[HN Gopher] The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently
___________________________________________________________________
The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently
Author : ingve
Score : 188 points
Date : 2021-02-26 11:36 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (aliabdaal.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (aliabdaal.com)
| weathawi wrote:
| Just monitizing
| brokencode wrote:
| Am I the only one who thinks most novels are 90% fluff? Like,
| they can certainly be entertaining, but the idea of the author
| making an argument that you need to decode and become enlightened
| by sits with me the wrong way. Why not just come out and say your
| points in a condensed form without the story around it?
|
| Does it improve learning to have to decode information from a
| novel? Does it stick with you better, or make a more relatable
| case?
|
| The same is true for most non fiction books. Endless stories and
| examples for something you could have said in 10 pages.
|
| This is why I prefer articles, blog posts, etc. I want to learn,
| but don't want to spend hours reading fluff. I enjoy TV shows for
| entertainment, and don't feel the need to decode them, because I
| don't believe there would be anything in there that isn't the
| 50th variation of something I've heard before.
|
| Am I missing out on incredible revelations? Upon reading a great
| book, I've never felt enlightened, even when prodded to analyze
| it in school. Maybe I haven't tried hard enough, or maybe the
| point is lost on me, but it just doesn't seem as worthwhile as so
| many people claim.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| If you are reading literature, _real_ literature, purely for
| information, I 'm afraid you've lost the plot somewhere.
|
| As with everything worthwhile in life, good literature is
| _work._ Don 't expect to pick up a classic novel and understand
| it immediately.
| brokencode wrote:
| That's a pretty weak argument. You are saying that I should
| invest time and effort into a book to understand it, but also
| that the purpose of literature is not information.
|
| What is there to understand then, if not information? I
| always hear the author is making a point about life, but why
| water it down in hundreds of extra pages instead of saying it
| directly?
|
| The only thing I can think is that the story helps us connect
| with the author's point and learn from it better. It can
| influence and persuade in a way that just laying out
| arguments can't, because it stirs up emotion in the reader.
| Is that what you are trying to say?
|
| I can't say that I've ever experienced something like that
| from a book, but it sounds enjoyable. Maybe I'll give it
| another shot sometime.
| ulisesrmzroche wrote:
| You're trying to create a sort of virtual reality, that's
| why you need so much world-building. For example, the idea
| in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is to get the reader to live the
| life of a slave. The best way to achieve that in writing is
| details, so the reader can make a picture in their heads.
| Some people are better than others in making these
| pictures. Movies are trying to achieve a similar effect,
| but it's much easier there.
|
| It is definitely about making an emotional connection. To
| persuade someone from that angle, think of it like this: a
| lot of people who were not abolitionists changed their
| minds after reading Uncle Tom's Cabin. If it wasn't for
| that book, we would not be living in our modern world.
|
| You need to make someone feel the horrors of slavery in
| order to get them to want to do something about it. That
| the brain is able to actually be able to go into this
| alternate reality just with words on papers is actually
| pretty crazy but definitely valuable.
|
| Plus, a book doesn't have to just have a single point. Look
| at "Brothers Karamazov". There also wouldn't be a modern
| world if it wasn't for that book.
|
| That's not something you can do with anything other than
| art. To change someone's mind. To influence someone...You
| can't do that sort of societal change with a list article
| or a summary or even an essay.
|
| I don't think it's a frivolous thing. It's actually the
| most valuable and important work you can do if you want to
| change the world for the better.
| brokencode wrote:
| I think that's a good explanation. Literature can help
| persuade emotionally when people are otherwise not
| willing to change their mind based on a purely rational
| argument.
|
| But what if you already agree with the author to begin
| with? Then it would seem less profound. Maybe that's why
| I haven't experienced any revelations yet from
| literature.
|
| Perhaps I can find a great piece of literature I disagree
| with and it would leave me with a greater appreciation
| for art.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| Have you ever enjoyed a meal? A movie? Done anything at all
| other than for mindless entertainment or gathering
| information? Admired a sunset or bought flowers?
|
| Literature is an art form. It is almost by definition not
| practical.
| brokencode wrote:
| Uh, of course I've enjoyed those things. And I've enjoyed
| many books too. I'm saying that the idea of critical
| reading of books seems pointless to me, because I see
| them only as entertainment.
|
| I also don't really enjoy puzzles, so if a book is a
| puzzle to figure out, and people enjoy the act of
| decoding them for its own sake, then I can see what I'm
| missing.
|
| I do like solving technical problems, and that's why I'm
| a programmer, but I don't really get much enjoyment from
| solving problems that wouldn't benefit me or others to
| solve.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| There's a pretty big difference between art and
| entertainment. Paradise Lost and Harry Potter aren't
| exactly in the same category.
| brokencode wrote:
| Sure, but is your argument that I should enjoy great art
| simply because it's considered great? Surely there are
| reasons even for art.
| gshubert17 wrote:
| Sometimes the experiences in a novel are more memorable than
| the arguments. Or the combination of characters, experiences,
| and information is more effective at conveying what the author
| wants.
| benrbray wrote:
| I think this is missing an important fourth objective: reading to
| remember.
|
| I'm not sure how much others can relate, but I am hopeless at
| remembering most of what I read or watch. Even when I spend
| several days pondering the same book chapter / paper / recipe /
| etc, taking thorough notes, there is no guarantee I will remember
| it six months or even one month from now.
|
| I started to realize that I was collecting new data points about
| a topic but rarely making connections between what I already know
| and what I read. So, I've been trying to slowly improve my
| retention by being more purposeful about what I read and how I
| take notes. Some guidelines that have helped in the past two or
| so years I've been trying to become a better reader:
|
| * Before reading, I try to make a mental note of what I hope to
| learn from reading, in as much detail as possible.
|
| * While reading, I underline key words and take brief notes in
| the margin so it's easy to look back later and get a rough idea
| of what each section of the book or articles is about. I will
| write "?" where I am confused or where I disagree, "@" for
| interesting citations I might want to follow up on later, etc.
|
| * After reading, I take very rough notes about what I thought the
| most important points were, my reactions, and what I want to know
| more about. Since I take Markdown notes, I can use #tags and
| [[bidirectional links]] to help myself find these notes later if
| I am ever reading about the same topic again.
|
| * Some topics are important enough to spend more time on. I
| basically have my own "encyclopedia" of Markdown files for
| certain topics that I can add to every time I come across an
| interesting bit of information. This has been especially helpful
| for keeping track of random tidbits of information I learn about
| cooking.
| _cloudkate wrote:
| Completely agree with this comment and thank you for sharing
| your pointers for better quality/more effective reading.
|
| Side note.. while I think your comment was meant to be
| educational & helpful in nature, I just wanted to say, there's
| also something beautifully poetic about the statement "reading
| to remember". It gave me all the feels!
| bikingtoTJs wrote:
| came here to say the same thing! That phrase stood out when I
| was scrolling through the comments. nice
| DanBC wrote:
| I like your points, and I think they'd be useful.
|
| > I'm not sure how much others can relate, but I am hopeless at
| remembering most of what I read or watch. Even when I spend
| several days pondering the same book chapter / paper / recipe /
| etc, taking thorough notes, there is no guarantee I will
| remember it six months or even one month from now.
|
| Have you tried teaching other people? That forces you to re-
| arrange what you know into a form that other people can
| understand, and that helps you understand it and retain it
| better. And those people get to ask you questions which help
| point to gaps in your knowledge.
|
| I guess this is similar to "see one, do one, teach one"
| methods.
| apples_oranges wrote:
| We need to _do_ something with it. Reading is not enough, we
| must apply it somehow. That's why there are exercises in school
| or uni. That's why some people write summaries of books on
| their blogs. Another idea might be to make youtube videos about
| the books we read. Just to summarize them in our own words. To
| do more with the material that just reading.
|
| (P.S. It's also the reason why I like and recommend Zed Shaw's
| "Learn X the hard way" approach. He makes you actually type the
| whole source code in the book. I actually did as he said and it
| made me a better programmer.)
|
| (P.P.S. Even if we don't read to remember, I think we always
| still do, just differently. I think Paul Graham said something
| along these lines: When I read it's like compiling source code.
| I lose the source code but the compiled machine code is still
| there, running in my brain.)
| benrbray wrote:
| Yeah, that's why I started taking notes. For topics that are
| important to my work / hobbies I write my own wiki-style
| summary to synthesize information from all the sources I've
| read. When I inevitably forget later, I basically have
| written myself a textbook that explains things in a way that
| I know I'll understand later.
|
| I will also happily try to summarize the info to my partner
| or whoever will listen. But outside of an academic settings
| it's really tough to find other people to have those sort of
| deep discussions with, especially ones who will do their own
| reading and bring an interesting perspective about the same
| niche topic.
| criddell wrote:
| I'd be interested in learning how to read poetry. It seems like
| a different enough thing involving emotion and experience that
| your steps may not apply.
|
| If any poetry fans here remember what it took to start to crack
| the code, I'd love to hear it.
| benrbray wrote:
| I'm unexperienced reading poetry, but I'm not sure I would
| treat it any differently.
|
| Poetry to me seems like it requires a lot of context to
| really understand. Who is the author and what kind of life
| have they lived? Who are their contemporaries and what
| cultural context are they responding to? etc.
|
| So maybe I'd do an initial "blind" read and take a quick note
| about my reaction. Then, I'd do some research about the
| author and try to figure out _why_ they might have written
| that piece, followed by a second reading.
| mmcdermott wrote:
| I think the following helps:
|
| 1) Start with earlier form-based poetry. Free verse is a hard
| place to start because it's difficult to even know what to
| look for if you're starting somewhere that open.
|
| 2) Find subject matter that interests you. I know that I
| associated poetry with the subject matter of romantic love
| for the longest time. There is a lot of that out there and I
| find it repetitive. I enjoyed epic poetry and more
| philosophical verse more and this really helped.
|
| 3) Read it out loud. For all the theory, poetry is written
| music. Reading it out loud helps to find the rhythm and to
| "feel" the pacing.
|
| 4) Short pieces often lend themselves to multiple read-
| throughs. Almost like a piece of code. I seldom read code
| starting on line 1 through line N. I usually take a few
| passes looking for different things. Short form verse is a
| lot like that.
|
| 5) "How to Read Poetry Like a Professor" by Thomas Foster is
| a good crash course if you really want to have a starting
| point.
|
| Remember that you're inundated with poetry. Nearly every pop,
| rock, rap or metal song you've ever heard in your life is
| poetry with musical accompaniment (music + poetry is a
| combination as old as history, near as I can tell).
| devnull255 wrote:
| I've found the importance of remembering a book you've read
| depends on why you're reading the book in the first place. If
| you're reading to entertain, remembering what you've read isn't
| nearly as important as the experience you get reading it. It's
| why I've reread so many of the science fiction and fantasy
| books I love. Reading a book again, especially long after the
| original reading of it, re-ignites the pleasure of the
| experience of the first reading.
|
| The third and fourth levels of reading often require the reader
| to do exactly what you describe. I've actually started using
| paper index cards to do this, creating physically cataloged
| notes, which through the muscle memory of writing, help to
| embed the most important concepts and idea in my brain.
|
| I personally read a lot of books that inform or advance
| important ideas casually first. Then I go back and re-read
| sections, taking notes more carefully to properly ingest the
| critical topics into memory.
| abc_lisper wrote:
| Straight from How to Read a Book. I highly recommend it; it felt
| like my IQ went up a couple of points after reading it
| 5etho wrote:
| just dont follow the rabbit hole to learn about author, I did and
| his yt channel is pure scam a'la Tony Robbins
|
| knowledge is for free, here is my 3000$ course beacuse wE nEeD
| AcCoUnTaBiLiLty
| wombatmobile wrote:
| I love reading but I'm not going to tell you it's the best thing
| in the world or that you have to be like me.
|
| Like Hemingway, Kerouac, and James Bond, I also like going to
| bars in exotic places, meeting women and other people, and not
| reading.
| ohduran wrote:
| I have a contrarian view about reading productively, which is:
| READ WHAT OTHERS AREN'T READING.
|
| It's as if there is a similar process as the Efficient Market
| Hypothesis happening with books: the best-sellers define our
| shared reality, and apparently (at least for me), they aren't
| worth reading.
|
| For example, think of Outliers, by Malcom Gladwell. Virtually
| everyone has heard of the 10'000 hour rule. That means that the
| first thing you have to do to be more productive in your reading
| is start by NOT reading Outliers: all its content is already
| common knowledge.
|
| Which brings me to this post. No matter how many books the author
| is reading, he is simply reviewing what everyone else (Atomic
| Habits, Thinking Fast and Slow, Grit) is reading too. So there is
| little value in what he reads, because it's discounted by what
| "everyone" knows already.
|
| What do you guys think about that? Am I too off course?
| noud wrote:
| How do you find books that others aren't reading (and are
| interesting to read)?
| psychomugs wrote:
| "If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you
| can only think what everyone else is thinking." - Haruki
| Murakami
| martin-adams wrote:
| I think you're right when it comes to finding new and original
| ideas by reading less popular texts. This helps you get an
| alternative perspective than the mainstream. I do feel it
| depends on whether you're reading to address something
| personal, or reading for advancing the subject as a whole. If
| I'm struggling with habits, then Atomic Habits is a good book
| to read, even if everyone else is reading it. It's not the only
| one, but a good recommendation saves me time.
|
| I remember one person in the HN comments a while ago say that
| they would rather than see a list of all the books someone
| recommends, they want to see the list of books they don't
| recommend. You can make a better assessment of whether this
| person has value to add by showing their exclusions in their
| line of thinking.
| algebrazebra wrote:
| Yes, the 10,000 hour rule is known by many. For the lack of a
| better term, the "10,000 hour rule" is a label for an idea. And
| this idea is as misunderstood as it is popular. Simply spending
| X hours of time on a skill does not an expert make; indeed,
| Malcolm Gladwell specifies that these 10,000 hours need to be
| spent as what he calls "deliberate practice".
| siltpotato wrote:
| And on that note, if you read that thing that everyone else
| reads (or claims to read), then you'll ensure you don't have
| the popular _misconception_ of that book.
|
| Something something "the most effective debugging tool is
| still careful thought..."
| tvanantwerp wrote:
| If you're paying attention to what people are saying about the
| books "everyone" is reading, then sure, you can probably skip
| them. Lots of popular books I never read because I got 90%+ of
| the content from a podcast interview. But this doesn't answer
| the question of what you _should_ read. Simply "not the
| popular stuff" could land you at an amazingly insightful but
| ignored classic, or a celebrity gossip tabloid you picked up at
| the grocery store checkout.
| newbie578 wrote:
| For such a long blog, I still didn't understand how does one read
| more effeciently, or did I miss something?
|
| Or is it just a clickbait title, since the majority of the blog
| just defends reading and counts it's pros.
| aftabh wrote:
| I highly recommend that you consult the original book (also
| referenced in TFA) as your primary source to find answer to
| your question.
|
| > _Let it be understood at once that we are wholly in favour of
| the proposition that most people ought to be able to read
| faster than they do. Too often, there are things we have to
| read that are not really worth spending a lot of time reading;
| if we cannot read them quickly, it will be a terrible waste of
| time. It is true enough that many people read some things too
| slowly, and that they ought to read them faster. But many
| people also read some things too fast, and they ought to read
| those things more slowly. A good speed reading course should
| therefore teach you to read at many different speeds, not just
| one speed that is faster than anything you can manage now. It
| should enable you to vary your rate of reading in accordance
| with the nature and complexity of the material._
|
| > _Excerpt From: Mortimer J. Adler. "How to Read a Book."_
| ohduran wrote:
| Agreed. Go straight to the source: How to read a book, by
| Mortimer Adler. Ironically you will find there that you must
| grapple with the good books, which arguably disqualifies just
| reading about it in a blog.
| BeetleB wrote:
| It's a good book, but it's as information "sparse" as the
| post. It could be reduced to a fifth of its size.
| C4stor wrote:
| TL;DR : Start taking notes about what you read if you want to
| actually remember a bit of it. Here you go.
| BeetleB wrote:
| While correct, this won't be enough. I've been doing that for
| years and doing it well is fairly challenging.
| tagfowufe wrote:
| This is just an unashamed ripoff of "How to Read a Book" by
| Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren. Seriously, he didn't even
| get "syntopical" right.
| groos wrote:
| Haha, the first thing I noticed.
| 5etho wrote:
| yes it is, just ban his website :-) it will be more spam of his
| rollinDyno wrote:
| He doesn't even credit the book appropriately. How scummy.
| sn9 wrote:
| He literally mentions Adler 7 times in the link....
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| In 4-Hour Work Week, Tim Ferris brags that he is a judo champion
| because he found a loophole in the judging criteria. By forcing
| people out of bounds 3 times in a match, he could disqualify them
| and win by default. Ok, sure. Those are the rules, and he won.
| But in any way that really matters, he was not a judo champion.
|
| Further, this guy's association with Tim Ferris (see his Youtube)
| is an automatic disqualification in my book.
| alfonsodev wrote:
| Interesting, "holding a title" vs "being a champion", it's like
| "passing an exam" vs "learning".
|
| If I recall correctly I think Ali makes this distinction on his
| videos when he speaks about dedicating time to pass the exam or
| learning as much as you can from a topic, are two different
| issues, sadly.
|
| I'd disqualify neither of them, it's just about defining what's
| the goal.
| kinghtown wrote:
| The fact that Ferris is completely transparent about how he won
| tells me that he probably doesn't actually think of himself as
| a war machine.
|
| You are also underestimating Judo here, too. It's all about
| grappling and throws, positioning. Maybe keep that in mind a
| little bit when you say he won by forcing his opponent out of
| bounds. It's not a street fight.
| watwut wrote:
| In judo, intentionally pushing opponent out of bounds is
| against the rules. Explicitly.
| kinghtown wrote:
| Ok.. so he's still transparent about how he won. I'm not
| even going to google the specifics about what happened
| because judo is hardly something he legitimizes his image
| on. He's not "judo champion" Tim Ferris.
|
| Be that as it may, judo is pretty fierce and legit. I used
| to work as a bouncer with an ex multiple black belt judo
| champion. Not world class or anything but this guy was
| crazy, I've seen him take out pretty tough guys like it was
| nothing. If Tim Ferris could force him or someone like him
| out of bounds then colour me impressed.
| apples_oranges wrote:
| Tim hacked the competition. This is Hacker News. Why are you
| here? ;) (I don't want to insult you, I just wanted to
| formulate my point it in a slightly more provocative way. That
| hacking is also about finding such loopholes.)
| cinntaile wrote:
| So your argument to dismiss this blogpost is guilt by
| association, am I understanding you correctly?
| croissants wrote:
| The blog post's author lists a Ferriss book as one of his "3
| favorite books" in a video on his channel, so it's more like
| "guilt by endorsement".
| BeetleB wrote:
| That's still guilt by association.
| leesalminen wrote:
| Yes, this is the current flavor of the month to show off
| one's level of internet outrage. See: Scott Alexander /
| Astral Codex Ten.
|
| It's funny, I'd never heard of Scott before the HN outrage.
| I'm now a paying subscriber and have been enjoying his
| writing.
| waxpoeticwhy35 wrote:
| Scott Alexander was recently exposed as horrifyingly racist
| and naive among other things. Just FYI.
|
| https://twitter.com/ArsonAtDennys/status/136215319110267700
| 1
| TeaDrunk wrote:
| I've also enjoyed his writing but I can most certainly see
| his biases. He has a peculiar way of thoroughly researching
| some assumptions but then apparently having a complete
| blindspot to others, which is only made more apparently by
| how critically thinking all his posts are. I guess that's
| most people, though, they just rarely do so with the
| precision and eloquence of scott.
| waxpoeticwhy35 wrote:
| Have you seen this?
|
| https://twitter.com/ArsonAtDennys/status/1362153191102677
| 001
| TeaDrunk wrote:
| No, I haven't. Thanks for sending this over. I don't know
| the parties reporting.
| mcguire wrote:
| https://www.martialdevelopment.com/how-to-win-kickboxing-wro...
| YinglingLight wrote:
| Of all qualms you could have against Ferriss, this is the
| pettiest.
| watwut wrote:
| It is explicitly against the judo rules.
| suketk wrote:
| What are some more reasonable qualms to have? As a recent fan
| of Ferriss, I'm curious if there's something I'm missing.
| croissants wrote:
| I like the idea of "synoptic" reading to learn about a concrete
| topic. It makes sense when different works offer different
| versions of what happens and why.
|
| But it seems weird to do it with fiction. If I'm reading fiction,
| I want to get into the world created by the author. I think
| repeatedly stepping in and out to compare it to other works, or
| analyze its construction, or think about a GoodReads review, all
| of that is going to impede that process. So I usually just get
| into the book's world, finish it, and then step back for 30
| minutes a day or two later and write a few paragraphs of my
| thoughts.
|
| This little essay often includes connections to other books, and
| articulating thoughts on a book right after reading it
| contributes a ton to my appreciation and understanding. It makes
| it a lot easier to pitch the book to somebody else, for example
| (easier than saying "it's...it's just so good, just read it").
| And for me this process works best if I refrain from doing it too
| consciously during the reading process. The experience of
| immersing your unconscious in something is pretty unique.
|
| That said, I don't finish every book I start, and I don't write
| comments unless I feel like there's something to work out. But
| there's usually something to work out!
|
| Unrelated pedantic comment: TFA attributes this quote to Edgar
| Allan Poe
|
| > Marking a book is literally an experience of your differences
| or agreements with the author. It is the highest respect you can
| pay him.
|
| But it doesn't sound like him, and the internet suggests it's
| actually a quote from this other Adler guy also referenced in
| TFA?
| lemonberry wrote:
| I'm rereading "How to Read a Book" by Mortimer Adler and
| Charles Van Doren right now. It's worth picking up if you're
| interested in getting more out of your reading.
| ohduran wrote:
| Anything good that can be said about it is an understatement.
| A true masterpiece.
| jannyfer wrote:
| I interpreted the four levels of reading to be a subsection of
| "Category 3: Reading to Understand". So as I understand it,
| reading fiction in the way you describe would be reading to
| entertain, but if you are reading to study fiction of a certain
| kind as a topic, synoptic reading would apply?
|
| Also, to your other point, the author seems to be fast and
| loose with his facts - clickbait titles and unverifiable
| Einstein quote too!
|
| https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/compound-interest/
| 5tefan wrote:
| I don't wamt to remember what I read. I want inspiration. Being
| inspired and being creative serves me better then remembering
| stuff.
| brudgers wrote:
| If you have to understand what you read, you will avoid
| challenging books.
|
| You will avoid experts writing for experts.
|
| You will avoid books that are way over your head.
|
| And if your reading has to be efficient, what you read will be
| ever more dumbed down.
|
| Ever more a landscape of mowed lawns and two car garages.
|
| Never a dark wilderness sky.
|
| Never a smelly sidewalk crowd in harsh noon sun.
|
| There's nothing wrong with the missionary position.
|
| But the world is bigger.
| 600frogs wrote:
| Interesting to see Ali Abdaal's content on HN. I regularly watch
| and enjoy his videos, but I've come to view them as light
| entertainment rather than anything genuinely insightful or
| actionable. They're well-produced and they talk about topics I'm
| interested in, but they don't say a lot. They're definitely
| algorithm-bait, and it's something that Ali openly admits, but I
| still (willingly) fall for the bait - there's something nice
| about procrastinating by watching videos on productivity and
| systems rather than Tik-toks or anything else. Ultimately, it's
| just as much of a waste of time, but you can more easily console
| yourself that the time is better spend "in case there's any life-
| changing insights here".
|
| There never is, but best click the next video just in case.
| suketk wrote:
| It's great that you're conscious of it, but many people aren't.
| This entire genre (I call it productivity porn) is problematic
| because it creates the illusion of progress. People wonder why
| the algorithms have so much grip over us - it's because all we
| do is consume and don't act.
| 600frogs wrote:
| Productivity porn is a great name for it. For me, it's akin
| to a trashy gossip magazine - you know it's kind of trash,
| but enjoy it for what it is. It always makes me smirk when
| the videos themselves call out your last point, and say "you
| can't just think about it, you need to act on it, go out
| there and Carpe Diem!" and we all smile and nod and click the
| next video without moving from our chairs.
|
| I hope I'm not coming off as too negative though, as I think
| they are marginally better than most types of content on
| YouTube. Especially the more popular channels such as Ali's
| may appear on people's feeds that have never once even
| thought about _having_ any sort of system, and for them it's
| a big win. Once you're past surface level though, they
| generally don't have much more to offer, but are kind of fun
| to watch regardless.
| purple_ferret wrote:
| There are many things that can be optimized, but I don't think
| reading is one of them. I think being a heavy reader makes you
| better equipped to breeze through poor writing, for instance.
| It's just a basic form of deep work.
| dawg- wrote:
| I have noticed an interesting trend in our discourse about
| reading lately - there seems to be more and more moralizing and
| virtue signaling. So much self-help and "motivation porn" focuses
| on reading books, as if it's a magical activity that will unlock
| the best version of oneself. It's part of the new aspirational
| message - imagine yourself rich, happy, driving a Lamborghini,
| living off dividends from your stonks, and _reading books_. The
| people pushing that message get lots of eyeballs on their content
| because too many people have come to see reading as a lofty,
| obscure activity only fully accessible to the morally (and
| therefore financially) superior.
|
| It's almost like reading has been elevated to a kind of rare
| alchemy, whereby you can unlock secret cheat codes to life. The
| feeling that you're in rareified air to actually read books. I
| think anyone who regularly reads books for pleasure should easily
| see through this - reading is just a hobby. It's a fun,
| intellectually challenging, infinitely variable hobby with a very
| long and distinguished history. But ultimately you could learn
| just as much about yourself and the world by doing pottery,
| woodworking, kayaking, knitting or whatever else you like to do
| with your spare time. Making it into such a self-serious pursuit
| kills most of the joy (and value, for that matter).
|
| Let's try to make reading commonplace, something we almost take
| for granted. Of course I read books, you read books, we all read
| books. Everybody poops, and everybody reads books. Wouldn't that
| be great? In that world, a Youtube commercial or Medium article
| promising that you can unlock secret lamborghinis on the moon by
| reading exactly 18.75 books a week would suddenly be absurdly
| transparent in setting off everyone's bullshit meters. The
| question "read any good books lately?" could take on less of a
| challenging air and more conversational, the way so many people
| can casually drop 10 quotes from their favorite Netflix show
| they've been binge watching during their commute to work.
|
| Longform reading is magic because it's rarer than ever - it's an
| _art_ now, according to people like this author. That 's why we
| have so much performative reading, a cheap replacement for the
| real thing. I'd rather reading be boring and commonplace,
| something we do as easily as breathing.
| jogjayr wrote:
| > It's almost like reading has been elevated to a kind of rare
| alchemy, whereby you can unlock secret cheat codes to life
|
| I owe my career and livelihood to my ability to study, learn
| and retain information, and manipulate words and abstract
| symbols. In other words, to reading. Reading well, and quickly,
| is a magic superpower with practical benefits.
| Moodles wrote:
| Reminds me of the xkcd about older generations always
| complaining about younger generations no matter what, but with
| technology reversed.
|
| "Look at them reading! How sad! A completely linear storyline!
| Never changes with a re-do, not even a bit. Sitting there, in
| silence! No social interaction. That can't be good for their
| brains. Why don't they play video games instead?"
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| Reading is not a hobby. It is the foundation of civilization as
| we know it. The issue is with the dearth of actual _quality_
| reading that goes on today, when everyone congratulates
| themselves for reading Harry Potter.
| pjfin123 wrote:
| I think I've learned a lot more from Wikipedia rabbit holes
| than a lot of books I've read.
| Balgair wrote:
| One thing about reading is the ROI aspect.
|
| Internet comments take ~5 minutes to write, 30s to read (6x
| ROI).
|
| Blog posts are ~4 hours to write, 10m to read (24x).
|
| Magazine articles are ~3 months to write, 30m to read (960x).
|
| Books are ~5 years to write, 8h to read (1300x).
|
| Obviously, books are one of the best reading ROIs. Now, of
| course, you've got to balance the book quality, your interests,
| the thesis, the author's biases, etc. But _as a rule of thumb_
| , books are good investments of time. I think that's why they
| are this 'rare alchemy'. It's not that you unlock cheat codes
| to life, it's that they offer some of the best kismet to doing
| so.
| milansm wrote:
| What ROI? There are tweets more information dense than
| articles, articles more valuable than books.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Are you sure you're making a relative argument, and not
| just a statement about the existence of a counter-example?
| jodrellblank wrote:
| Internet comments have room for your current thought. Is
| there any reason to think that your current thought is in
| some way less informed by your experiences than a book is?
|
| Blog posts give you 4 hours to write, backed by years of life
| experience, probably based on things you've had on your mind
| for a while.
|
| Magazine articles pay you to write what the
| audience/advertisers want to see. They've got to be a net
| negative, convincing someone to write when they didn't
| necessarily want to, to say something they didn't necessarily
| want to say.
|
| Books are an item for a CV or resume, and a status symbol.
| Sure there are respected textbooks, but there are a lot of
| worse books out there than respected textbooks. Look at "Why
| we sleep" recently - years to write, torn apart by one blog
| post. Look at bestseller lists rigged by false purchases.
| Look at tech books where writing a book on a language or tech
| stack is almost more of a status grab, or at worst a "teach
| myself $thing by writing a book about it" than a long
| standing tome.
|
| (Also, 8 hours to read a book??)
| mujina93 wrote:
| I'm curious. What is the blog post that tore "Why we sleep"
| apart?
| hsitz wrote:
| Besides the idea that finance (i.e., ROI) is relevant at all
| to the decision to read a book, this doesn't even work as an
| ROI analogy. You're comparing the investment by one person
| (the person who writes the work) with the "return" that
| someone else gets (the person who reads it, though calling
| the fact that they can read it in less time than it took to
| someone to write it is hardly a "return").
|
| All this has nothing to do ROI, which measures the return
| that a single entity gets from an investment they make. If
| you want to make the ROI analogy work (which I don't think
| you should) one way to do it would perhaps be to compare the
| time invested with the amount of people the writer reaches.
| In that case the "ROI" of any method of writing could be
| super low (if nobody reads it) or super high (if everyone
| reads it).
|
| Another way to look at it would be that the time to read
| something you cite is actually the amount of "investment" by
| a reader. In that case I expect that many readers experience
| zero return (or even negative return) on their investment of
| 30s to read an internet post, while they may experience
| incalculable, life-changing return from 8 hours spent reading
| a book. Or, probably less often, vice versa.
| Balgair wrote:
| I think it works well as an analogy, thank you very much.
|
| If I want to learn about, I dunno, the ancient Maya, I can
| go ahead, book a trip to Mexico, go to all the museums, get
| my hands on the primary sources, etc. This process will
| take some amount of time, likely years. Im not talking
| about the knock-on effects, very great as they are, just
| the pure knowledge.
|
| _Or_ I can grab a few books and use the authors ' time and
| effort. This will take some number of hours, maybe days.
| But not years.
|
| Such books are a much better use of my time to learn about
| the Maya than reading NatGeo articles (though still good),
| or some blog posts (alright in quality) or a bunch of
| internet comments (still, maybe good here and there). Yes,
| of course it's a mesh of all these things. But I believe
| that well researched content (mostly that still means a
| book) is the best 'bang for your minute' that you can get.
|
| I'll put it this way: I'm trying to invest some limited
| amount of time in learning more about something or enjoying
| my time fruitfully. With what little time I have, the best
| way to learn more about something is (typically) via a
| book. Enjoyment, sure, it varies more, but books tend to be
| more, I dunno, rich (?) in a way.
| fenderbluesjr wrote:
| I see your point and I think the messaging about books is often
| a bit wishy washy, however I really do think books are a
| different beast.
|
| I read a lot of biographies of legendary figures. Whether its
| Stalin, Oppenheimer, Teddy Roosevelt or Robert Moses, they are
| nearly always big readers. They tend to treat it quite
| seriously too. Not a few books per year, but 50-100+.. Teddy
| Roosevelt had 4 hours~ of his days' schedule blocked off for
| reading particular books, during an election campaign!
|
| For me (and I believe, for them too), reading is serious
| business and the rewards really are great. This is not 'curl up
| by the fire with a nice story' and I will suddenly incur some
| magical benefits. Rather there are some things that are not
| easily achieved otherwise. Books allow you to efficiently deep
| dive and when you dedicate lots of hours to it, you can really
| make staggering progress. Reading _all_ of the books on a
| particular topic becomes an achievable task. I could spend some
| hours scouring the internet trying to learn about a particular
| topic, or I could blast through a 200-300 page book on the
| topic. When you start treating books as your primary source of
| learning about new topics, and you build up a sort of grit for
| getting through books, you become a bit of an information
| processing machine and it is a bit magical.
|
| I nearly always have a stack of books on my desk now and I just
| plow through them one after another. I would never absorb so
| much useful information reading articles on the internet or
| watching videos. Books are #1 for efficiency..
|
| Right now I'm primarily reading Shirer's The Rise And Fall of
| The Third Reich.. It's a massive book (1100+ pages) and will
| take me over 2 weeks. It's hard to imagine how I could possibly
| get this much information on the same topic any other way. Try
| and find some documentary series? Follow my nose on wikipedia
| clicking around? Crap options, mostly. If I do this with two or
| three more books, by almost any measure, I have become somebody
| who knows _a lot_ about WW2 and nazi germany. Now follow
| process with many other topics..
| herbertl wrote:
| I definitely appreciate this. Your point reminds me of what
| Beeple once said about art and creative work:
|
| "Looking at creativity as something that's much less precious
| will help you stick with it long-term. Along with that, people
| around you will be a lot more supportive if you're a bit more
| flexible and a bit less douchey about it. Like you're not so
| pretentious in terms of, 'I'm an artist, I need to blah blah
| blah.' If you take it down a notch and just look at it as
| something you have to do today, just like taking a dump or
| eating supper, then it will be more sustainable in the long
| run."
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/3/21046790/beeple-mike-winke...
| criddell wrote:
| > imagine yourself rich, happy, driving a Lamborghini, living
| off dividends from your stonks, and reading books
|
| I was immediately reminded of Lambo Tai. I still think it's a
| parody of something...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv1RJTHf5fk
| dawg- wrote:
| Yup, that's who I had in mind. He is a sort of patron saint
| of this cultural trend, I think
| lmarcos wrote:
| > reading is just a hobby. It's a fun, intellectually
| challenging, infinitely variable hobby with a very long and
| distinguished history. But ultimately you could learn just as
| much about yourself and the world by doing pottery,
| woodworking, kayaking, knitting or whatever else you like to do
| with your spare time. Making it into such a self-serious
| pursuit kills most of the joy (and value, for that matter)
|
| Definitely, but reading is easier :)
| mejutoco wrote:
| I love books, and wish for the world you describe. To me books
| are a sort of alchemy, indeed (I would not use the word hobby,
| but I see what you mean. And I love pottery). It is serious
| business, learning the alphabet, putting oneself or others to
| sleep, enjoying fiction or getting an insight into a technical
| problem.
|
| There will always be someone who wants the credit without the
| effort (I read x books a month, look at me) -- the looks
| without the substance -- and yes, it is annoying, but at least
| we have books :)
| dawg- wrote:
| > at least we have books :)
|
| Agree! I admittedly put on my "critic hat" writing that post
| so maybe it came off a bit contrarian.
|
| But you're absolutely right. If it's a choice between dealing
| with some shallowness, or not having books in the public
| consciousness at all? I'll gladly tolerate the self-help
| crowd slightly overselling the promise of reading.
| tines wrote:
| > But ultimately you could learn just as much about yourself
| and the world by doing pottery, woodworking, kayaking, knitting
| or whatever else you like to do with your spare time.
|
| I agree with the rest of your post, but this sentence is a hard
| disagree. Books let you live a version of the lives of other
| more intelligent people from almost any point in history. How
| can pottery and kayaking do that?
| tharkun__ wrote:
| Kayaking at least (not sure how much concentration pottery
| needs) would give you a _lot_ of time to just stare at the
| beauty of nature and think. Now this may or may not result in
| anything, but if you are reasonably intelligent and trying to
| improve yourself but you are lacking the 'downtime' to just
| let your mind wander then kayaking might do the trick for
| you. Best combined with a good book for when you're in camp,
| so that you can read some other bright people's ideas and
| incorporate them into your thinking process, the pros and
| cons of what they're saying for your own life etc.
| jk7tarYZAQNpTQa wrote:
| I dearly love both sports and reading, but they are very
| different activities that give you happiness in very
| different ways. Kayaking won't teach you quantum mechanics
| or ancient Greek history. So from a certain knowledge-
| adquisition point of view, pottery and kayaking are way
| less efficient, if not a waste of time. Just like reading
| is a waste of time from the physical happiness POV.
|
| As with most things in life, a good balance is needed.
| [deleted]
| dawg- wrote:
| > Books let you live a version of the lives of other more
| intelligent people from almost any point in history. How can
| pottery and kayaking do that?
|
| I do agree with your statement about books, because I
| personally love reading. Henry David Thoreau wrote a chapter
| of Walden called "Reading", and put it way better than I ever
| could:
|
| > "To read well, that is, to read true books in a true
| spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the
| reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day
| esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes
| underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to
| this object. Books must be read as deliberately and
| reservedly as they were written."
|
| But pottery, kayaking, or a number of other hobbies can also
| make you a better person.
|
| Pottery can teach you patience, flow, adapting to mistakes,
| and turning an idea into something real. It exercises your
| creative muscles. Kayaking gets you in touch with nature, and
| gets you physically active (both of which have proven
| cognitive benefits). You can learn about your local geography
| and history by exploring waterways. Being on the water all
| day without a watch can give you a new perspective on time
| and the natural rhythms of a day in your own life.
|
| The best part is that, if you are a curious type, those
| activities will probably lead you to reading anyway. You
| spend a whole day doing pottery - then go read up on the
| history of pottery. You confront the amazing fact that you
| are learning the same technology with your hands that allowed
| humans 8,000 years ago to invent the brewing of wine, to
| efficiently carry water to their fixed settlements, even to
| make primitive batteries which served as the centerpieces of
| religious shrines. Your hands are following after Og, the
| neighborhood potter from Babylon, who erected human
| civilization from scratch out of the literal dirt a few
| thousand years before God breathed life into Adam from a pile
| of dust (what's that line about "life imitating art" again?).
| That's infinitely more intellectually engaging than just
| reading a book in a vacuum. It's the kind of practical
| insight that is almost life-affirming.
|
| During your weekend kayaking trip you paddle by the ruins of
| an old textile mill on the banks of the river. Your interest
| is piqued, you go home and read about that textile mill, the
| history of textile production, you learn about the fact that
| they named your hometown after a silk-producing region in
| China when some eccentric entrepreneur made a failed attempt
| to import silkworms and start a silk industry there. And you
| got to be right there in the flesh where it happened. You are
| now a better person; you have a sense of being grounded in
| your local community, a sense of place, a sense of history
| derived from something you have directly experienced with
| your 5 senses.
|
| But most importantly, all three activities (pottery,
| kayaking, books) give you access to a community of other
| people who are also interested in them. Learning from
| intelligent dead and/or inaccessible people from books is a
| great pursuit. But exchanging thoughts, connecting, and
| learning from a community of real, everyday, stupid, in-the-
| weeds people just like you and me is arguably just as
| valuable, if not more.
| tines wrote:
| Sure, I'm not saying that other activities don't have
| value, I was commenting only on your phrase "just as much."
| George Martin wrote, "A reader lives a thousand lives
| before he dies, and the one who doesn't read, lives just
| one." Whether that is valuable or not is, as you say,
| debatable, but it's certainly not possible any other way.
| dawg- wrote:
| Just to be clear, I agree with you 100% that accessing
| other people's best thoughts through reading is very
| valuable and very awesome.
|
| On the other hand, you don't need a thousand other lives
| to live one good one. As Thoreau wrote, "It takes more
| than one day to extract the wealth of a day." And as a
| Buddhist saying goes, "You can learn everything about the
| entire universe from the head of a pin".
| tines wrote:
| > You can learn everything about the entire universe from
| the head of a pin
|
| This is just not true haha.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| It isn't true that a reader lives a thousand lives,
| either, they live one life, and it includes reading, but
| you weren't nitpicking over that distinction.
| tines wrote:
| I didn't interpret either one literally and was being
| equally nitpicky.
| dawg- wrote:
| Understandable to disagree, you're not gonna learn to
| drive a car or do calculus or speak another language from
| the head of a pin. Nevertheless, I think there's a
| valuable philosophical perspective in it.
| matthewfcarlson wrote:
| I agree with you on most of these points and would argue
| the defining traits you're putting forth is curiosity and
| some grit. You're curious about pottery and will learn
| about it but with enough grit and obsession that you'll
| actually do it and once you've done it once you want to
| know more. Most people I know (including myself) have a
| tough time staying curious once you get that initial taste.
| You see the cool textile mill and in the moment wish you
| knew more but by the time you get home your mind is
| elsewhere.
| dawg- wrote:
| Yeah that's a great thought - a combination of curiosity
| and persistence. For me, the curiosity is the easy part.
| The thought of "Oh I should go learn more about that,
| might be something interesting there" comes along often
| enough. It's the follow-through, or the grit as you put
| it, that is tough for me.
| ravitation wrote:
| What I think is somewhat interesting, is that there are
| numerous pieces of his/her comment, like the piece you
| quoted, that essentially imply the need for articles like the
| one posted here.
|
| The idea that you can "learn just as much about [...] the
| world" from things other than what, until very recently, has
| been the primary mode of inter-generational human
| communication is pure absurdity. An idea whose absurdity is
| illustrated by all of human history. The fact that this
| requires explanation or demonstration is the reason that the
| current "trend" of elevating reading to a "rare alchemy"
| exists, because it essentially is if you're coming from a
| place of treating all activities as equal methods of
| learning.
| dawg- wrote:
| Ah! You quoted me but you put a very convenient [...] in
| place of learning about "yourself". I think the reason you
| did that is because your criticism is only coherent if you
| zero in on learning about "the world" and leave out that
| messy other business of self-discovery. But learning about
| yourself is pretty important for personal growth, too, in
| my opinion so important that I even listed it first when
| writing that sentence ;)
| nescioquid wrote:
| I think his argument still holds when you also include
| "about yourself": in the 18th century people recognized
| the novel as having a power to help us exercise "moral
| imagination". I fail to see why reading cannot help one
| understand oneself. EDIT: and I see that you were not
| arguing against that, in any case.
| gen_greyface wrote:
| Doing pottery and kayaking is a better choice for me than
| reading someone do pottery and kayaking.
|
| Edit: and not everything can be learnt from books
| Ma8ee wrote:
| But I can't lead armies in battles or travel under the sea
| or challenge a rival to a swords duel. In such cases I'm
| accepting the reading as substitute.
| nwienert wrote:
| Sports are often pretty close to battle, and you can
| learn fencing. Most great writers about swordsmanship
| could never have written about it without having used
| them for years...
|
| I have a whole long piece I want to write about this some
| day but physical experience is about 100x richer than
| reading. If you read about the best restaurant in some
| place, and tell me it, your ability to convince me it's
| good is very weak. Whereas someone who ate at a hundred
| places in that cuisine could write a book about it. They
| could convince me only because they have first hand
| knowledge.
|
| It's funny in that way: the best writing comes from
| people who experienced the most, and yet people get
| attached to reading as the best way to learn!
| Ma8ee wrote:
| No, sports are not pretty close to battles. People
| killing and getting killed makes a difference. My
| emotional state would be very different if I would meet a
| rival at dawn for a fight on life and death than if I'm
| fencing for points in a club. And most importantly, by
| reading I get the thoughts, feelings and motivations from
| other people, which teaches me different ways to see the
| world and empathy.
|
| And if we for a moment ignore the fact that reading about
| food is one of the most boring things I can imagine,
| reading about someone else's experience of food let you
| see aspects you aren't aware of which your own
| experiences richer.
|
| People don't read as a substitute for living their own
| life. People read because it enriches the life they live.
| Not only in the moment of reading, but also in everything
| else they do.
| mcguire wrote:
| Currently reading _Greek and Roman Naval Warfare A Study
| of Strategy, Tactics, and Ship Design from Salamis (480
| B.C.) to Actium (31 B.C.)_ by William Rodgers (the 1964
| edition).
|
| While in general I agree with you that experience is the
| best way to gain understanding, there are rather a lot of
| topics that are hard to get experience with.
| nwienert wrote:
| There's a lot of history certainly. Though I'd rather
| read historians with as much physical connection as
| possible - familial ties, visiting ruins, practicing the
| traditions, speaking the language etc.
| cratermoon wrote:
| > not everything can be learnt from books
|
| I'd argue that you can't actually _learn_ anything from
| reading. Mortimer Adler argues in "How to Read a Book"
| that you can only actually learn by action, which means
| doing something with what you read.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| Can I learn from what you wrote, or do I need to do
| something to learn I can't learn anything from reading?
| cratermoon wrote:
| touche.
|
| The only way to test it is to not put it into action,
| then see if you learned it, but then ... that process of
| testing it is an action, so... ???
|
| I applaud your meta-inquiry.
| codersteve wrote:
| That's really taking it out of context.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| Have employer/employee relationships always been so squeezed,
| so antagonistic, that the aspirational message included "living
| off dividends from your stonks" and "leanFIRE" because the only
| thing worth aspiring to is getting out from wage slavery? It
| can't be a healthy economy when so much of the public
| discussion is how unpleasant work is, and not because the work
| itself is bad, but because the
| management/expectations/timekeeping/etc. is?
|
| Medical staff, obviously in COVID times, basically any retail
| worker, basically any callcenter worker, anyone in an
| Enterprise company as per the film Office Space, people working
| anything from agriculture to factory work to Amazon warehouses,
| to delivery drivers timed for the amount of seconds they can
| step out of the van at each stop, to developers hating on
| unreasonable expectations of delivery time and price, to
| takeovers and downsizing leaving fewer people with more work,
| to individual craftspeople expected to compete on price with
| mass manufacture, to ridiculous job hopping advice (change jobs
| every 18 months, never don't be applying for jobs!) to
| decreases in loyalty and trust.
|
| The aspirational messages have shifted from "thank God you have
| food for the day" to "own a home" to "get a stable job" to "a
| gold watch for long service and a pension" to "flip houses for
| money or rental income" to "desperately try to get rich quick
| and get out". And then what else is there but escapism with
| Lamborghinis and stories?
| [deleted]
| burntoutfire wrote:
| Work was always unpleasant and undesirable.
|
| The concept of "wage slavery" was coined back in ancient
| Greece (i.e. the people who had to work for a living were not
| considered really free). The Puritanian work ethics, which
| consider work to be a virtue and something of innate value,
| are more a weird quirk of some Western countries rather than
| an universal stance. Basically, through all times and places,
| most people dreamt of being wealthy, so that their needs
| would be met and they wouldn't have to work. BTW now this
| dream is monetized in the form of various national lotteries.
| matthewh806 wrote:
| This is a great comment that really hits the nail on the head
| for me about how I feel when I see articles like this.
|
| I'm not going to deny that reading more effectively &
| efficiently can be desirable in certain technical reading where
| the aim is to absorb, digest & learn the material. But in the
| general sense its kind of the antithesis of why I would read
| anything. I don't want to knock off as many paper backs as
| quickly as I can so that I can rattle off a meaningless number
| and increase my cultural capital.
|
| I also find it weird and slightly creepy that people elevate
| book reading to this almost infinite pedestal. If people get
| more enjoyment and fulfilment out of playing video games, for
| example, then that's an equally valid use of time. More so if
| they're not interested in reading.
|
| For me it comes down to if you enjoy reading in and of itself
| as a hobby then you'll hopefully find time to do it and be
| enriched because of it. But just trying to force yourself to
| blitz through as "effectively" as possible loses the magic.
| Especially when you consider how much time and thought the very
| best writers put into every single construction.
| dougmwne wrote:
| I've been thinking about the halo around books on and off for
| years.
|
| I think whatever special value books used to represent in our
| society from before the internet is long gone. I remember the
| pre-internet times when the information world you had access to
| was small. You could consume silly low-information things on
| the tv or radio or you could read a book on the topic, which
| had a much higher information density and chance of being
| correct. There was no one you could talk with about a detailed
| topic unless you had maybe built up a professional circle you
| met with regularly, so a book was your only opportunity to
| "converse" with an expert. If you paid thousands of dollars,
| you could take a class on the topic and have an knowledgeable
| person take you on a basic guided tour of some of the good
| books on the topic. You would never have been able to get
| Warren Buffet's detailed thoughts on the economy without
| reading his book.
|
| In the post-internet world, information is cheap and plentiful.
| Endless hours of talks and interviews by major thinkers are
| available to all. With a quick Google, you can find people
| discussing any topic under the sun. Micro-niche content on all
| topics are being produced for YouTube, the likes of which you
| would have never seen on the Discovery Channel. Dozens of free
| courses are available on all major topics and you can cherry
| pick just the pieces you are most interested in. Most
| information can be just-in-time delivered to you at just the
| moment you need it. Books are not obsolete in this environment,
| but just another one of the dozens of formats through which you
| could consume detailed information on a topic.
|
| And finally, our collective societal values change slowly in
| comparison to the pace of technological change. Books were far
| and away the best way to access information for so long that it
| has a sticky association with class, intelligence, wealth and
| wit. But really, if you are getting all your information from
| books, you are an anachronism and definitively behind the
| curve. Sometimes I think of Raphael's School of Athens and
| think that the conversions I've been privy to for the past 10
| years on HN must far surpass anything they might have said to
| each other.
| mcguire wrote:
| But keep in mind, data is not information, information is not
| knowledge, and knowledge is not understanding.
|
| A quick question: Is the plot summary on the Wikipedia page
| for Hamlet equivalent to watching the play, or to reading the
| play with timeouts to look up the references?
| dougmwne wrote:
| Hamlet is a good example of the non-primacy of books.
| Hamlet was meant to be performed, not read silently. It's
| far better to have access to a recording or taped
| performance to study it than the text alone. And yes, a
| plot summary or additional commentaries could be a big help
| as well. In our current information golden age I can pull
| up a dozen full performances on YouTube including a 360
| degree VR experience where you can stand on stage with the
| actors. In 1990 such a thing would have been pure science
| fiction and you would have never encountered a person to
| even discuss the topic of serious Shakespearian study.
| pricecomstock wrote:
| I think there is value to reading 20 10-minute articles on
| the internet. I think there is a different kind of value to
| reading 1 200-minute book.
|
| I like the knowledge I've gained from reading lots of
| articles. The problem comes up because I have to very
| intentionally choose to read a long book instead of
| defaulting to many short articles. Over time and in large
| enough quantity, this feels subjectively bad. Like I'm
| overloaded with information and lots of different
| perspectives, but without much of the depth, nuance, or
| understanding that can come from really sitting with one
| topic, world, story, or point of view in a deep and extended
| way.
|
| I think the internet is amazing for providing the torrent of
| information it does. I just found that, for me, I was drawn
| to the bright, shiny, always-new, always-now nature of it at
| the expense of reading books. As I've made more of an effort
| to read lately, books feel like a different kind of
| information intake, and I like diversifying in that way.
| dougmwne wrote:
| I agree that social media and news media in particular can
| be an information torrent and very quantity over quality.
| The best that can be said about it is that it can be up to
| the minute timely, which is occasionally very important.
| And the news pre-internet was not much better than post-
| internet. It's always been a pretty bad source of nuanced
| info.
|
| I don't think books are dead. I read books. I just think
| they are no longer the only game in town. For example, it
| was often said that through a book, you could step into
| someone else's experience. I had a great time reading Red
| Mars. Now we have VR and I have come closer to standing on
| the surface of Mars than anyone else in history; far better
| than imagining Kim Stanley imagining it. The huge expansion
| of new digital and interactive media is a lasting win for
| education and human knowledge. I think we all need a
| reminder of that in the trough of tech disillusionment.
| Bakary wrote:
| I think there's a lot of cargo-culting around books being
| magical in and of themselves, but there is a subtle trap in
| this line of thinking.
|
| The micro-niche aspect of the internet is unrivaled for
| straightforward, practical information. I won't question
| that. That said, if you want the detailed thoughts of an
| expert on some topic, they will by definition be in a book or
| book-analog online format since no other medium allows for
| this sort of efficient and unforgiving long-form development
| of thoughts. Online courses and blog posts tend to refer to
| books anyway, or to summarize them. Videos can offer
| information as well but the format itself constrains the
| amount of information you can cram into the work, and the
| incentive to editorialize is greater.
|
| But in a deeper sense it's not even about the books but the
| applicability and context of the information that is gleaned
| regardless of the format. Ten year's worth of HN can be
| impressive, but it mostly gives you perspective on HN users
| and which topics interest them to begin with. Just like the
| School of Athens gave a specific perspective, HN will give
| you a specific framework from which you may or may not have
| to escape eventually. To name another example, if you start
| reading non-popular history books it becomes clear that
| different experts can have radically different views of the
| same events. In turn you start to realize that the pop-
| history books you've read are so distorted as to be almost
| useless. Similarly, the internet can yield astounding
| quantities of information, but if they are optimized for
| views, reinforce an echo chamber, or are repeating ideas as a
| secondary source, it won't matter. It's seductive to feel
| this power at our fingertips but the end practical result
| tends to be the same, since developing thoughts takes effort.
| More importantly, time remains the true barrier.
| dawg- wrote:
| There is definitely a ton of value to be had from learning on
| the internet. Watching a 2 hour 92nd street Y debate on
| Youtube can be just as enlightening as reading a great book.
| But I still think books have a certain staying power due to
| their format.
|
| The rigor of longform reading is still something special. I
| know I am prone to over-quoting from Thoreau, but as he said,
| "What is taken as argument in the auditorium is too often
| later found to be rhetoric in the study."
| guidoism wrote:
| It's not that books are better than YouTube, in many cases
| (like visualizing math) books are much worse than video, but
| for a lot of topics books are the only source that goes in
| depth on a topic. It won't necessarily be the case a hundred
| years from now, but right now if you want to study a topic
| that had been around for more than 30 years you'll probably
| have to invest time in books. And the part that isn't
| mentioned here is that most of those books are out of print
| so you will need to dig through libraries and maybe even use
| the Inter-library loan system.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Is reading good for you because other forms of entertainment
| have gotten worse? I suspect reading is so great because time
| spent reading is not time spent toiling away on social media or
| other shallow distractions. The same reason tea is good for you
| simply because it's not soda.
|
| Or do successful people tend to read because successful people
| don't tend to get dragged into shallow activities. The reading
| didn't make them successful- the reading is a side affect of
| already having that trait.
|
| I dislike the article's take on reading for pleasure with a
| goofy emoji. It mentions reading to broaden your world and make
| connections between disparate things. Reading for pleasure also
| accomplishes this.
| Bakary wrote:
| Reading is vague. It could mean anything, and can absolutely
| be shallow. Successful people just have a portion of their
| life that produces something valuable to others. You can be a
| celebrated boxer while not even knowing how to read. Taleb
| once mentioned the story of a futures trader who made a
| killing with green lumber while thinking it was literally
| lumber painted green. The trader didn't know the first thing
| about the product itself, but they knew and could perform the
| actions that really mattered to the goal of trading.
|
| Many professions require reading to be successful, but it's
| more the case that getting the necessary information would
| not be realistically possible without reading at some point.
| People in that position don't read for its own sake in their
| work life (whether they read for pleasure is another story),
| they go find the information they need in the format it
| exists in. This is then confused as "reading makes you
| successful" but it is as trivial a statement as "having the
| right information makes you successful"
| frockington1 wrote:
| I suspect that people who disdain reading for pleasure have
| never tried it as an adult. In every book there is a unique
| perspective and story that you can learn from. As an example,
| I recently read the Wheel of Time series because I like
| fantasy novels. Post-reading, I have a greater understanding
| of personal growth and how people change over time due to
| life experiences. It wasn't a nirvana state that was reached,
| but it gave me a unique perspective of people in various
| scenarios, many relatable to the real world.
| dawg- wrote:
| Do "successful" people in fact read more? It _might_ be true,
| it certainly sounds good. But I don 't know if we can so
| easily make that assumption. I recall a section of "The
| Millionaire Next Door" where most of the people interviewed
| chalked up their success to some combination of "Luck" and
| "Hard Work". Education was a bit lower on the list, and I
| don't remember anything about reading in one's spare time.
| ssivark wrote:
| Note similarities with the discourse about getting a full
| night's sleep, and eating healthier :-)
|
| I think all of these sometimes play the role of "premium
| mediocre" virtue signaling.
| kiba wrote:
| Reading books for fun is OK, but very few people read book
| strategically.
| jasonv wrote:
| I agree and disagree, and disagree because in the world we live
| in, we read more words than ever, but reading books -- things
| that people craft over time, sometimes with facts and
| references, and that are stable enough elements in the world
| that we can have long, thoughtful, referenced reviews and
| discussions about -- probably less so than in the past.
|
| We don't "review" and discuss blog posts for years on end, the
| way you can read and discuss books, and books from other
| countries, in other languages, from previous centuries.
|
| I joke that most parties devolve into a discussion about "what
| have you watched lately?" and where that discussion used to
| include movies and films, people at parties mostly talk about
| TV shows.
|
| So books, for those who are still fitting them into their
| lifestyle, even after work and family and internet, are
| slightly more rarefied than they used to be. Moreso than we
| probably need.
| j7ake wrote:
| The worst is some arbitrary goal of reading X books per year.
| That clearly optimises for short, easy to read books (eg New
| York Times Best Sellers) and avoids more technical and
| difficult books (eg Art of Computer Programming)
| Moncefmd wrote:
| That criticism is warranted but I feel that having a "goal"
| of books to read is a very useful tool to develop the habit
| of reading in people that never read.
|
| As for the type of people that do not typically read, I would
| encourage them to read what they would love reading (even if
| its NYT Best sellers) until they love reading.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| The worst is the obsession with min/maxing books and disdain
| for fiction around here as easy and plebeian.
| [deleted]
| misiti3780 wrote:
| I agree. I used to try to read X books a year, participate in
| Goodreads year in books, etc. This year I decided to stop
| consuming 90% of news and 99% of social media (mostly
| instagram) and try to read at least one 800+ page book per
| month (usually historical biographies).
|
| After reading two of these larger books in 2021, I feel like
| (and this is nothing new or profound) that concentration
| really is a lost art and it just takes practice. I also feel
| like these large books probably help with retaining info
| because you spend so much time in them, being inculcated on
| the subject. It's kinda like a giant monthly experiment in
| SRS.
| jk7tarYZAQNpTQa wrote:
| Setting a goal, even if arbitrary, is positive if an
| increased in the measured activity is positive. I think we'll
| all agree that, in most cases, reading more is a positive
| outcome. Instead of "read X books" think "run Y miles", do
| you still feel it's "the worst"?
|
| > That clearly optimises for short, easy to read books (eg
| New York Times Best Sellers) and avoids more technical and
| difficult books (eg Art of Computer Programming)
|
| Some will "cheat", but most won't. Even if you cheat, is
| reading 15 short, bad books better or worse than reading 0?
| dawg- wrote:
| >Even if you cheat, is reading 15 short, bad books better
| or worse than reading 0?
|
| If it's done as a chore to hit a certain number, or in a
| performative spirit to show others how much one has read, I
| think that person would get more value spending those hours
| doing something in which they have an authentic interest.
|
| Also, it's not an all-or-nothing prospect. A better
| question might be, "Is it better to read 15 short, bad
| books or 3 longer, more challenging books that one may not
| even fully understand on the first reading?"
| mcguire wrote:
| Please try to avoid gatekeeping in public, particularly with
| regards to what people read.
|
| Please?
| goostavos wrote:
| Please try to avoid gatekeeping gatekeepers with regards to
| where they gatekeep.
|
| Also, is it actually "gatekeeping" to say that arbitrary
| numeric goals optimize for a different kind of reading than
| what you'd get with different kinds of goals?
| matthewfcarlson wrote:
| I love to read and always have since I was a kid. Over the
| years I'd just fallen out of the habit, similar to how I
| don't watch movies much anymore. I set a goal to read a large
| number of books since I'd slowly collected a long list and
| just went in order. If I wasn't enjoying a book as much as I
| thought I would, back to the library it went. I found it
| quite helpful to have a goal in mind.
|
| I will agree with you that the temptation was there just to
| read fluff. I think having the list effectively mitigated
| that. The only downside is that many books reference other
| books so the list would just expand exponentially.
|
| Am I magically able to access the secrets of universe just
| because I read a lot? No. But when people ask me "read any
| good books lately" I can talk about the new Brandon Sanderson
| book, neuroscience of aging, or the art of non violent
| communication and the interesting parallels between all three
| of them.
|
| Reading does make you more interesting but so does watching
| Sundance film festival movies or listening to obscure
| podcasts. Anything off the beaten path is interesting by
| definition.
| dominotw wrote:
| > I have noticed an interesting trend in our discourse about
| reading lately
|
| >imagine yourself rich, happy, driving a Lamborghini, living
| off dividends from your stonks, and reading books.
|
| This is bill gates, warren buffet. He says this is his secret,
| who am I to question someone who has actually done it.
|
| https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Summer-Books-202...
|
| "Whether you're looking for a distraction or just spending a
| lot more time at home, you can't beat reading a book. "
| dawg- wrote:
| I don't see Bill Gates attributing reading to his success at
| all. This is just a blog post saying he likes to read when
| he's bored around the house?
| dominotw wrote:
| > I don't see Bill Gates attributing reading to his success
| at all.
|
| He did many many times.
|
| "Every book teaches me something new or helps me see things
| differently. I was lucky to have parents who encouraged me
| to read. Reading fuels a sense of curiosity about the
| world, which I think helped drive me forward in my career
| and in the work that I do now with my foundation."
|
| https://time.com/4786837/bill-gates-books-reading/
| blondin wrote:
| oh you don't say! same goes for writing.
| tmarice wrote:
| > Longform reading is magic because it's rarer than ever - it's
| an art now, according to people like this author.
|
| Adler wrote "How to Read a Book" (which this article is about)
| originally in 1940, I wouldn't call that "now". HTRAB is a bit
| dry and over-analytical, but it's definitely practical. It
| enumerates all questions that you should ask yourself while
| reading analytically, and while this may sound like an
| overkill, unless you're paying attention, you'll likely skip
| some of the steps. I read many great books only to find that
| they completely evaporated from my head in a week or two. Isn't
| it a waste of time to spend months reading Brothers Karamazov,
| and not be changed by that experience? Reading for
| entertainment and information already is easy as breathing for
| most people, but for reading for understanding to be as easy as
| breathing, you need to deliberately practice it.
|
| While Adler's advice is valid, it lacks another important
| component, and that's discussion. A good book club (reading the
| great books, not whatever's on top of the NYT bestseller list)
| will change the entire experience and increase knowledge
| retention.
| Bakary wrote:
| I really don't see the point of all that productivity in every
| facet of life. It sounds like cargo-culting to me. Generally,
| people who do fascinating things don't need to analyze their own
| productivity since they are naturally drawn to their projects and
| work on them on their own and for their own sake. People who do
| things out of ambition don't need the boost either, by
| definition. And for people who just want to enjoy life, this sort
| of thinking is antithetical to what they see as worthwhile.
| Therefore this content can only appeal to those in a state of
| dissatisfaction and confusion as to what they want out of
| existence, but does not provide them with any sort of useful
| answer.
|
| From a cursory glance at the channel, it's all very ironic: the
| guy shares tips about having become a doctor and done extremely
| well in medical school, but quit after two years because his
| channel about productivity was taking off. Don't get me wrong, I
| respect the hustle and the cashflow, but it highlights the
| circularity of the whole enterprise. The productivity is
| channeled to create content on productivity that is itself of no
| particular value except as entertainment for unproductive and
| anxious people. It's like those online courses on becoming rich
| that are themselves the source of the wealth. From an individual
| perspective, it's great that the author can make a lot more money
| with a lot less stress compared to medical work, but from a
| societal perspective it seems like we've created an ocean of
| perverse incentives.
| a9h74j wrote:
| As you suggest, there is something so transparently ironic or
| _off_ about his path in particular. For me his videos were part
| of a quick off-ramp from the productivity porn.
|
| In the irony department, I am reminded of a woman who once
| billed herself as the smartest person alive or something. My
| thought was: You are the smartest person alive, and you are
| writing articles for the Sunday supplement in my local
| newspaper?
| [deleted]
| mcguire wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_vos_Savant
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