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In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

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Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#101

Post by dagw »

retskrad wrote: post #22

Times have changed. Students who use podcasts, YouTube, and ChatGPT to complete their academic tasks aren't shallower or less educated than those who have spent years mastering the skill of extracting information from dense books.I have younger relatives who can't sustain their attention to read a book to save their life but still earn excellent grades because they were born into a world of technology. Their way of f…

Students who use podcasts, YouTube, and ChatGPT to complete their academic tasks aren't shallower or less educated than those who have spent years mastering the skill of extracting information from dense books

The problem is that while YouTube and ChatGPT will get you through high school and perhaps a year of university, you'll eventually reach a point where you need information that is only available in dense books. And if you haven't learnt that skill of reading dense books, you have a problem.

There was actually an article in the newspaper just today about how a record number of university students in Sweden are struggling and failing because they are simply incapable of reading and extracting the necessary information needed from the textbooks.

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#102

Post by aquariusDue »

bayindirh wrote: post #88
retskrad wrote: post #22

Times have changed. Students who use podcasts, YouTube, and ChatGPT to complete their academic tasks aren't shallower or less educated than those who have spent years mastering the skill of extracting information from dense books.I have younger relatives who can't sustain their attention to read a book to save their life but still earn excellent grades because they were born into a world of technology. Their way of f…

Disclosure: I worked on developing smartboard technology for students in my country. Unfortunately research doesn't agree with you on this part: https://www.afterbabel.com/p/the-edtech-revolution-has-faile... On top of that research, my personal experience mirrors these findings. Not having hands-on labs, not reading/writing but just listening prevents things from being committed to longer term memory. How many podca…

That's why I'm excited about the new batch of PineNote devices, e-readers running Linux with a custom GNOME theme and a passive stylus.

And yeah, no matter what note-taking and productivity software I try I still end up longing for pen and paper. Sometimes I think scanning my notes and tagging them might be a good enough compromise.

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#104

Post by cess11 »

Nevermark wrote: post #42
cess11 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really think the elites are generally better informed than the rest? They don't fall prey to stuff like celebrities, gossip media and so on? I haven't seen any sign that this is the case among politicians where I live, or among the few quite rich people I've looked into the lives of, mainly through their email and interviews. Compared to the leftists in my "in-group" they're generally very uncritical, poorly info…

"Elite" has so many meanings, it is near worthless without some tight context. Most people who are really good at something, and became successful for it, primarily became good by doing. Some of those people read and developed complex thought, and likely and rightly give great credit to that. But many others? Not so much. On the other hand, I think the quality (or the direction of quality) of a society as a whole has…

Power, like money, is mainly inherited.

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#105

Post by bayindirh »

aquariusDue wrote: post #102
bayindirh wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclosure: I worked on developing smartboard technology for students in my country. Unfortunately research doesn't agree with you on this part: https://www.afterbabel.com/p/the-edtech-revolution-has-faile... On top of that research, my personal experience mirrors these findings. Not having hands-on labs, not reading/writing but just listening prevents things from being committed to longer term memory. How many podca…

That's why I'm excited about the new batch of PineNote devices, e-readers running Linux with a custom GNOME theme and a passive stylus. And yeah, no matter what note-taking and productivity software I try I still end up longing for pen and paper. Sometimes I think scanning my notes and tagging them might be a good enough compromise.

I exclusively use fountain pens and higher quality wirebound notebooks and notepads.

I number the notebook, and write the start date at first page. Then I number the pages as I go, and date every page.

When the notebook finishes, I remove the binding, scan it at 600DPI, store it as a PDF.

I'll be training a local Tesseract installation with my hand writing one day, but I'm not there. However, these notebooks saved the day more than once in their current form.

I'm using smart devices since Palm/Handspring era. Nothing can replace the paper for me, and I don't want to change my ways from now on. So this is the method I use for quite some time.

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#106

Post by oidar »

Sam6late wrote: post #70

My 2 cents: 1- 'The Department of Education’s most recent survey, released in June, was sensational: it found that text comprehension skills of 13-year-olds had declined an average of four points since the Covid-affected school year of 2019-2020, and more alarmingly that the average drop was seven points compared with the 2012 figure. The results for the worst-performing students fell below the reading skill level re…

>I have been in print media since CMP Media Win Magazine and it will end next month. I can assure you that resources for high quality print journalism is no longer there, I am talking about capable editorial talents and other production means, photographers, graphic designers etc. From 20 photographers pre-COVID to one with a dozen freelancers for example that applies to the rest departments.

What happened to the talent? Have they moved industries or is there just not enough cash to pay them? Something else?

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#107

Post by lazystar »

this type of situation is not unique in human history - it happens after the invention of any device that disseminates information on a mass scale. for example, see the printing press:

> The spread of mechanical movable type printing in Europe in the Renaissance introduced the era of mass communication, which permanently altered the structure of society. The relatively unrestricted circulation of information and (revolutionary) ideas transcended borders, captured the masses in the Reformation, and threatened the power of political and religious authorities. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press

in my opinion, the author of the blog post wastes the readers time by not delving into historical comparisons; no effort is spent analyzing the solutions that society implemented in the past when faced with this problem.

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#108

Post by pavlov »

I suspect print magazines are undergoing the same kind of cycle of destruction and resurrection as happened to vinyl records.

In the 1990s, vinyls were the clunky old things that your mom gave away in a yard sale. Now they’re produced again as a high-end tactile media experience and sales are increasing every year.

Magazines can make a similar comeback for niches like fashion and arts. But they will probably be funded rather differently from the ad-filled old media products.

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#109

Post by [deleted] »

nataliste wrote: post #95

Cronus eats his children. In 1494, Johannes Trithemius printed De laude scriptorum , "In Praise of Scribes" assailing the development of the printing press. The same argument was made, but from the perspective of the manual scribe, that a printer doesn't understand a work as well as a scribe does, as the speed of reproduction doesn't have the same intent that a person lovingly copying by hand does. Similarly, Plato m…

[deleted]

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#110

Post by bradfa »

pavlov wrote: post #108

I suspect print magazines are undergoing the same kind of cycle of destruction and resurrection as happened to vinyl records. In the 1990s, vinyls were the clunky old things that your mom gave away in a yard sale. Now they’re produced again as a high-end tactile media experience and sales are increasing every year. Magazines can make a similar comeback for niches like fashion and arts. But they will probably be funde…

Totally agree! I subscribe to one magazine which is published once a quarter, it costs me about $40/year for the subscription but is well worth it to me as the content is not available anywhere else. Definitely a niche market but the rag does a very good job of catering exactly to its market. There’s still some ads but only a handful per issue that normally has 60-100 pages total.
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