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Maybe you should learn something

marginalia.nu

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Re: Maybe you should learn something

#191

Post by Scarblac »

jambalaya8 wrote: post #185
Scarblac wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But even then, it's still the phone, in my experience. It takes up so many hours but you also don't really rest, and it also tends to keep you up too long at night. If you can replace five hours of doom scrolling with an hour of doing nothing in particular, an hour more of sleep, some time staring at a book page or soduku, some more work on chorse, you'll most likely gain an hour or so to use on something that takes…

Wondering, which would you consider healthier, an hour scrolling on the phone or an hour watching a tv show (either a fictional one or talk show, either with commercials)? (aside from this, fascinating math ;))

It's hard to say because it depends on what you're looking at too, of course.

But doomscrolling seems to teach your brain to never pay attention to anything for more than a few seconds, while at the same time being more exhausting than watching TV.

So I'd say the TV is healthier.

Re: Maybe you should learn something

#192

Post by dpkirchner »

jambalaya8 wrote: post #185
Scarblac wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But even then, it's still the phone, in my experience. It takes up so many hours but you also don't really rest, and it also tends to keep you up too long at night. If you can replace five hours of doom scrolling with an hour of doing nothing in particular, an hour more of sleep, some time staring at a book page or soduku, some more work on chorse, you'll most likely gain an hour or so to use on something that takes…

Wondering, which would you consider healthier, an hour scrolling on the phone or an hour watching a tv show (either a fictional one or talk show, either with commercials)? (aside from this, fascinating math ;))

Whichever one you are more likely to do with friends and family, I'd say. IME that's TV because we're experiencing the same thing.

If you're alone, it's probably a wash.

Re: Maybe you should learn something

#193

Post by dpkirchner »

abalashov wrote: post #112
brookst wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of authoritative reference books full of errors. Teachers in every subject can be wrong, convincingly.

Yes, but human errors are based on genuine and elaborate misconceptions (or propagandistic intent), not squishy, facile "you're right to push back on that, I straight up made that up" type stuff.

I wish humans that make up "facts" would admit to it as readily as LLMs do. Even though I know it's just a training trick to ground the response.

Re: Maybe you should learn something

#195

Post by BeetleB »

philangist wrote: post #41
abc123abc123 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Children are not god for peace of mind and a life of liberty. I do not recommend anyone to have children, becaues of how negatively it affects your life, cost of living etc. It is basically just tying yourself down to the wheel of consumption, and in order to jutsify everything, all the struggle, push your hopes and aspirations to the next generation, and then letting them deal with it. If you are rich, you can get a…

This comment actually triggered something in me and I wanted to write a dismissive and condescending response but in the spirit of HN I’d like to try a different approach. I’ve honestly never been able to understand this kind of thinking (uniformly ruling children as a negative because of the downsides), but I’d be curious to understand more about your perspective. How do you weigh the joy and meaning many people fin…

> How do you weigh the joy and meaning many people find in having a family against the economic and time freedom costs?

That's a very presumptuous question.

I don't know if the original commenter has kids or a family, but I can assure you that not everyone finds as much joy in it as you may. You can easily end up with a kid that just hates your guts, and is problematic in many other ways to boot.

Re: Maybe you should learn something

#196

Post by storus »

black_knight wrote: post #189
storus wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my experience, workout draws exactly from the same pool as mental effort, so after a tough day at work/school, there is little left for a workout and vice versa. Instead of brain spending its energy on thinking, it spends it on muscle/movement coordination.

I find it easier to work out when being mentally exhausted than doing something mentally challenging when physically exhausted. My main sport is climbing and it is perfect for a Friday evening when I am exhausted from my research and teaching job. Also there are all these feedback loops. Staying active gives motivation to do mentally challenging things, and some of this mental energy can also be invested in learning…

I find it slightly easier to do mental work after a hard workout, especially when it's cardio, but not by much.

Re: Maybe you should learn something

#197

Post by kashunstva »

frankie_t wrote: post #52

It's a very common thing to blame the lack of time and "finding" the extra time by suggesting to give up phone or some other form of procrastination. But in my experience, time is almost never a problem. It's usually: - energy: learning requires much more than the other "bad" activities like phone - correct psychological state: procrastination is typically triggered as a response to anxiety for me, so any learning I…

> I have a problem that I take any learning way too seriously, such that it would require deliberate focused practice. Sometimes it kills all the fun, and sometimes I give up just because it takes too much energy

This is a common trait of perfectionists. I have long forgotten the source, but someone once wrote that “Perfectionists have a special ability to turn the voluntary into the obligatory.” I, too, find this in voluntary pursuits.

Re: Maybe you should learn something

#199

Post by TFNA »

forgotusername6 wrote: post #39

There's really a feeling now pushing back against learning in general. The feeling is that it is pointless since technology would just do it for you. When I started learning Chinese a friend just wouldn't stop talking about how the latest airpods will just be able to translate for you. It was really rather demoralising. But there is still something incredibly rewarding about having that knowledge in your own head and…

Funny that your example is Chinese. Have you seen the reports that Chinese universities are cutting back on foreign-language programmes because the expectation is that AI translation is the way of the future?

So, your friend was just expressing the general zeitgeist. But something to be aware of, is that “having that knowledge in one’s own head” might be unrewarding in time. Namely, once high-quality AI translation in near-real-time becomes the social norm, Chinese people (and most other people on earth) will become much less tolerant of a foreigner trying to speak their language imperfectly. You can already see something similar if you go to countries like Netherlands or Sweden and try to speak the local language at anything short of a high B2-level: people will complain you’re wasting their time compared to just using English.

Re: Maybe you should learn something

#200

Post by jbeninger »

kubb wrote: post #124
marginalia_nu wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Author of the post) For energy, it both requires and pays dividends. It's a bit like working out in that sense. I think my intended takeaway was that you really don't need to have make the thing you're studying take a lot of time, that daily consistency matters more than pouring hours into practice and obsessing about it. Though in general, I do still think it's the phones and media diet that is the problem with the…

Idk if this is universal but as soon as I’m on vacation I start learning new things, reading, and getting creative. When I work, my brain is fried from work. On the weekends I need a long period of idleness to recover before I can read a chapter of a novel. An hour of study every day is unrealistic for me right now.

Just want to "me too" this. I have two weeks a year where I unplug completely from my daily work and it often results in a new project or skill that I wouldn't have thought of otherwise
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