents. It's because our attention was not where it should have been.

I'm not sure your first sentence really hits the mark. Not paying attention in class isn't really "having fun" :P

Re: Against 3x Speed

#275

Post by Mimmy » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 5:01 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #242

The article isn’t just about playback speed. It’s a well-written piece about the importance of direct experience and not rushing through spoken lectures alone. It’s extra ironic, then, that much of the comment section here only seems to have absorbed the headline but not the content of the article. I have noticed that my most voracious podcast and book consuming friends seem to have developed a lot of surface-level k…

I think the article makes a fair point but I don't think it offers anything substantial.

It's been beaten to a dead-horse that lectures or passive consumption aren't the most efficient ways to learn. Almost everyone in tech already knows that. Does the article offer anything new? Work on projects (aka direct experience). Thanks...?

Also I think the "space-repetition" advocates suffer from a similar problem to the "consume at 3x" advocates. Both are looking for short-cuts to learning. Plus spaced-repetition only really applies to superficial, trivia-related knowledge. I was one of those people using Anki for learning a new language and it was absolutely no substitute for having actual conversations with real native speakers.

Re: Against 3x Speed

#276

Post by adiamond4 » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 5:05 PM UTC

I agree with a lot of this. It is well known at this point that passive learning strategies are not effective. What the author misses is that depending on the type of material being consumed, the learner could be in an input limited or processing limited regime.

For dense textbooks it usually takes more time to process concepts (i.e. get to higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy with a concept) then it does to get the information into the mind through reading, so speed reading (fast input) is pointless. For the type of fiction books his friend is reading, 3x speed might make sense to get to the insights faster that need to be paused on and processed. Certainly the concepts need to be revisited with something like spaced repetition for deeper integration.

Spaced repetition is boring, that is one of the motivations behind Memory Maps, a learning tool that enables you to use the memory palace technique in Google Street View along with mnemonics generating AI to supercharge your memory capacity.

https://www.memorymaps.io/

https://www.memorymaps.io/main-page/how-it-works

Re: Against 3x Speed

#277

Post by will4274 » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 5:06 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #242

The article isn’t just about playback speed. It’s a well-written piece about the importance of direct experience and not rushing through spoken lectures alone. It’s extra ironic, then, that much of the comment section here only seems to have absorbed the headline but not the content of the article. I have noticed that my most voracious podcast and book consuming friends seem to have developed a lot of surface-level k…

This article is perhaps interesting, but it is not well-written, nor, I would argue, particularly well reasoned. The author makes gratituous assumptions about Mike's reasoning, assumptions that appear unlikely to many readers, and fails to provide any justification for them. Read it again - how much of Mike's reasoning comes from Mike, and how much from the author? Did the author even ask Mike?

It seems that, you and a few other commenters are predisposed to make the same assumptions as the author. You think it's ironic that so many folks in this comment section are questioning the headline - a headline which dovetails directly into the authors assumptions. I think it's pretty ironic that you didn't deep read the article, including spending time considering the author's assumptions, as you're simultaneously criticizing other people for not doing the same.

Re: Against 3x Speed

#278

Post by lillecarl » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 5:07 PM UTC

supportlocal4h wrote: post #253

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100%! This reminded me of a similar lesson beaten into us _repeatedly_ in college. I would study for a test and feel like everything was crystal clear. Then i walk into the exam and get absolutely destroyed by stuff i thought i understood.. over and over again. It was (unfortunately) a common experience. Seeing the answers afterwards, they usually involved facts i knew applied in a way i could not. That experience co…

A bit off-topic, but I remember a college class in which I was completely lost. I wasn't even clear on the topic of the class. Nothing ever made sense. I got D's on most of the tests. I was enormously frustrated. Then, at the end, I got my final grade: B+. My sense of relief was comical and fleeting. It was replaced by anger. How was it possible that most of the students in the class did worse than I? What an absolut…

I get the sense that history teachers talk about how history is the most important, physics teachers talk about how physics is the most important, gender politics the same, arts the same etc...

There's incentive to keep yourself employed however useless, bloated or out of time what you're teaching is.

I'm not sure how the school plan is evaluated in different places, but i feel like for example religion in a country like Sweden where most people don't believe in it[1] should be brought down to make space for something Swedes think is important.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_in_Sweden

Re: Against 3x Speed

#279

Post by trees101 » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 5:13 PM UTC

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #181

trees101 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im interested in your categorisation of learning. Can you elaborate on "contextual framework"? Are these your own concepts, if not where do you get them from?

The difference between Lucy (the putative earliest human found by Leakey (?)) and me is not that i am innately more intelligent, but that for decades my brain has been stuffed with the collective education of humankind. Lucy does not know about the sun revolving round the Earth, about germ theory and oral-fecal transmission, she does not know about writing or reading, about triangulation for surveying, or surveying,…

Interesting. So perhaps another term for "contextual framework" is "mental model"? I like the way you've thought about this. I don't share your atheism, but without wanting to start a debate it would be interesting to hear why it features on your list as one of your most useful concepts?

Re: Against 3x Speed

#280

Post by kurthr » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 5:28 PM UTC

I often listen at 2x speed, not to increase the speed of comprehension, but because the information density is too low. Like forwarding through ads to get to content. Then when you get to the interesting part you slow down and repeat a few times (especially fix-it mechanical assembly youtubes) sometimes at fractional speed... it takes concentration.

Then you use it (or you'll forget it all anyway).

Alternately, I have a friend who listens to novels at 2x, which I don't understand...versus my partner who reads 100 books a year and she's frustrated she can't find new ones fast enough.