[HN Gopher] The Purpose of Writing
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The Purpose of Writing
Author : s3v
Score : 29 points
Date : 2020-11-27 20:57 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (limitlesscuriosity.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (limitlesscuriosity.com)
| peter303 wrote:
| In pre-modern times rhetoric served a similar purpose. You had to
| devise a persuasive speech on any topic at the drop of a hat. You
| had to clear develop your arguments evidence. It was one of seven
| subjects in liberal higher education.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| One of the other important things about writing is not to let
| your opinions and conclusions get to your head. You're not some
| profound guru because you took 10 hours out of your life to
| figure out how some natural phenomenon works. You're also not
| someone even worthy of showing as a blip on the history books.
| You're just an average Joe.
| feralimal wrote:
| Great article - I agree! In fact, the author could go further
| IMO.
|
| "However, more often than discovering that your ideas are wrong,
| you will discover something different: that you do not know what
| you think."
|
| Writing and thinking (2 sides to the same coin IMO) have been
| illuminating to me. Hence I have moved to becoming a skeptic
| (ultra-skeptic in most people's opinion). Knowing what you know,
| and why you know is everything. 'Believing you know' is
| everywhere...
|
| We live in a world of stories.
| not_knuth wrote:
| Very well written article!
|
| > "However, more often than discovering that your ideas are
| wrong, you will discover something different: that you do not
| know what you think. Sure, you have some vague idea, and you
| believe that there is a chain of reasoning that leads to a
| certain conclusion. But what you will discover is that this chain
| of reasoning is mostly not existent. At best, it has many holes
| and maybe leads not where you think it does. This discovery is,
| of course, very unpleasant and sometimes even painful."
|
| This part does a particularly good job of explaining something
| that's been on the tip of my tongue for a while, but I could not
| have expressed it as clearly (in a rather curious, recursive way,
| my not being able to express it, is what is being described).
|
| The article also dances around the idea of the Generation Effect
| [0], which is, in my opinion, another great reason to write -
| even without an audience.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_effect
| macintux wrote:
| On a less ambitious note, technical writing is useful even if
| never published because it also reveals to you what you _don't_
| know about a subject.
|
| As soon as you start waving your hands (metaphorically) you
| immediately sense recognize a conceptual gap, especially if you
| suddenly jump to the passive tense.
| paulpauper wrote:
| >If you care about being less wrong tomorrow than you are today,
| you have to take this extreme attitude towards criticism. It will
| show in your writings and in the way you express your ideas. If
| you want to be perceived as smart and right, you will articulate
| your ideas in a moderate way so that others agree with it. (This
| is one of the main problems I have with contemporary
| intellectuals who always seem to take the middle ground.) If you
| are searching for truth, you will articulate the most extreme and
| radical consequences of your ideas, precisely because others will
| disagree with them and tell you where your ideas are wrong.
|
| I wish it were like this. In reality, your ideas will just be
| ignored or dismissed as kooky and stupid, if they are too
| extreme. Newspapers and intellectual publications use nuance
| because that is what is needed to build credibility. Appealing to
| extremes may work for fiction but will not work if you're trying
| to persuade a skeptical reader about something that is factual in
| nature. It is not that people cannot handle the truth, but if you
| make extreme opinions and conjectures, your burden of proof just
| becomes that much bigger. If the goal is to persuade, the last
| thing you want to do is give the reader a reason to dismiss you
| outright.
| elliotbnvl wrote:
| > _If the goal is to persuade, the last thing you want to do is
| give the reader a reason to dismiss you outright._
|
| I think the point this article is making is that writing is the
| pursuit of truth, not the pursuit of persuasion. It doesn't
| matter how many people agree with you unless you're trying to
| sell something.
| emit_time wrote:
| Tim Ferriss frequently talks about the writing class he took with
| John McPhee (author of Levels of the Game) and how as he took
| that class, the grades went up in the rest of his classes.
|
| He says it's probably due to refined thinking from taking the
| class.
| Sodaware wrote:
| Interesting read! I'm not a particularly good writer, but I do
| find it useful to explore my thoughts through the written word.
|
| I just finished an experiment where I wrote a blog article every
| day for 30 days (a more detailed summary is here
| https://www.philnewton.net/blog/30-day-blogging-summary/). I
| normally only write a few posts every year, so it was a pretty
| big increase for me. I don't think it improved my writing skills
| in any significant way, but it did bring out a lot of ideas that
| had been floating around in the back of my mind.
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