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You can't tell people anything (2004)

habitatchronicles.com

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Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#121

Post by Ntrails »

smaudet wrote: post #109
koyote wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I was in college, it took me two years to realize that I could have easily gotten As and Bs (instead of Bs and Cs) in my various math classes, physics, chemistry, etc. had I simply bothered to do my homework properly--or, to put it differently, had I only properly applied the knowledge which I passively acquired by reading the associated textbook sections. I took this realisation to the extreme and decided to…

Classroom experience is so rarely useful, the ONLY time you benefit is when either a) you already studied the subject and the professor is good and mentions something tangential/extra credit, or b) the classroom size is small, so when you don't understand something you can say so without fear of class disruption and the teacher can spend more time tailoring their curriculum to their class. Otherwise yes, you are ofte…

I believe this may be true for you, but it is not true for me.

I find classrooms engaging and I actually internalise information in a way that reading is only ever surface level.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#122

Post by lordnacho »

koyote wrote: post #63
zsz wrote: post #51

> I’m totally convinced that a new idea or a new plan or a new technique is never really understood when you just explain it. > People will often think they understand, and they’ll say they understand, but then their actions show that it just ain’t so. Isn't this the very reason that homework assignments exist? When I was in college, it took me two years to realize that I could have easily gotten As and Bs (instead o…

> When I was in college, it took me two years to realize that I could have easily gotten As and Bs (instead of Bs and Cs) in my various math classes, physics, chemistry, etc. had I simply bothered to do my homework properly--or, to put it differently, had I only properly applied the knowledge which I passively acquired by reading the associated textbook sections. I took this realisation to the extreme and decided to…

I think it's to do with the nature of tests. Exam questions in the mathy subjects are sort of two varieties in my experience. One is simply book proof: here's an equation, here's another one, plug one into the other and rearrange and there's this useful result. Come exam time, you just need to remember the steps and you get points.

You'll think you get it.

But there are questions that are about a deeper understanding. For these there's some point to the question that isn't obvious from just reading. I remember the first few question sheets I got in uni, there would be questions that appeared to have nothing to do with what was presented at all. Only by asking around did I discover what the cryptic connections were. If you don't do the question sheets, you won't see this.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#124

Post by foul »

anyfoo wrote: post #2

Towards the end it says: > At Communities.com we developed a system called Passport (I’ll save the astonishing trademark story for a later posting) that let us do some pretty amazing things with web browsers. For example, with just a few magic HTML tags we could stick avatars on a web page — pretty much any web page. For months Randy kept getting up at management meetings and saying, “We’ll be able to put avatars on…

Gravatar, "Login with X", Oauth, OpenID, W3c Solid, Metamask. The idea started with having an identity source-of-truth across websites but it's used to pass personal data around webapps, for e-commerce too.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#126

Post by hilbert42 »

krisoft wrote: post #61
hilbert42 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...you have to put in the work to be understood and to show people it's worth their time to pay attention. Communicating well is part of the job." That's fine and I don't disagree but the problem is that there are very few truly good communicators out there (there is just not enough to go around). Communication is difficult and really effective communication is very difficult. I'll use myself as an example, When I p…

> OK, so when people have some talent, skill or knowledge that needs to be conveyed to the world and they can't get their point across effectively then what are they to do? Try, and try again. Put yourself in the shoes of your audience. What do they know already? What will they think when you say this or that? Is that what you want them to think?

Trying again is often not an option. For instance, comments on HN are often only 'alive' for hours, by the next day the story is usually dead.

Whilst I used myself as a example I'm not really concerned about my own communication skills to the extent that I worry about them. I know I'm a reasonable or adequate communicator, it's just that I'm not an excellent one. Also I'll often just comment to straighten out my thoughts on a matter not expecting others to take much note.

Putting oneself in the shoes of one's audience is easy when there's general agreement with what one is saying but as so often happens there are two sides arguing who have diametrically opposing views. One can say something innocuous which is essentially to say nothing or one takes a strong stand and alienates half the audience which is usually my situation. (I've noticed during heated debates on HN that the total of my votes can fluctuate wildly in both directions and finally end up close to zero.)

What I have to say doesn't count for much as I don't post widely outside HN, rather what's important is the wider public debate—political, scientific, environmental, etc. What I've noticed in recent decades is a general decline in the standard of debate—of discussion and discourse. I've been around long enough to recall talking heads like Bertrand Russell and A.J.P. Taylor who could not only captivate and hold an audience—whether they were for or against the proposition being put—but do so succinctly and with great precision. They were so good they would spellbind their audiences. (It's worth watching old TV footage of these two and others of the era on YouTube just to be reminded of how good the public discourse was back then.)

In my opinion, the reason for why we are witnessing a decline in the standard of the public discourse and that communications have become so dysfunctional is that formal argument in the public arena has all but died. Not only do we no longer have speakers who can clearly articulate arguments but also audiences no longer have sufficient patience and perseverance to listen.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#127

Post by tormeh »

weinzierl wrote: post #120
zsz wrote: post #51

> I’m totally convinced that a new idea or a new plan or a new technique is never really understood when you just explain it. > People will often think they understand, and they’ll say they understand, but then their actions show that it just ain’t so. Isn't this the very reason that homework assignments exist? When I was in college, it took me two years to realize that I could have easily gotten As and Bs (instead o…

> Isn't this the very reason that homework assignments exist? Absolutely. It is also why I will never understand why it is considered a virtue (especially in the maths and physics community) to set assignments without exemplary solution. I'm not asking to give this exemplary solution to students right away, but it should definitely exist and be given when students have shown honest effort and especially to weaker stu…

IMO mathy homework should always come with the correct end result to the questions. It allows the student to get instant feedback on whether they’re right or wrong. They’ll still have to work out the derivation of the answer.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#128

Post by foul »

peppermint_gum wrote: post #50
nerpderp82 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Xanadu is basically the web.

It is nothing like the web. The web is unstructured, Xanadu isn't. The web supports all kinds of content, Xanadu is stricly textual. Xanadu documents are immutable. Xanadu is integrated with a payment system and everything is pay-per-view. Xanadu has been worked on for more than 50 years and there's still no useful demo. I know HN has this weird custom to assume without evidence that all old failed technologies were…

The web is strictly textual too. The web browser isn't. So that boils to Xanadu having nothing to prove in practice. Obviously atm it's doomed and you're right.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#129

Post by hilbert42 »

ericbarrett wrote: post #101
hilbert42 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...you have to put in the work to be understood and to show people it's worth their time to pay attention. Communicating well is part of the job." That's fine and I don't disagree but the problem is that there are very few truly good communicators out there (there is just not enough to go around). Communication is difficult and really effective communication is very difficult. I'll use myself as an example, When I p…

Re windy comments, I sympathize, but I've learned it's ok to be terse. You will never get across to 100% of your readers. Make your prose worth reading for those whom you reach.

Thanks, that's what I try to do. You'll note I've enlarged my comment with another windy addendum above. :-)

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#130

Post by unwind »

qez wrote: post #69
joefigura wrote: post #39

This article really frustrated me the last time it was posted, but now I think I have a clear enough idea why to put it into words. You absolutely can tell people things! But to tell someone something, you need to do three things: - Establish enough shared context that they can understand you - Speak about something they actually care about (or convince them to care) - Use a format that works for what you're trying t…

Whoever wrote this piece is a bad communicator who thinks he's a good communicator, and then goes through life getting confused about why no one understands him. For example, in the story about the Japanese, he assumes some context from the reader: "What are they building? What is Fujitsu and what is Habitat and why does Japan need their own special version of it?" It's not even clear they're building anything techni…

Habitat [1] was a massively multi-player online role-playing game, or perhaps one of the first ones, by LucasArts.

It was first released in 1986, and awarded at Game Developers Choice Awards in 2001. So, pretty old-school stuff. The site is about that game, and stories around it, so perhaps one can assume that readers know at least that much context.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitat_(video_game)

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