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The Lost Art of Research as Leisure

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Re: The Lost Art of Research as Leisure

#41

Post by nottorp »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #35
sergioisidoro wrote: post #34

I think reading is an essential skill, but we also need to get reading out of the pedestal. Because a lot of the time these arguments come across as some sort of literary elitism. Like if you're not ingesting information through reading, it doesn't count. This month I spent many hours listening to lectures on youtube about geopolitics on the Asian continent from the naval war college. Sure I could have read it, but n…

I always love this conversation: Snob: "Listening to an audio book doesn't count as reading the book!" Everyone else in the world: "k"

I could argue that it doesn't because you use different neural path ways to absorb the book :)

Re: The Lost Art of Research as Leisure

#42

Post by JKCalhoun »

LastTrain wrote: post #37
freilanzer wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same with geopolitics now, since the USA have basically sided with Russia against Ukraine. I want to have a solid background to be able to interpret current events and tendencies.

You’ve been siding with Russia since 1776?

(We had a kind of falling out when Capitalism felt threatened.)

Re: The Lost Art of Research as Leisure

#43

Post by JadeNB »

LastTrain wrote: post #37
freilanzer wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same with geopolitics now, since the USA have basically sided with Russia against Ukraine. I want to have a solid background to be able to interpret current events and tendencies.

You’ve been siding with Russia since 1776?

> You’ve been siding with Russia since 1776?

Huh? In most senses of "siding with," I don't think that this statement has really been true for this broad a sweep of US history.

Re: The Lost Art of Research as Leisure

#44

Post by bayindirh »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #35
sergioisidoro wrote: post #34

I think reading is an essential skill, but we also need to get reading out of the pedestal. Because a lot of the time these arguments come across as some sort of literary elitism. Like if you're not ingesting information through reading, it doesn't count. This month I spent many hours listening to lectures on youtube about geopolitics on the Asian continent from the naval war college. Sure I could have read it, but n…

I always love this conversation: Snob: "Listening to an audio book doesn't count as reading the book!" Everyone else in the world: "k"

Actually, I'm somewhere in between about Audio books.

First of all, for some books, that's great. Esp, if read by a good voice actor. It can convert a book to radio theater, that's magic.

However, if you're listening while you're driving, or being distracted, you lose the some parts of the picture.

Lastly, not all books are good audio books. Some of them need stopping, reflecting, and some re-reading sometimes.

So, horses for courses I may say.

Re: The Lost Art of Research as Leisure

#45

Post by fpsvogel »

i_love_retros wrote: post #25
brightball wrote: post #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. W…

Curious, what events are documented in the bible that correspond to actual historical events? Does it have good historical accuracy for the time it was written? (forgive my ignorance, I have never read the bible) Have you read Jerusalem by Simon Sebag Montefiore? I admit I didn't finish it, but what I did read was very interesting. Although I admittedly didn't fact check it.

The relationship of the Bible to history is complicated. I recommend the “Pete Ruins ____” episodes of The Bible for Normal People podcast, which is fun but also grounded in the academic field of biblical studies. Here’s the first one for Genesis, where the historical aspects are especially complex and interesting: https://thebiblefornormalpeople.com/episode-277-pete-enns-pe...

Re: The Lost Art of Research as Leisure

#46

Post by bayindirh »

nottorp wrote: post #41
thinkingtoilet wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always love this conversation: Snob: "Listening to an audio book doesn't count as reading the book!" Everyone else in the world: "k"

I could argue that it doesn't because you use different neural path ways to absorb the book :)

Reading material (backlight vs. reflective screen) differs in my experience. Also typing and writing are very different neurologically, but people don't want to acknowledge that, AFAICS.

Re: The Lost Art of Research as Leisure

#47

Post by JKCalhoun »

markus_zhang wrote: post #28

Don't know about you guys, but reading has become more and more of a burden for me. It is as if -- I have greatly narrowed my interest such that most books are not interesting any more. Even the sci-fi and fantasy books, once I loved, lost their magic. Nowadays there are only two types of books that excite me: 1) those about software/hardware engineering, such as iWoz(I even bought a few Tom Swift JR books for my son…

Sci-fi and fantasy suited me when I was young as they stretched my mind to possibility.

The older and more cynical I have become, they're kind of just bullshit. I'd love to say their escapist but they fail even there as I my escapism increasingly requires a modicum of plausibility. I think there are still some books out there that might ring true in terms of seeing people and society for the way they are, but then there is a lot of Harry Potter.

Re: The Lost Art of Research as Leisure

#48

Post by mattlondon »

markus_zhang wrote: post #28

Don't know about you guys, but reading has become more and more of a burden for me. It is as if -- I have greatly narrowed my interest such that most books are not interesting any more. Even the sci-fi and fantasy books, once I loved, lost their magic. Nowadays there are only two types of books that excite me: 1) those about software/hardware engineering, such as iWoz(I even bought a few Tom Swift JR books for my son…

Genuinely I cannot remember the last time I read a book. I read absolute crap-tons of interesting stuff online, but books? Those out-of-date, read-only, closed-perspectives from people with their ideas/thoughts/biases/prejudices they're trying to implant into your brain? Nope.

I think there is a lot of elitism about reading and the intellectualism around it. "What books are you reading right now?" is a sort of shibboleth or even one-upmanship ("Oh yes I read that last year - you should read this other thing that I think is better/more clever" etc).

Don't play the game. If you don't like reading books and don't get much out of it, don't do it.

I get a secret glee when I have mentees and younger folks asking me about what books to read to achieve success or get hired etc, and I tell them "don't waste your time reading books - learn instead." It ruffles feathers, and I am sure I'll get roasted on here too, but there you go! :)

Re: The Lost Art of Research as Leisure

#49

Post by JadeNB »

pplonski86 wrote: post #21
brightball wrote: post #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. W…

Could you please recommend some history books?

The book that really got me hooked was The rise and fall of the Third Reich, by William Shirer. He was a journalist in Berlin before WWII, and you can see the journalistic background shine through in his narrative. A lot of what I've read since then has been in trying to trace back the references he gives to how the events of WWII recapitulated older conflicts, which I then went and found references in which to learn about.

Barbara Tuchman is a delightful mostly medieval historian, and Mary Beard is a wonderful Roman historian. Both have a decidedly personal voice, which happened to click well with me; your milage may vary.

Someone else in the thread mentioned Simon Sebag Montefiore, and I've enjoyed most of what he's written. It feels a little less scholarly than some other popular historical sources, but that's just an informal impression from a tyro.

Lots of people enjoy Yuval Harari, but I do not enjoy him at all.

Re: The Lost Art of Research as Leisure

#50

Post by atebyagrue »

This article sums up precisely why I don't mind being a "forever GM".

I'm constantly researching new things to flesh out game ideas for my groups to add flavor, immersion & a sense of "reality" to my players' worlds & I love doing it. It almost makes running the actual games for them, an afterthought to tide me over to the new thing to learn about & implement. Great article!

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