[HN Gopher] The Reading Obsession
___________________________________________________________________
The Reading Obsession
Author : _ttg
Score : 95 points
Date : 2021-11-01 14:29 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (neckar.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (neckar.substack.com)
| Zababa wrote:
| I have an article called "Consume less, produce more"
| (https://www.chrismytton.com/2020/09/24/consume-less-produce-...)
| in my bookmarks toolbar that's always visible as a reminder of
| that.
| luigi23 wrote:
| "Don't get me wrong: I love to read. But what ticks me off is
| when a specific behavior gets taken out of context and
| fetishized."
|
| Ha, my hot take - book lovers love to have an item/collectible
| rather than the content. It's mostly signaling and, for some
| people, reading is quite fun (a nice bonus!).
|
| No wonder - the numbers of active readers are very low, but all
| those self-help gurus and experts praising books are doing a
| disservice to the point of reading books - enjoying them,
| highlighting, making it your own. Later a problem arises - some
| of my friends complained that they don't remember a lot from read
| books. Of course, since reading is A RiTuAl!
|
| It's amusing when I say that 'I hate books'. But usually I read
| more (books) than my peers, I just don't like the form factor of
| the book. It's heavy, making notes is clunky compared to Kindle
| or any other ereader. I don't care about all that fluff and
| 'smell of paper'.
|
| Reminds me of this funny twitter drama when one author was
| cutting big books into smaller pieces:
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvgmxd/cutting-books-in-half...
| Loughla wrote:
| I mean, you aren't wrong about some people, who buy books as a
| status sign.
|
| But, as a counterpoint - I buy physical books because (a) my
| eyes hurt when reading an e-reader; (b) paper-white are laggy
| so far, that's annoying; and (c) I am easily, EASILY distracted
| when on a device that faces the internet. The only way to get
| immediate response, no eye-strain, and no access to technology
| is a physical book.
| tomtheelder wrote:
| > book lovers love to have an item/collectible rather than the
| content
|
| I think it's that they (I guess I'd say we) love to have the
| item _in addition_ to the content. I read books because I like
| to read. I will happily acknowledge that I buy physical books
| for mostly nostalgic reasons, and for the added benefit that I
| can give/lend them to people easily. Physical books were such a
| massive part of my childhood that the experience of reading one
| conjures up decades of positive memories and emotions.
|
| That said I don't think it's a signaling thing, really. At
| least not for most folks. I mean I don't think there are very
| many people out there accumulating books in the hopes that
| people who come to their house will see them and think
| something about them.
| bena wrote:
| I have the hopeful notion that one day I can re-read a book.
| But there are few books I've actually read twice or more.
| jrussino wrote:
| I bought a kindle years ago and love the convenience and
| compactness of having all of my reading material on that
| little device.
|
| Now I have two young children, and I've gradually started to
| build up a collection of physical books at home - not just
| children's books, but books for myself as well. I realized at
| some point that:
|
| * I want them to know (I would even say "take for granted")
| that we value reading
|
| * I want them to have easy access to lots of good books at or
| slightly above their current reading/maturity level
|
| * I want them to see the sort of things their parents are
| interested in (they rarely see me reading for pleasure, even
| though it's one of my favorite things to do, because I mostly
| do that when they're asleep).
|
| There is definitely an intentional signalling component to
| this, but it's not about signalling to the outside world for
| status, it's about signalling to our kids/each other about
| the kinds of things that we value.
|
| In addition:
|
| > Physical books were such a massive part of my childhood
| that the experience of reading one conjures up decades of
| positive memories and emotions
|
| My hope is that we can create an environment for them that is
| conducive to exactly this sort of experience.
|
| As for the third point: when I was a kid I stumbled upon a
| collection of books at my grandmother's house, mostly sci-fi
| (Dune, Asimov, some Vonnegut), that my Dad had read when he
| was young. It introduced me to a whole world of literature
| that would become very important to me, and also gave me a
| glimpse into a side of his personality that I wasn't aware
| of.
| handrous wrote:
| > It's amusing when I say that 'I hate books'. But usually I
| read more (books) than my peers, I just don't like the form
| factor of the book. It's heavy, making notes is clunky compared
| to Kindle or any other ereader. I don't care about all that
| fluff and 'smell of paper'.
|
| Paper books are a very different form factor, with some
| definite UI benefits over ebooks--though how important those
| are depends on the book, and what the reader's doing with it.
| The size & weight cost of paper books is, undeniably, huge,
| though. (also, they're impossible to pirate in bulk at ~zero
| cost...)
|
| Put it this way: if ebook readers--the devices themselves--cost
| the same as paper books, but each one could only hold one book,
| and that one book couldn't be replaced, I don't think many
| people would choose them over paper books. The size and weight
| factors are a _huge_ benefit, but they 're also nearly all of
| the benefit, so if that's much reduced, there's not a lot left
| to recommend ebooks over paper books. Whatever's left of their
| advantages wouldn't have been anywhere near enough to create a
| market for them. Paper book UI is _really_ good--but damn, are
| they heavy and bulky.
| bluquark wrote:
| > Put it this way: if ebook readers--the devices themselves--
| cost the same as paper books, but each one could only hold
| one book, and that one book couldn't be replaced, I don't
| think many people would choose them over paper books.
|
| The first commercially successful category of e-book was the
| e-dictionary, in the early 2000s. Being able to carry in your
| pocket the equivalent of a 2000-page tome and search it
| instantly was a gamechanger for language learners and
| translators, so people were willing to pay $200-$400 for it.
| handrous wrote:
| Sure, dictionary _databases_ replace the primary reference-
| focused use case of huge--the really good ones are multi-
| volume, and cost a lot more than $400--dictionaries, much
| as desktop reference books of facts & figures, books of
| field-specific tables, et c., are all but entirely replaced
| by Google or other, more specialized databases. This is the
| same dynamic that saw filing cabinets and card catalogs
| replaced with computer systems--I'm not sure it applies to
| books, broadly, but certain types of reference books, so
| far as their primary role as on-demand lookup systems, are
| generally much inferior to searchable digital databases,
| that's clear.
| mfrankel wrote:
| Why lectures don't work. "Lectures don't work because the medium
| lacks a functioning cognitive model. It's (implicitly) built on a
| faulty idea about how people learn--transmissionism--which we can
| caricaturize as "lecturer says words describing an idea; students
| hear words; then they understand." When lectures do work, it's
| generally as part of a broader learning context (e.g. projects,
| problem sets) with a better cognitive model. But the lectures
| aren't pulling their weight. If we really wanted to adopt the
| better model, we'd ditch the lectures, and indeed, that's what's
| been happening in US K-12 education."
|
| Why books don't work "In this section we've seen that, like
| lectures, non-fiction books don't work because they lack a
| functioning cognitive model. Instead, like lectures, they're
| (accidentally, invisibly) built on a faulty idea about how people
| learn: transmissionism. When books do work, it's generally for
| readers who deploy skillful metacognition to engage effectively
| with the book's ideas. This kind of metacognition is unavailable
| to many readers and taxing for the rest. Books aren't pulling
| their weight. Textbooks do more to help, but they still foist
| most of the metacognition onto the reader, and they ignore many
| important ideas about how people learn."
|
| Worth reading: https://andymatuschak.org/books/
| spicyramen wrote:
| In foreign languages such as Spanish, ortography is very
| important: reading helps you get better at it. This is true
| normally pre-college years.
| groby_b wrote:
| While English speakers on the internet don't seem to believe
| it, the same holds for English. Choosing your words precisely
| matters.
|
| I am less certain that pure reading is the best way to get
| better at it. In general, using skills matters. If you just
| know the theory, you're already at a disadvantage. If you only
| know the basic ideas via indirect observation, it's worse.
|
| All of these things - practice, theory, observation in the wild
| - reinforce each other.
| madiator wrote:
| It takes me three minutes to read one page. 500 pages per day
| will take only 25 hours a day. :)
| madiator wrote:
| Apologies for posting a comment that doesn't add to the
| discussion. I was trying to show the absurdity of the quote in
| the article that someone recommended reading 500 pages a day.
| groby_b wrote:
| fwiw, I think it does add to the discussion - especially once
| removed from the realm of pure quip.
|
| Reading 500 pages is a large undertaking. Proficient readers
| manage ~0.8 pages/minute. That is ~6.5 hours just reading,
| without any time taken to organize the knowledge. And reading
| at that speed is extremely hard mental effort, you're pretty
| much exhausted at the end of it.
|
| Sure, they _could_ be an extremely fast reader and get it
| done in 5 hours. Still, without deeper comprehension, or
| organization.
|
| It very much matters to point out that the recommendation is
| fundamentally self-aggrandizement more than truth.
| madiator wrote:
| Reading is important, and I have heard this advice many times,
| yet I never took it to say reading is the only thing that
| matters. The advice on reading 500 pages a day will not work for
| most people, indeed!
|
| Here is a good succinct and practical advice from Naval:
|
| "Reading science, math, and philosophy one hour per day will
| likely put you at the upper echelon of human success within seven
| years"
| (https://mobile.twitter.com/naval/status/871415571551629312?l...)
|
| Just one hour! Doing that consistently can be hard but very
| beneficial.
| Jill_the_Pill wrote:
| After seven years reading philosophy, your definition of "human
| success" will likely have changed substantially.
| baal80spam wrote:
| > Just one hour! Doing that consistently can be hard but very
| beneficial.
|
| It might seem as not much, but today - when everyone and
| everything screams for your attention - devoting one hour for a
| particular activity and doing it consistently over a long
| period of time (7 years seems ridiculous) can be a very
| difficult task indeed.
| paulpauper wrote:
| reading is good, but doing is even better, or a combination of
| both..
|
| ""I just sit in my office and read all day." - Warren Buffett"
|
| I think they get the causality wrong.
|
| It's not like he became so rich by reading, same for bill gates.
| He had to actually do the thing that which made him rich. Once
| you get billions then I guess you can spend all day reading.
| DantesKite wrote:
| I really enjoyed this perspective on Charlie Munger. It was
| refreshing and new.
| npsimons wrote:
| > [Graham] didn't go to lunch that day--he just sat there and
| talked to me [Buffet] for four hours like I was the most
| important person in the world. When he opened that door to me, he
| opened the door to the insurance world." The Snowball
|
| That's great! Guess what the vast majority of people don't have
| access to? Really great mentors. Unless, and hear me out here,
| those mentors wrote down their wisdom, say some great work of
| philosophy[0] or even a groundbreaking technical work[1]. Even
| better, you can access these founts of knowledge after their
| authors have passed on!
|
| [0] - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2680
|
| [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principia_Mathematica
| ksdale wrote:
| I think this is quite clever and it made me chuckle! I think
| it's plausible that access to a mediocre mentor could actually
| have better results, though, than reading books by the best
| mentors. Naturally there is room for both, but I have learned a
| ton from practitioners (for lack of a better work) who are
| decidedly average compared to Warren Buffett's mentors (or
| Isaac Newton).
| AlbertCory wrote:
| "Obsession"? The author is perhaps noticing that some people take
| this literally:
|
| _"I just sit in my office and read all day." - Warren Buffett_
|
| Are people really taking this literally? Maybe they are, now that
| you _at least get the impression_ can sit in your office and surf
| the web all day. You know that a lot of "journalists" actually
| do that, and that's why they're so shallow and prone to
| groupthink.
|
| A real journalist, and a real investor, goes out and talks to
| people, and finds the information that hasn't made its way onto
| paper or the web yet.
| tomtheelder wrote:
| This is a truly bizarre article. It builds up a complete
| strawman of like "some people believe/advocate that you should
| do basically nothing except read," and then tries to knock it
| down by showing that Warren Buffet... traveled a good amount?
| And had friends?
| AlbertCory wrote:
| That ("strawman") was my first reaction. Then on thinking
| about it some more, I realized that maybe a lot of folks
| ("journalists" as I put it) actually DO think you can just
| read, especially with the pandemic and the internet. Isn't
| _everything_ on the web nowadays?
|
| No it's not. So maybe this is a worthwhile article after all.
| handrous wrote:
| > Isn't everything on the web nowadays?
|
| > No it's not. So maybe this is a worthwhile article after
| all.
|
| Shit, not even all _written_ material is on the web.
| Nowhere close! Records and books alike. It 's typical to
| hit a wall when researching on the web, beyond which one
| cannot progress without actual, paper books, or a visit to
| some particular physical institution or library, often only
| one step past Wikipedia's reference list for a topic, to
| give a sense of how shallow the Web's coverage of many
| topics is. Sometimes, even those first-tier references are
| only available on paper, without so much as an e-book
| available.
| npsimons wrote:
| Yeah, it rubs me the wrong way, and I'll admit it might be
| because I value (perhaps overvalue) reading.
|
| Part of what bothers me is that he lumps together all
| "reading" (in his defense, often defenders of reading do the
| same). If you're reading and not thinking, not asking
| questions, hell even just not vividly visualizing fiction,
| then yeah, "reading" won't be much better than TV.
|
| And yeah, you can read too much; you can do too much of
| _anything_ , which is why I feel strongly that the vast
| majority of people spend too much time consuming media in the
| form of TV/streaming and Internet, and not enough time
| reading well researched books/papers and _thinking_ about
| them.
|
| The "reading" I (and I suspect others) would recommend is:
| 1. Find really good material. 2. Read it
| deliberately, with an active mind. 3. Act on that
| material, let it change your life.
| handrous wrote:
| > Part of what bothers me is that he lumps together all
| "reading" (in his defense, often defenders of reading do
| the same). If you're reading and not thinking, not asking
| questions, hell even just not vividly visualizing fiction,
| then yeah, "reading" won't be much better than TV.
|
| Oh my god, there a few surer tells that I ought not engage
| a person in conversation about books than their identifying
| very publicly as a capital-R Reader. Especially if they're
| wearing or carrying something with a pro-reading
| message--"READING IS SEXY", "READ!". I don't get why
| reading, in particular, is like that. Fans of blockbuster
| films or Hallmark holiday movies don't go around putting
| bumper stickers on their car that read "FILM LOVER" or
| wearing shirts that read "WATCH MORE MOVIES".
|
| To be clear, I absolutely and genuinely love all kinds of
| total garbage in a variety of media and it is _entirely
| fine_ to enjoy that kind of thing--I just don 't get why
| those become part of an I'm-a-Reader-and-that-matters-a-
| whole-bunch identity with reading, but not with other
| things.
| d23 wrote:
| Eh, I think the conclusion is a bit silly, but given that the
| article is mostly supported by real quotes, I still enjoyed
| the read.
| ketzo wrote:
| Something that is not explicitly mentioned in this piece, but
| that I think is probably a large contributor to why Mr. Buffet
| found success with this path:
|
| It is very difficult to be wrong while you're reading. It's much
| easier for someone who's actually talking to you to show you that
| an opinion you hold is incorrect. And you can't improve at
| anything without learning when you're wrong.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| This doesn't make sense to me. You can learn that you're wrong
| from a book. All it takes is reading a book that holds the
| opposite opinion you do -- much like talking to someone who
| holds the opposite opinion.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Good reminder to balance reading and learning, developing
| relationships with peers, and taking actions.
|
| If you spend the next 50 years just reading, you will realize you
| missed the opportunity to make an impact on the world, whatever
| your goals are. If you just act randomly, you probably won't get
| anywhere either. And if you only read and act alone, you probably
| are limiting both your opportunities to learn and your
| opportunities to leverage your efforts by working with others.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| djkivi wrote:
| "Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its
| creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own
| brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking." - Albert
| Einstein
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/38019-reading-after-a-certa...
| j7ake wrote:
| Maybe one analogy to professional sports would be something like
| "Watching film".
|
| As a professional athlete, you need to be constant watching film
| so you know how other players are playing and what they're doing.
|
| However, at some point you also need to be on the court
| practicing and playing games so you can use that knowledge for
| something productive.
|
| Being too obsessed with reading would be like a pro athlete who
| only watches film and never plays the game. At some point, you
| have to be playing the game. Otherwise, you're no different than
| just an obsessive sports fan.
| gumby wrote:
| I think a "functional" view of reading is self-limiting -- a sort
| of cargo cult. It's a shame to spend a lot of time just grinding.
|
| I read about five hours a day (about a third of my waking hours)
| but have no illusion that it is of any specific value. It's just
| a compulsion I've had all my life. I don't consider it any
| different from others playing video games -- not a virtue and
| perhaps tending towards vice.
| nicodjimenez wrote:
| Reading is excellent cognitive training. Especially reading
| fiction. It makes you step outside your ordinary reality and
| truly live in someone else's shoes. You get cognitive benefit as
| well as spiritual benefit from reading great fiction.
|
| Non fiction is also OK but generally less appropriate for reading
| cover to cover. Non fiction is great for just getting what you
| need and getting out. The way you learn physics, for example, is
| not by reading physics books, it's by solving problems. By
| experiencing the real thing.
|
| Reading fiction has self contained benefit. Reading non fiction
| is only useful to the extent to which you can apply this
| information in your daily life.
| dragontamer wrote:
| > It makes you step outside your ordinary reality and truly
| live in someone else's shoes.
|
| One of the biggest emotional hits to me was "Der Untergang", or
| "Downfall" in English (aka: Angry Hitler Meme movie). Spending
| 1-week in Hitler's shoes, with an incredible amount of detail /
| historical accuracy, brought me a huge amount of appreciation
| for what was going on during WW2, in a way that few other
| stories (be it reading, anime, movies, TV-series) have ever
| affected me before.
|
| Non-fiction, when done well, can give you a hugely different
| perspective on life.
|
| * Technically, you spend ~1 week in Traudl Junge's shoes, who
| serves as Hitler's personal secretary. But she was in the room
| when all major events happened: from Hitler's Birthday (aka:
| when the Russians started shelling Berlin), to the final
| defense plans, to the Goring Telegram, to helping Hitler write
| his final will / testament. To the planning of Hitler's suicide
| (which wasn't easy in the circumstances). To helping write the
| last will/testament to Goebbel + those events. To the escape
| from the bunker while surrounded by Russian troops.
|
| -----------
|
| Since this story is "real", it just hits differently. Even
| though Hitler + Goebbel were probably the most evil people on
| Earth at that time... the perspective of "Downfall" was
| incredibly human. There's a story to be told here about the
| expectations of leadership, the stress of losing, the worries
| about your worldview going extinct, etc. etc.
|
| > Reading non fiction is only useful to the extent to which you
| can apply this information in your daily life.
|
| I hope I'll never be trapped in a bunker contemplating angry
| Soviet capture/torture vs Suicide. But the story that
| contemplates the two choices really gives you an understanding
| of the final WW2 events much better.
| syngrog66 wrote:
| lectures dont work on me because you're pushing things into my
| brain whether I care or not, whether I already know or not,
| whether I'm ready or focused, and don't give me a chance to pause
| or ask questions, or crosscheck terms or go off on fractal
| pseudo-tangents to fill in the blanks in my mental map, etc.
|
| therefore, for me, reading is soooo much better. though video
| lectures at least allow you to pause, its still too little signal
| density with too much noise, usually.
|
| Also I am a very visual learner, and I use mental maps & 3D/4D
| system models inside my mind, and build/run little simulations in
| there as part of understanding and leveraging that knowledge.
| reading text & diagram inputs "fit" with that brain style better
| than traditional classroom lectures
|
| pull (on demand, when ready) rather than push
| tmountain wrote:
| I've regularly read that the average CEO reads 60 books a year.
| While I have worked with one CEO that read a lot, most seem far
| too busy working on business problems to have that kind of free
| time. Granted, I've been working in smaller (250 people or fewer)
| companies most of my career, but it seems very difficult to fit
| in a book per week when you get home at 7:30 or 8:00 and you're
| playing catch up on the weekends.
| soco wrote:
| There are also many definitions on what a "book" is. Is a
| business book a book? Is a self-improvement book a book? Or are
| there only fiction books? How about e-books? Is there a size
| limit under which a text is not a "book" anymore? Depending on
| such points everybody might be already reading 60 books a year
| without even realizing it.
| kubb wrote:
| People keep telling me: kubb, go to work; kubb look at this bug;
| kubb, contribute this new feature; kubb work out; kubb clean your
| apartment.
|
| But I just want to read (and play video games and socialize).
| jl6 wrote:
| In school, we are drilled into thinking reading is an unqualified
| good thing. Reading programmes exist to boost the amount of
| reading children do. Parents chastise their kids for watching TV
| instead of reading a book.
|
| Against this background, we forget that reading is ultimately a
| form of consumption. It doesn't _inherently_ make the world a
| better place. It doesn't, by itself, _produce_ anything.
|
| It matters a lot _what_ you read. Reading can be a gateway to
| learning and fulfilment, but it can also be an addictive time-
| sink that leads nowhere. It's a particular trap for those with an
| intellectual or introverted bent.
|
| I fear that the good intentions of teachers trying to get kids to
| read more at all costs risks only doing half the job, and leaving
| a population without the media literacy to choose wisely which
| books to consume, or without the restraint to know when it's time
| to stop reading and start acting.
| jxdxbx wrote:
| Very often the people who talk about reading just read absolute
| drivel: Business books, self help, pop nonfiction. Airport
| books.
| screye wrote:
| > Sturgeon's law : "ninety percent of everything is crap."
|
| Books are no exception.
|
| I particularly dislike the common belief that nonfiction is
| inherently superior as a form of media. Most nonfiction reads
| like an NYT article that ran a little too long. Even worse
| are pop-nonfiction books that read like a VOX article that
| ran too long. A lot of fiction captures ideas around
| antropology, sociology, politics and philosophy better than
| non-fiction books explicitly abput them.
|
| Even books with good content tend to be either too
| fictionalized to facilitate readability or drab to the point
| of becoming a text book. Infact, I'd say that on the balance
| a random well reviewed fiction novel can be expected to be a
| lot more intellectually rewarding.
|
| That being said, every once in a while I run into a book like
| 'why the west rules for now' and it somehow manages to be all
| of informative, entertaining, relevant and academically
| rigorous. I wish goodreads had a filter that allowed me
| exclusively find such books. Talk about pipe dreams.
| imperistan wrote:
| What constitutes good reading to you?
| SQueeeeeL wrote:
| I love this comment, I have no idea if it's ironic or just
| the purest distilled hackernews philosophy
| Kenji wrote:
| Poe's law. The parody of a hacker is indistinguishable from
| a hackernews user.
| bena wrote:
| Yeah, just like eating a lot doesn't make you a gourmand if all
| you're eating is McDonald's, reading a lot doesn't make you
| intellectual if all you're reading is mindless pulp.
|
| For instance, watching Cosmos is probably a more intellectual
| pursuit than reading Twilight.
|
| The other real problem is that even that pulp can sometimes
| have value above the material itself. Sometimes, even the most
| mass-marketed media can propose decent hypothetical questions
| and give cause for self-reflection.
| handrous wrote:
| It doesn't help that "reading" is a whole bunch of things (some
| of which may be performed in the absence of written words!)
| most of which build on elementary levels and continue upwards,
| like most any skill or field. I don't think this is well-enough
| communicated to students, because it seems like an awful lot
| make it all the way through graduate school thinking they can
| read, and, oh my, no they cannot. They can read like a middle
| schooler can "do math". Worse--especially for the ones who make
| it that far--they typically don't realize that they don't read
| well.
| petra wrote:
| What does "reading well" mean?
|
| Is there a good source to teach me that skill?
| handrous wrote:
| Like many things, it's largely practice. Adler's _How to
| Read a Book_ is an accessible and well-regarded work on the
| topic, and its "three readings" framework, if not to be
| taken as an exhaustive gospel on the ways of reading--some
| people "can read" while failing to consistently achieve
| Adler's first reading, so there's plainly more that could
| be explored, and the book's not intended as an academic
| treatise on all the components of reading--is, at least, a
| solid practical guide.
|
| I think the best explanation of how this all works is to
| liken it to listening to music: everyone can listen to
| music. Not everyone _understands_ or _appreciates_ a wide
| variety of music, or gets as much out of it as some do. One
| encounters "jazz is just noise" or "hip-hop is just
| noise", et c., opinions with some frequency--much as one
| encounters "the 'classics' are overrated, boring crap",
| when it comes to fiction, for example. A major part of
| learning to read well is internalizing the process of
| experiencing new genres or ways of expression, which one
| may not enjoy at first, just as many experience some
| discomfort and very little pleasure the first time they
| deliberately try to broaden their musical-appreciation
| horizons. This may mean reading texts _about_ the texts to
| better understand them, or watching lectures, but it also
| means a whole lot of sheer exposure to the works
| themselves, just as it does with music.
|
| If there's a single piece of advice I could give, it'd be
| to ask more questions, more often. Interrogate the text.
| What's wrong with this assertion, if anything? Does the
| text go on to address any problems I can see? If it does,
| is that satisfying? Do others see this problem? If not,
| what did I miss? Is this confidently-stated premise or
| postulate reasonable? If not, can the argument stand
| without it? Why is this character in this story? What's the
| _structural_ reason this scene exists? If it seems
| pointless, but this work is very well-regarded, I 'm
| probably missing something--what might that be? Does it
| have _thematic_ or _textural_ import that I 'm failing to
| spot, and so, perhaps, missing much of the message of the
| work? Et c.
|
| However, a lot of reading failures I see among Web posters
| are so basic that all the above is almost too advanced, and
| I don't know exactly how to address those problems. Simple
| reading comprehension failures that, incredibly, persist
| even when pointed out; misunderstanding how human language
| works, often taking the form of excessively literal
| readings that become weirdly and unhelpfully adversarial
| while failing to engage what the text was actually
| expressing; that kind of thing. This is part of what's
| behind the extreme over-explaining and frequent
| shouldn't-be-necessary disclaimers in writing by seasoned
| Web forum posters--I have a _suspicion_ that readers who
| are that bad are not, in fact, extremely common, but are
| just, for whatever reason, unusually likely to engage in
| Web discussions, leading to the standard, gratingly-poor
| writing style of Web forums, aimed at pre-empting bad
| readers from posting useless flames or diversions from the
| topic, which efforts are still, often, insufficient.
| dorchadas wrote:
| > often taking the form of excessively literal readings
| that become weirdly and unhelpfully adversarial while
| failing to engage what the text was actually expressing
|
| I see you, too, have seen people not understanding that
| Humbert Humbert is not supposed to be liked, and that the
| whole book is him trying to justify his actions. God, the
| number of people who misunderstand _Lolita_ because they
| can 't accept anything about it except at face value is
| way too high.
|
| > I have a suspicion that readers who are that bad are
| not, in fact, extremely common, but are just, for
| whatever reason, unusually likely to engage in Web
| discussions
|
| Sadly, bad readers _are_ that common. I taught at a high
| school, and even some of the other _teachers_ were bad
| readers, and most the students couldn 't get anything but
| a very literal interpretation out of any text they read.
| tejtm wrote:
| "To read without reflecting is like eating without
| digesting."
|
| Edmund Burke
| Igelau wrote:
| It reminds me of those campaigns that tell people to just go
| out there and vote. Reading and voting are means, not ends.
| It's a disservice to teach children not to be particular about
| such choices.
| analyte123 wrote:
| It's illegal for certain types of non-profit organizations to
| advocate for a particular candidate, but it's not illegal for
| them to "get out the vote" to particular demographics and
| locations that tend to vote a particular way.
| [deleted]
| jlmcguire wrote:
| I think you have it right. I study for a lot of certification
| exams (They are very popular in networking and security), I've
| found that a lot of content around learning has moved to videos
| rather than "exam guides" produced by the vendor/company
| offering the video. It could be styles of learning thing but I
| much prefer the written content.
|
| It strikes me that one advantage of the written word is that
| the information density is so much higher than in other
| mediums. I generally watch the videos at 2x speed and still
| feel like I'm not learning as much when I read for an
| equivalent time.
|
| However your point about "what" you read is well taken. Just as
| in watching youtube or movies you can read trash just as you
| can watch trash.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| In the digital age, there's so much text being produced that
| it's possible to both read _and_ write massive amounts of
| trash.
| AlanYx wrote:
| >It strikes me that one advantage of the written word is that
| the information density is so much higher than in other
| mediums.
|
| This is true, but it also goes beyond density. Long-form
| written works tend to have more room for breadth, depth and
| nuance. I find that's where much of the value sometimes comes
| from, e.g., I didn't get anything much out of the main text
| of the last non-fiction book I read, but three of the
| footnotes introduced me to other sources that did turn out to
| be useful for my work.
| npsimons wrote:
| > Long-form written works tend to have more room for
| breadth, depth and nuance. I find that's where much of the
| value sometimes comes from, e.g., I didn't get anything
| much out of the main text of the last non-fiction book I
| read, but three of the footnotes introduced me to other
| sources that did turn out to be useful for my work.
|
| All of this is why I strongly favor reading. Well written
| books are just so worth sinking the time into, and then you
| have references/bibliographies. Yeah, you need to _do_
| something instead of "reading all the time" (stramwan from
| the article), but sometimes doing it correctly, or even
| just better, starts with a good book.
| kmtrowbr wrote:
| The brain is wired with language. Our inner monologues are
| most commonly speaking to ourselves using words. Reading is
| similar to meditation in that it's about YOU controlling
| your thoughts, putting focus into what you're reading.
| Additionally, the content is the result of a process: some
| form of author qualification, editing, formatting,
| publication took place. It's also intimate: just the author
| and you (although, this is not necessarily true). But on
| the whole I suspect there's more integrity on the printed
| page, less "big money" certainly. In summary, there are
| lots of reasons why reading deserves a privileged place.
|
| However, if you want to learn something, you gotta go at it
| from every direction: maybe first of all just try head on,
| try & fail. Then read books if available, of course, but
| search online, look for YouTube videos, seek out mentors,
| and so on. Just like everything else you can only read
| effectively for so many hours per day.
|
| In the end I can only really speak for myself: reading
| books feels TO ME like one of the best possible uses of
| time. You would have to pry the books out of my cold dead
| hands, etc. So just out of fellow feeling I try to
| encourage others to read more. But whatever works for you!
| pcmaffey wrote:
| It's almost like Buffet was able to master remote work before it
| became a thing.
| paulpauper wrote:
| most deals are done over the phone anyway
| claudiulodro wrote:
| How so? The article says he was hopping on private jets all
| over the country most of the time. That seems like the opposite
| of mastering remote work.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| How we spend our time is a very important thing; we ought to
| spend it thoughtfully and towards _what we really want_.
|
| Time and money ... mannn ... money and time and _what we really
| want_.
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