Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Reading Is Magic

samkriss.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 35 posts

Re: Reading Is Magic

#21

Post by torben-friis »

tripdout wrote: post #9

I actually don’t understand the meaning of that sentence in Dickens fully either. > As much mud in the streets, as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Why does “as if the waters had but newly retired” mean there’s a lot of water (and thus mud)? “As much mud as”…

>Why does “as if the waters had but newly retired” mean there’s a lot of water (and thus mud)? “As much mud as” clued me in, but I don’t get this part.

"Imagine everything here was flooded and then the water leaves. The land would be left super muddy right? That's how much mud there is now".

I'm surprised it's a difficult phrase, I'm not even a native speaker.

The part with the stegosaurus is harder in that it relies on a biblical reference, but there is no way for it to be interpreted by a decent reader as a literal animal, it should at most make you wonder why he's suddenly bringing up that idea ("it would not be wonderful...).

Re: Reading Is Magic

#22

Post by torben-friis »

aidenn0 wrote: post #2

> The most upsetting of Luria’s puzzles was a mathematical problem. He told his subjects that it took three hours to walk from their village to Vuadil, and six along the same road to Fergana: how long would it take to walk to Fergana from Vuadil? Again, every single one of the collective farm workers solved the problem, but the illiterate villagers knew very well that Fergana was actually closer than Vuadil, and refu…

>The correct thing to do if someone asks you a question with obviously false premises is to push back!

Being able to understand theoretical suppositions is a measure of intellectual maturity.

If I tell you "imagine I was made of iron, how much would I weight" as an exercise, an answer like "but you are not made of iron" shows inability for abstract thought.

Outside of scientific exercises: if I asked you what would you do if your significant other cheates on you, would you imagine yourself in the situation or would you answer that your partner is loyal/ that you're single?

Re: Reading Is Magic

#23

Post by luxuryballs »

why are kids not reading? is this not very alarming? my oldest is 7 and reads every day, she has finished and re-read various 100-200ish page books, I remember being her age and getting lost in the pages of a good story, it’s def more than just sad to imagine a kid missing out on this

Re: Reading Is Magic

#24

Post by mx7zysuj4xew »

pdonis wrote: post #14
pessimizer wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he was a agent of a horribly oppressive government that was trying to totally change the villagers' lives. These were previously peasants still under feudal lords. Before somebody came to teach them under the communists, nobody cared if they were educated, or whether they lived or died. This neo-John Bircherism masquerading as argument will always ignore the millions victims of tyrannical royals, or capitalist olig…

> These were previously peasants still under feudal lords. What feudal lords? From the article's description it seems like they were basically on their own before the Soviet Union came in. > Before somebody came to teach them under the communists, nobody cared if they were educated, or whether they lived or died. And you think the communists taught the peasants to read for the benefit of the peasants? It is to laugh.…

People who are illiterate and ignorant despite being intellectually capable were a burden to society and overal considered undesirable. The goal was to improve the quality of living for all people in society and educated workers, engineers and burocrats were needed

Re: Reading Is Magic

#25

Post by pdonis »

mx7zysuj4xew wrote: post #24
pdonis wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These were previously peasants still under feudal lords. What feudal lords? From the article's description it seems like they were basically on their own before the Soviet Union came in. > Before somebody came to teach them under the communists, nobody cared if they were educated, or whether they lived or died. And you think the communists taught the peasants to read for the benefit of the peasants? It is to laugh.…

People who are illiterate and ignorant despite being intellectually capable were a burden to society and overal considered undesirable. The goal was to improve the quality of living for all people in society and educated workers, engineers and burocrats were needed

> The goal was to improve the quality of living for all people in society and educated workers, engineers and burocrats were needed

That was the claimed goal, yes. It didn't actually work out that way. Which is an example of the problem I described.

Re: Reading Is Magic

#26

Post by tripdout »

torben-friis wrote: post #21
tripdout wrote: post #9

I actually don’t understand the meaning of that sentence in Dickens fully either. > As much mud in the streets, as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Why does “as if the waters had but newly retired” mean there’s a lot of water (and thus mud)? “As much mud as”…

>Why does “as if the waters had but newly retired” mean there’s a lot of water (and thus mud)? “As much mud as” clued me in, but I don’t get this part. "Imagine everything here was flooded and then the water leaves. The land would be left super muddy right? That's how much mud there is now". I'm surprised it's a difficult phrase, I'm not even a native speaker. The part with the stegosaurus is harder in that it relies…

I guess I could see that, but if all the water left, it could be dry like a desert too.. (although even though that was my initial interpretation, I did understand that's not what he meant)

And yes even without the reference it's not that there's a literal animal there.

Re: Reading Is Magic

#27

Post by CGMthrowaway »

pdonis wrote: post #14
pessimizer wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he was a agent of a horribly oppressive government that was trying to totally change the villagers' lives. These were previously peasants still under feudal lords. Before somebody came to teach them under the communists, nobody cared if they were educated, or whether they lived or died. This neo-John Bircherism masquerading as argument will always ignore the millions victims of tyrannical royals, or capitalist olig…

> These were previously peasants still under feudal lords. What feudal lords? From the article's description it seems like they were basically on their own before the Soviet Union came in. > Before somebody came to teach them under the communists, nobody cared if they were educated, or whether they lived or died. And you think the communists taught the peasants to read for the benefit of the peasants? It is to laugh.…

> What feudal lords? From the article's description it seems like they were basically on their own before the Soviet Union came in.

The Alai region was not "feudal" in the European sense but it was a tribal system where power was centralized in a layer of elite lords. While pastures were communal and not "owned" by individuals, livestock was private and literate, wealthy aristocratic elites owned massive herds using their prestige to command the loyalty of poorer tribal members

The Soviet government was actively working to replace the Arabic literacy of these elites with Latin and Cyrillic script to break the their influence

Re: Reading Is Magic

#28

Post by mcmoor »

aidenn0 wrote: post #2

> The most upsetting of Luria’s puzzles was a mathematical problem. He told his subjects that it took three hours to walk from their village to Vuadil, and six along the same road to Fergana: how long would it take to walk to Fergana from Vuadil? Again, every single one of the collective farm workers solved the problem, but the illiterate villagers knew very well that Fergana was actually closer than Vuadil, and refu…

Yeah, I've a friend that'll react the same way. This reminds me of a question, why are a lot of early stories a fable? It's because it's the easiest way to discuss an abstract thing, to become something still concrete enough to imagine, but detached enough from reality to not create unnecessary problems.

Re: Reading Is Magic

#29

Post by worksonmine »

vzaliva wrote: post #13

> Russians are essentially the only truly literate people left. The vast majority of Russians read regularly, more than anywhere else in the world. Not really. According to Nielsen, 59% of Russians read at least weekly. High, but not the highest in the world, and behind China: https://nielseniq.com/global/en/insights/commentary/2017/maj... Several European countries have a very strong reading rates, some exceeding 70…

There's a (very) big difference between reading weekly and reading a book in the past 12 months. I used to read a book or two in the past 12 months, back then it was on vacation to have something to do while lounging on the beach. Today I read a book every month and it's something I do instead of watching TV. I would not call my younger self a reader.

Re: Reading Is Magic

#30

Post by herdrick »

herdrick wrote: post #19
tripdout wrote: post #9

I actually don’t understand the meaning of that sentence in Dickens fully either. > As much mud in the streets, as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Why does “as if the waters had but newly retired” mean there’s a lot of water (and thus mud)? “As much mud as”…

> Why does “as if the waters had but newly retired” mean there’s a lot of water (and thus mud)? It doesn't. It means there's a lot of mud. It might help if you had the rest of the paragraph in front of you. It sets the scene for us with a bunch of sentence fragments -- bullet points, we would say. Here's the beginning of each of them: Michaelmas term lately over... Implacable November weather. As much mud in the stre…

So don't feel bad, is my point :)
Post reply on HN