If we were back in pre-writing days, when people memorized long sagas word for word, then anyone contemplating the creation of a new saga would similarly be told of 'the need to listen'.
The Need to Read
131–140 of 195 posts
Re: The Need to Read
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
I kind of stumbled upon writing by accident. To me it’s not about ability to get things done (thought it helps). It’s about feeling some semblance of control and structure, something I think so many struggle with in the past few years (Trump, COVID, Ukraine/Russia, recent tech layoffs, etc etc). As others here mentioned, it’s kind of like programming. We used it to live in “hello world”. Now we all got thrown into th…
Distributed microservice world is a great way of putting it as formerly monolithic systems dissemble into factions.
By the way, here’s a thought that worries me - where does “let’s all become good deep structural thinkers by writing a lot” break down? How will we know it happened? What do we do then?
Re: The Need to Read
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
posting to hn has its disadvantages most of the interactions you get are people trying to prove you wrong this is great when it's with evidence, but half the time instead they accuse you of lying, argue from their own authority, or insult you the options for including equations, data tables, and diagrams are very limited, and these are important when what you're thinking about is objectively falsifiable propositions…
... all of which seem like motivation for writing better. Keep on posting!
doubt i will
posting here makes my life worse
Re: The Need to Read
#134Re: The Need to Read
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
What Simon said! I've found that blogging hugely helps me clarify my own thinking on a topic, and flush out areas of ignorance. Another excellent option for making getting going with blogging simple is Docusaurus - makes it very easy to get up and running! https://docusaurus.io
Yes, great choice :)
Declare your interest Sebastien ;-)
I migrated my own blog to Docusaurus from Blogger about a year and a half ago. I became very enamoured (and still am) with the idea of writing blog posts as markdown, storing them as code and publishing them as a website.
I was delighted at how much Docusaurus aligned with that. So much so that I wrote a guide to help others migrate:
https://blog.johnnyreilly.com/definitive-guide-to-migrating-...
Re: The Need to Read
#136Folks here mentioned that the core point is not about the need to the importance of reading, but the importance of writing. No, it’s really about becoming better at deep, structured thinking. I think that’s quite a good thing to focus on. The world we live in is becoming more complex. I think it’s because our communication pipelines now have unlimited IO - there’s too much to consume, too much to process, too many th…
Weatherford, in his Genghis Khan book, says there isn't much surviving text about that period and region. But whar sources he uses in that book are all by "chroniclers" of that era - my understanding is that the chroniclers are average reporters of that period, with a decent patronage; just documenting things on paper as they hear/research/study it; without the intention of publishing for widespread readership.
So here's a random idea based on that: Can we incentivize more people to report on a topic/event today? Just write, do not have to publish.
^ If more people just write commentary/summary like this for whatever they consume, it might double as a decent diversion from just consuming content online. And maybe.. maybe it will make us mindful about what we consume online :D
Re: The Need to Read
#137It's interesting that the article's thesis is about reading, but most of the article is actually about writing . And I think that's an understated point. I myself wrote a blog piece about "Blogging as Structured Thinking" earlier this year. I think that actually plenty of people do reading in various forms of content. The real challenge is getting people to do more writing. If you want to be a thinker, you have to wr…
When writing you have to actual flesh out the details and figure out what to include and what to omit. It is so easy to skip that in day dreaming. Thinking is like drawing a bridge on paper. Writing is to actual construct the bridge and test it. What looks like the strongest bridge (built of paper) is not always the strongest one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtMx7FZUC6A
“It doesn't need to be imagined, it needs to be written down.” ― Philip Glass
Re: The Need to Read
#138Many of us are programmers. Some of us are also trying to be writers. Trust me: writing is like programming. Reading code is very useful to become a better programmer, but you learn programming mostly by writing code. Similarly you mostly learn how to write prose by writing prose, tons of it. Reading is especially useful if you identify certain books that are very high in style (for me one of such books was "Vite di…
Absolutely agree that programming and writing have lots in common. I usually don't write anything longer than a blog post, but even a short blog post takes a lot of time for me. Expressing your thoughts in words is hard! Likewise for programming :-)
When I thought about the similarities I came up with:
- both are about communicating your ideas clearly. For that you need good structure, and having a logical order.
- editing and revising is key. Also, compare with refactoring in coding.
- style - there are lots of ways you can have a unique style, even in programming.
More here: https://henrikwarne.com/2019/03/30/programming-math-or-writi...
Re: The Need to Read
#139Folks here mentioned that the core point is not about the need to the importance of reading, but the importance of writing. No, it’s really about becoming better at deep, structured thinking. I think that’s quite a good thing to focus on. The world we live in is becoming more complex. I think it’s because our communication pipelines now have unlimited IO - there’s too much to consume, too much to process, too many th…
Weatherford, in his Genghis Khan book, says there isn't much surviving text about that period and region. But whar sources he uses in that book are all by "chroniclers" of that era - my understanding is that the chroniclers are average reporters of that period, with a decent patronage; just documenting things on paper as they hear/research/study it; without the intention of publishing for widespread readership. So he…
> average reporters of that period, with a decent patronage; just documenting things on paper as they hear/research/study it; without the intention of publishing for widespread readership.
We don’t really have that anymore though right?
The current internet is economy strongly incentivizes people to write things in favor of engagement.
Sometimes this aligns with ground truth (e.g. Gergely Orosz, who has documented Musk’s Twitter takeover via daily updates). Many times it does not.
Who is supposed to be the historical record keeper, at this time, when trust in record keepers is at an all time low?
I find myself uncomfortable asking such controversial questions, but I do feel like they should be asked
Re: The Need to Read
#140How would you respond to Socrates' objections to writing [0]? Especially:
"You know, Phaedrus, writing shares a strange feature with painting. The offsprings of painting stand there as if they are alive, but if anyone asks them anything, they remain most solemnly silent. The same is true of written words. You’d think they were speaking as if they had some understanding, but if you question anything that has been said because you want to learn more, it continues to signify just that very same thing forever. When it has once been written down, every discourse roams about everywhere, reaching indiscriminately those with understanding no less than those who have no business with it, and it doesn’t know to whom it should speak and to whom it should not."
I often wonder if our ancestors, who were a great deal more private about things like techniques and guild knowledge, not to mention esoteric religious teachings, didn't have the right idea. Perhaps even the penchant for writing scientific articles in Latin and Greek was an explicitly chosen shibboleth to avoid the kinds of informational chaos we see coming to a head in the internet age of 2022.
0 - https://newlearningonline.com/literacies/chapter-1/socrates-...