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Why books don't work (2019)

andymatuschak.org

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Re: Why books don't work (2019)

#181

Post by jfarmer »

judofyr wrote: post #128
jfarmer wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author helped build Quantum Computing For The Very Curious ( https://quantum.country/qcvc ) as a proof-of-concept and, IMO, it shows just what the bottleneck in "learning" from any kind of text is. QCVC periodically inserts spaced repetition exercises that prompt the reader to recall arbitrary facts about what they just read. The authors even seem to be aware that mere mnemonics won't be enough, e.g., when they w…

> The author helped build Quantum Computing For The Very Curious ( https://quantum.country/qcvc ) as a proof-of-concept and, IMO, it shows just what the bottleneck in "learning" from any kind of text is. I think Quantum Country is extremely well made and an interesting idea, but come on: The idea of interspersing text with exercises is hardly revolutionary. In physics (which is my background) a regular textbook consi…

Don't get me wrong, I meant that QCVC shows the opposite of what it intends: the bottleneck is _not_ lack of clever "memorization technology." They even kidna realize it themselves when they say "This works better w/ context."

Well, ok, so how do you rapidly create context?! Well-written, well-framed, and well-sequenced exercises are great at that, especially if there's a healthy feedback loop.

Re: Why books don't work (2019)

#183

Post by kixiQu »

ginko wrote: post #67
hacknat wrote: post #66

The very premise of this article shows how demented Western culture has become. The attitude of, “I invested 15-20 hours reading this book and, boohoo, I’m not a subject matter expert on the book’s topic” is absolutely insane. It takes a decade of serious work to really get a strong handle on a topic. Books aren’t supposed to teach you something to know, they’re meant to teach you how much you don’t know. Hopefully f…

What does this have to do with "Western" culture?

To clarify (agreeing with ginko) this seems like a very arbitrary selection of thing to make this post represent. On the surface it seems just as justifiable to say, "people from X nation" or "men" or "people named Andy"--unless you present further evidence of the link.

Re: Why books don't work (2019)

#184

Post by bo1024 »

I found this very interesting and valuable (if imperfect).

The point about lectures is where I disagreed most, and I don’t see it discussed in this thread. The two points that people read much faster than a lecture pace, and people don’t learn well just from reading at full speed, should tell you something. Lectures are designed for active listening and frequently contain questions, pauses for discussion, and desirable difficulty (e.g. I claim something and give you a few seconds to figure out why it’s true).

This is also why prerecorded or YouTube lectures are a game changer. It’s a different medium more like reading notes than like participating in a class.

Re: Why books don't work (2019)

#185

Post by starfallg »

grawprog wrote: post #148
amatic wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a very different reading of the article. The author acknowledges that books do work after the reader actively engages with the topic, does the exercises, rereads, etc. The issue is that this process of transmitting knowledge could be more efficient in a different medium. The post is not against books, but pro interactive teaching methods, as the author gives a link to his proposal https://quantum.country/qcvc

I agree with this. I read the top comments before the article and went in totally expecting someone just dismissing books as useless, by the end though, I got the same takeaway as you, the author was stating the need to immerse yourself in a subject to truly learn it and that hastily reading through a single book on a subject is not something you should expect to give you full understanding of it. Not that books are…

Isn't the title pure clickbait then?

"Books work, but they're not the complete solution" is a much better title, but then us as the audience don't need to read a multi-page Medium article type rant to know that.

Re: Why books don't work (2019)

#186

Post by SftwrSvior81 »

hacknat wrote: post #66

The very premise of this article shows how demented Western culture has become. The attitude of, “I invested 15-20 hours reading this book and, boohoo, I’m not a subject matter expert on the book’s topic” is absolutely insane. It takes a decade of serious work to really get a strong handle on a topic. Books aren’t supposed to teach you something to know, they’re meant to teach you how much you don’t know. Hopefully f…

I agree with your point wholeheartedly. This makes me think of "knowledge transfers" in software companies where a meeting is set up between the outgoing engineer/team and the new engineer/team where all knowledge about some project is transferred in the duration of that meeting. For the participating engineers, it's usually clear that this doesn't work but management still expects the new team to be able to basically pick up where the old team left off. If we were able to transfer knowledge gained over months or years of work within a few hours, we would revolutionize scientific advancement and the education industry. Maybe one day that will be possible but for now it is ridiculous to think that reading any kind of complex information once is sufficient to not only memorize it but to truly understand it.

Re: Why books don't work (2019)

#187

Post by grawprog »

starfallg wrote: post #185
grawprog wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this. I read the top comments before the article and went in totally expecting someone just dismissing books as useless, by the end though, I got the same takeaway as you, the author was stating the need to immerse yourself in a subject to truly learn it and that hastily reading through a single book on a subject is not something you should expect to give you full understanding of it. Not that books are…

Isn't the title pure clickbait then? "Books work, but they're not the complete solution" is a much better title, but then us as the audience don't need to read a multi-page Medium article type rant to know that.

Pretty much, it's also vague and ambiguous to begin with. My first question even just seeing it was, work with what? Being HN, I figured it to be something related to programming or something rather just a general acknowledgement that 'learning takes time'

To be honest, you could replace 'book' with 'video', 'article', 'podcast' or any other medium people learn from and the article could stand pretty much as is and give the same general point.

The whole article could probably be more effectively re-written with the focus on time and learning, using different media as well as books as an example and make the point stronger. By choosing books as a focus, the author loses the main point and doesn't really get to it until the end, making the article, as you and other commenters pointed out, ranty and a slog to read through.

Re: Why books don't work (2019)

#188

Post by TheHeretic12 »

Advice for the author, and anyone who cannot seem to learn from books: 1. Read better books. The three he mentions off the top are all pop science low-knowledge perspective pieces, imo. Especially G,G & S.

2. Learn how to learn. Gaining knowledge is like building a fortress. It requires a solid foundation and years of diligence. And it doesnt happen all at once, it is built brick by brick.

3. Know how to cope with your learning style. Visual, Auditory, Verbal, Structural, etc. Go get a full battery IQ test. If you discover you have no talent at visual processing, that could be why reading doesnt work for you.

Further elaboration:

1: A good book is like a dead man talking. The dialogues of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle only survived in written form, because they were good and useful. If you want a modern example, the last good information book i read was "Ignition: An Unofficial History of Rocket Fuel." A little more difficult than the best-sellers, but man thats cool stuff.

2. Knowledge is not something you are going to just "get" by going through the pages. I have read probably tens of thousands of pages of history and politics to get to where I am now: actual knowledge, I can almost predict the news, and frequently do, weeks or months in advance. Think of it like a D&D character. If you put points into "Knowledge: Whatever" every level, eventually you'll get to a +10 bonus where you are correct more often than not.

3. Because the schools are failing at their real jobs, most students never learn how to teach themselves. They require information to be presented, just so, for them to "get it." Different learning styles are coddled and enabled, while refusing to teach critical thinking, dialogue, i.e. how to actually learn and teach yourself. People really do have differing mental abilities. Its why some are lawyers, others are musicians.

Written material will always be the largest share of meaningful information and communication.

I try not to sit on HN logged into Upvotes Anonymous, but this article was so silly I had to. Im learning how to read Hebrew, guess what, from a .... a book! What a world!

Re: Why books don't work (2019)

#189

Post by keenmaster »

liability wrote: post #145
TheUndead96 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. The anti-book sentiment has felt quite strong lately, and this article is another example. I think people feel subconsciously guilty that they do not read more. It is thus easier to dismiss books than to acknowledge the fact that most attention spans have been reduced the the granularity of a comment thread. We are all victims to this. Reading a book takes more effort than it used to. I fear that most people…

> Reading a book takes more effort than it used to. I agree with most of your points but not this one. The proliferation of audio books and text-to-speech (TTS) has made reading books easier than ever. Particularly TTS in my case; I can read an eBook visually for a few hours, then switch to TTS for a while to give my eyes a break, and in this way easily marathon books. Once you are accustomed to TTS you can turn the…

750 wpm is extremely high. I hit 420 wpm on low complexity texts and slow down to 380 wpm at higher complexity using TTS. However, which TTS voice I use has a huge impact. Are you using one of those fancy AI TTS voices with cloud processing?

Re: Why books don't work (2019)

#190

Post by klyrs »

chongli wrote: post #47
doubletgl wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some books explicitly claim to teach you a specific skill. And some people have that general expectation towards books. This is what the author criticizes, as I understood their points.

Generally, books that attempt to teach a specific skill will be full of exercises. If you read through the book methodically (not like reading a novel) and do all the exercises, I would be shocked if you did not learn that skill. I guess a lot of people don’t do that. They skim through a textbook like it’s a boring novel and they make a few notes or they highlight everything or they fill the poor book with sticky not…

This, so many times.

Indeed, books do not "work." Dedicated students work, and by doing so, they will learn.

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