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It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history

theatlantic.com

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Re: It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history

#181

Post by nothal »

4er_transform wrote: post #172

Who cares about reading? Take a step back - humans don’t exist to read, reading is a tool, a means to an end. It’s to transmit information from one to another. If we can do that with more information-dense, less lossy methods, all the better. Lamenting the end of reading is like lamenting the end of manual farm work: the goal isn’t to work in fields, it’s to harvest. We found ways to harvest more than ever for less e…

Half joke: If I had to bet, I would guess that reading will exist for as long as civilization does.

More seriously: I am less certain that it will exist in its current form (mass media, publishing houses, etc), but I am certain that textual information will be a standard means of communication and that people will read it. I do think that computer-assisted cognition (including computer-assisted reading) are eventualities at this point. This sort of thing fundamentally challenges the concept of reading: is your brain (by computer-assistance) scanning a hard drive reading? Even though it's alien to us now, I think the answer is yes.

Re: It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history

#182

Post by SoftTalker »

I read all day, every day. I read email. I read news. I read HN.

I don't read books though. I've probably read one novel in the past five years. I used to read more books, newspapers, and magazines and can't really say why I don't anymore other than the news and magazine content is all online now, and it just doesn't seem like there is time left in the day to sit down with a book.

Re: It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history

#183

Post by underlipton »

If you want people to read, you have to be willing to accept a population that does not feel harassed and hurried. You have to give them a raise when they say they can't afford shelter and food. You have to stop gatekeeping education as a scarce credential rather than giving it freely as a public good. You have to build systems that allow them to access their needs without movement or seeking help being difficult or even a death trap. You have to rein in the forces that wish to monopolize their attention.

People read when they feel secure. We don't live in a particularly secure society.

Re: It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history

#184

Post by avalys »

4er_transform wrote: post #172

Who cares about reading? Take a step back - humans don’t exist to read, reading is a tool, a means to an end. It’s to transmit information from one to another. If we can do that with more information-dense, less lossy methods, all the better. Lamenting the end of reading is like lamenting the end of manual farm work: the goal isn’t to work in fields, it’s to harvest. We found ways to harvest more than ever for less e…

What method do you suggest is more information-dense and less lossy?

What people are lamenting is that reading is being replaced with less information-dense, less accurate, less effective mechanisms, like Tiktok shorts and TV news.

Re: It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history

#185

Post by autoexec »

tsunamifury wrote: post #136
breezybottom wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd suggest you do the same. You may want to believe that cinema is "dying", but none of the numbers support that argument.

Buddy, I just laid out the exact numbers that show less people go to cinema by almost half. The defintion of dying. And beyond that if you go deeper, the revenue growth is almost entirely attribured to higher prices in ticket sales while attendance in real terms continues to decline. What are you struggling with here?

The number of people who buy tickets to sit in theater to watch movies is not a good measure of people's interest in watching movies or the success of the medium. Most people are streaming films and while streaming services continue to suck at very basic things you'd expect from a media player they're still very popular.

Re: It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history

#186

Post by mibsl »

xpct wrote: post #154
SkyPuncher wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love learning, but I hate reading. Most of my learning now is via audio books while I'm doing something else. In my view, software development is mostly skimming and pattern recognization. Very little actual, deep reeding in my opinion.

> I love learning, but I hate reading. Correction: you love the feeling of consuming information, not learning.

Why not go further - learning is doing, not consuming (reading, watching, listening)?

Re: It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history

#187

Post by Planktonne »

ButlerianJihad wrote: post #133

The United States has made literacy into a Holy Grail of education, and our systems have reduced illiteracy levels to record lows. However, in the real world, there are so many basic jobs, unskilled labor jobs, that should not require literacy at all, and for thousands of years there were all kinds of workers who were never required to achieve literacy at all. So there may be a lot of wasted investment in education t…

> there are so many basic jobs, unskilled labor jobs, that should not require literacy at all

> So there may be a lot of wasted investment in education trying to make people literate when it's not actually required.

Our society doesn't warrant its own existence if the only considered criterion is how much value we can extract from each other.

Re: It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history

#188

Post by wing-_-nuts »

4er_transform wrote: post #172

Who cares about reading? Take a step back - humans don’t exist to read, reading is a tool, a means to an end. It’s to transmit information from one to another. If we can do that with more information-dense, less lossy methods, all the better. Lamenting the end of reading is like lamenting the end of manual farm work: the goal isn’t to work in fields, it’s to harvest. We found ways to harvest more than ever for less e…

I'm trying really hard not to be judgemental about this...

Until we invent some sort of matrixesq knowledge transfer, the printed word is hands down the best technology we have to transfer knowledge from one human to another. If a student finishes their education, and is so uncomfortable with reading that they never read another book, we have failed them.

Images / Video can be useful to convey something which is hard to describe in words, but books give an author the ability to dive in much deeper depth on a subject than a video ever could.

Re: It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history

#189

Post by autoexec »

palmotea wrote: post #89
nozzlegear wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does this viewpoint account for the times when "capitalism" was, by all objective measures, worse for laborers? I.E. the early industrialization period when laborers worked 14-16 hour days alongside children in factories and mines, risking life and limb?

The brief nightmare where workers had enough power to demand better conditions is thankfully ending, and we can return the happy days where workers would slave away for just enough compensation to sustain themselves, and they'd be happy to do it because they had no better options.

We're even bringing child labor back https://fortune.com/2023/05/25/labor-shortage-child-teenage-...

Re: It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history

#190

Post by beej71 »

dominotw wrote: post #39

i got xelink ereader few months ago and i've been reading a ton more. i have all sorts of kindle but i stopped reading but xelink attached to my phone got me back. I would love a phone where this is a standard feature. dont care about fancy cameras and stuff.

I couldn't attach my xteink to my phone because of a standoff around the camera on my phone case. I just now realized that the standoff could be removed and now the magnet works! :)

Did you install Crosspoint on it? I absolutely recommend it.

For reading on my phone Moon Reader is my go-to.

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