Letting go of the idea of keeping up • Hacker News Board

Re: Letting go of the idea of keeping up

#51

Post by starkparker » Fri, Apr 05, 2024, 4:42 AM UTC

At one of my jobs the entire team read at least a book a week, often more and seemingly non-stop. Every standup started with every person talking about what we'd read that week.

I'd never been a huge longform reader (more like a book a month, at best) and rarely had anything to contribute. Sometimes I'd say "our documentation" because that's what I'd been working on, and when I wasn't working _I wasn't reading_ because it was too much like work to enjoy.

It eventually got profoundly uncomfortable. My manager raised my non-participation as an example of how my attitude was turning too negative for the team. I'd find out from recorded team meetings when I was out sick or on vacation that they'd crack jokes about it when I wasn't around.

It particularly odd because I arguably read as much as anyone else on that team, but I preferred either technical content related to what I was working on, or shorter works like short-story collections and articles for fun. If I wasn't reading biographies and novels, it seemingly didn't count to them.

Re: Letting go of the idea of keeping up

#52

Post by richrichie » Fri, Apr 05, 2024, 4:42 AM UTC

saurik wrote: post #50

geuis wrote: post #14

I'm in a weird position. Can anyone provide a summary of this article? I have all the time in the world to read things that are interesting (to me) and really absorb the content. But I've increasingly been noticing a "recipe article" trend with blog posts. People throw 100 words in when 10 will do. This article is an example. I've even gotten to the point with certain important blog posts where I copy paste the conte…

This is a magazine (note the "mag" in the hostname). The reason people read magazines is not to "get to the f'ing point": if you want that, find a newspaper or something. The intended audience of a magazine is people who actually want to have the leisurely fun of reading an article that isn't just long but might actively bury the lede or use rhetorical devices such as a false start... honestly, your comment -- which…

Yup, you just need to check out the author’s bio.

Re: Letting go of the idea of keeping up

#53

Post by derwiki » Fri, Apr 05, 2024, 4:48 AM UTC

starkparker wrote: post #51

At one of my jobs the entire team read at least a book a week, often more and seemingly non-stop. Every standup started with every person talking about what we'd read that week. I'd never been a huge longform reader (more like a book a month, at best) and rarely had anything to contribute. Sometimes I'd say "our documentation" because that's what I'd been working on, and when I wasn't working _I wasn't reading_ becau…

That sounds super toxic and weird.

Re: Letting go of the idea of keeping up

#54

Post by waveBidder » Fri, Apr 05, 2024, 4:50 AM UTC

geuis wrote: post #14

I'm in a weird position. Can anyone provide a summary of this article? I have all the time in the world to read things that are interesting (to me) and really absorb the content. But I've increasingly been noticing a "recipe article" trend with blog posts. People throw 100 words in when 10 will do. This article is an example. I've even gotten to the point with certain important blog posts where I copy paste the conte…

"If I Had More Time, I Would Have Written a Shorter Letter" from Pascal comes to mind.

Re: Letting go of the idea of keeping up

#55

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Apr 05, 2024, 4:56 AM UTC

geuis wrote: post #14

I'm in a weird position. Can anyone provide a summary of this article? I have all the time in the world to read things that are interesting (to me) and really absorb the content. But I've increasingly been noticing a "recipe article" trend with blog posts. People throw 100 words in when 10 will do. This article is an example. I've even gotten to the point with certain important blog posts where I copy paste the conte…

[deleted]

Re: Letting go of the idea of keeping up

#56

Post by alexashka » Fri, Apr 05, 2024, 4:58 AM UTC

geuis wrote: post #14

I'm in a weird position. Can anyone provide a summary of this article? I have all the time in the world to read things that are interesting (to me) and really absorb the content. But I've increasingly been noticing a "recipe article" trend with blog posts. People throw 100 words in when 10 will do. This article is an example. I've even gotten to the point with certain important blog posts where I copy paste the conte…

This is a woman who is sharing an anecdote akin to what every episode of Sex in the city (the greatest tv show ever created according to many women) is about.

If you don't get it, you are not understanding what more than half the population is about. Not to worry, almost all people don't understand themselves, others or the world at large and LLMs will not help, since they are trained on data produced by people who don't understand much of anything :)

Re: Letting go of the idea of keeping up

#57

Post by SeriousM » Fri, Apr 05, 2024, 4:59 AM UTC

Reading is part of my daily job, my education path, and in my free time. Even here on HN (ignoring the fact that the internet is no book). I have so many open tabs in my browser with articles I want to read because I see value in reading them eventually, but I can't keep up with all the new content that gets produced. Then I read the article with different eyes, the eyes of a youtube consumer. I have a huuuuge list of yt videos I still want to watch because of education, interest, or curiosity. Same here, I just have not the time to keep up with all the information that gets produced.

So what's the solution to that? Step back from the Internet, unsubscribe from non essential creators, close tabs without verifying if still needed, organize more and more? So trade fomo with organization? Start over with an empty browser, empty new email account?

What's your take on that?

Re: Letting go of the idea of keeping up

#58

Post by imgabe » Fri, Apr 05, 2024, 5:04 AM UTC

I think the Goodreads challenge is silly. Every year I set it to one book. I'm already beating it by 600%!

Why create fake tasks to stress yourself out? Reading should be enjoyable, not a chore. And not all books are created equal. If you spend all year reading Remembrance of Things Past is that bad because you only read one book instead of reading 50 forgettable pop psychology business book of the month books? I don't think so.

Re: Letting go of the idea of keeping up

#59

Post by Novosell » Fri, Apr 05, 2024, 5:24 AM UTC

harrisi wrote: post #28

theK wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does this work? Is it a book every two days? Or three books on the weekend? How long is your commute and how do you keep off YouTube/Netflix in the evening?

When you get in the habit of reading, it's remarkable how quickly you can do it. It's quite easy to read a book in a day when you read every day.

If you read short books of low complexity, aye. We need to start talking page count. Aint nobody reading 3 Robin Hobb books a week all year long.

Re: Letting go of the idea of keeping up

#60

Post by noduerme » Fri, Apr 05, 2024, 5:30 AM UTC

Social media has scrambled people's minds so badly. In the past, only narcissists and sociopaths needed to spend their time building a public image of themselves and checking in to see what people thought about it.

Scoring yourself with stars or notches for the books you read - or like my dad, a box of donuts every time he slept with a new woman - that's some fucked up abnormal unhealthy shit.

What this shows is that even the most innocent of online coms based on gamified popularity metrics will always trend toward feelings of loss of self-worth for the players.

Why? Because gamifying social interaction is a pretty good definition of sociopathy. Forcing the genpop to engage in that game 24/7, and to treat social interaction as a system of rewards, has spread the sociopathy from the founders like a disease to the rest of the world.