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The Lost Art of Research as Leisure

kasurian.com

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Re: The Lost Art of Research as Leisure

#11
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did you even post this comment.

Quite common nowadays to read this type of comment from cowards behind a throwaway. I blame the general discourse in American society, flamed by populists out for a power grab punching down. It's just sad to watch from the outside.

[flagged]

Re: The Lost Art of Research as Leisure

#12
I perused the three posts on this blog, and believe that an LLM was heavily used, because I used one daily, and this is the way its content reads.

The leisure the author speaks of may be their own, and the research of which they speak today may be done by a machine.

I think the intent is good, and if you as the reader get insight from it, then it is still valid, but I cannot read it, because I don’t feel a thread of consciousness helping me experience life with them.

If an author chose to instead pair with an LLM to research on their own and write themselves about it, perhaps it would be different.

Why do these posts keep getting to the front and even to the top of the HN feed? We are no better than machines, I guess.

Re: The Lost Art of Research as Leisure

#13
post #2

Currently re-visiting and re-describing old tumulus tombs in my area where the last survey was decades ago and where no current description exists. Also, I found tombs via Lidar maps that have been unaccounted before and I am cataloguing them. All that as a hobby and as a member of an association of local history. Things can be done and should!!

I'm doing genealogy. Practically everyone in the hobby is doing research for leisure.

Re: The Lost Art of Research as Leisure

#14
post #10
post #4

What a wonderful article! Thanks for sharing! I’ve been thinking a lot about how research — as both leisure and serious inquiry — is making a comeback in unexpected ways. One sign of that resurgence is the huge interest in so-called “personal knowledge management” (PKM) tools like Obsidian, Roam Research, or Notion. People love referencing Luhmann’s Zettelkasten method, because it promises to structure and connect sc…

"How to read a book" sounds like a ridiculous premise for a book, but I can't recommend it highly enough. It's one of the best introductions to academic skills I've ever read. I assimilated much of Adler's advice at university through trial-and-error, but seeing the reading process analysed and systematised into an algorithm was genuinely enlightening. Worth noting that Adler was also the editor of Encyclopdia Britan…

I learned more about intellectual etiquette & inquiry from this book than from my teachers and professors. And I learned about the canon of european / western literature.

Re: The Lost Art of Research as Leisure

#15
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did you even post this comment.

Quite common nowadays to read this type of comment from cowards behind a throwaway. I blame the general discourse in American society, flamed by populists out for a power grab punching down. It's just sad to watch from the outside.

This commenter certainly doesn’t appear to be a native English speaker, what makes you assume they are American?

Re: The Lost Art of Research as Leisure

#16
One of the underrated downsides of the professionalization of research is how much it sucked the "fun" out of things. It's strange, but research papers in most fields are written very differently from how people actually talk to each other. Professional researchers still communicate informally like normal humans, in ways that are "fun" and show much more of how they came up with ideas and what they are really thinking. But this is very hard for outsiders to access.

Re: The Lost Art of Research as Leisure

#17
post #16

One of the underrated downsides of the professionalization of research is how much it sucked the "fun" out of things. It's strange, but research papers in most fields are written very differently from how people actually talk to each other. Professional researchers still communicate informally like normal humans, in ways that are "fun" and show much more of how they came up with ideas and what they are really thinkin…

One of my favorites:

https://thorehusfeldt.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/soda201...

Re: The Lost Art of Research as Leisure

#18
post #16

One of the underrated downsides of the professionalization of research is how much it sucked the "fun" out of things. It's strange, but research papers in most fields are written very differently from how people actually talk to each other. Professional researchers still communicate informally like normal humans, in ways that are "fun" and show much more of how they came up with ideas and what they are really thinkin…

Agree! I spent the last 15 years teaching myself genetics and human biology. I will send emails to researchers and we often some long, interesting, conversations. I even assisted a researcher at Stanford, helping her set up a study on a nutritional genetics. And another even stole my idea about ethanol addiction and did a study on it as well.

They have no idea I only have a degree in American History and Secondary Education. When they do ask some actually get upset thinking that I was tricking them! I used to get upset, but I know now how much some people hold their degree close to their ego.

Science needs more "art", that is the fun part.

Re: The Lost Art of Research as Leisure

#19
I started reading history as a hobby a few years after college when I heard some things from people that just didn’t make sense or didn’t seem true. So I picked up a booked that was well cited, read it while checking the citations after each chapter. Between the Library of Congress and Google, checking original sources has never been easier.

It was a really mind blowing exercise. Much more interesting than fiction.

When I do Bible study now I do it the same way, find whatever sources I can to cross reference with other history at the time. Strongly recommend it.

What’s funny is that history is the subject I was least interested in all through school.

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