[HN Gopher] The Need to Read ___________________________________________________________________ The Need to Read Author : ignoramous Score : 378 points Date : 2022-11-26 08:02 UTC (14 hours ago) (HTM) web link (paulgraham.com) (TXT) w3m dump (paulgraham.com) | [deleted] | 2devnull wrote: | PowerPoint is better. Removes a lot of bike shedding over "turn | of phrase" and sounding smart, writing good, etc. | | Also, more multimedia, better aligned with current communications | tech, and designed specifically with the intention of presenting | thoughts, persuasion, non-fiction. Books are great, but not | optimized for today's world. | layer8 wrote: | > _A good writer doesn 't just think, and then write down what he | thought, as a sort of transcript. A good writer will almost | always discover new things in the process of writing. And there | is, as far as I know, no substitute for this kind of discovery. | Talking about your ideas with other people is a good way to | develop them. But even after doing this, you'll find you still | discover new things when you sit down to write. There is a kind | of thinking that can only be done by writing._ | | Exactly the same is true for coding. | byteflip wrote: | I've always been quite mediocre at reading and writing. This has | been confirmed by my grades over the years. | | Just this week, I've been writing a script for a YouTube video | and it is difficult for me. Organizing my thoughts and making it | "seamless" is a lot of work. In my software job I usually default | to bullet points for technical writing -- which I feel is a cop | out. I had decided before reading this article that I want to | invest some time in these neglected skills. | | Does anyone have any recommendations for improving these skills? | abdullahkhalids wrote: | Let go of the fear. Everyone has tens of thousands of bad words | in them that need to be written down before the good words | start coming out. | | Practice wise, write about the same thing several times. Write. | Then reflect for a week or a month. Then write again. Then do | it 3 months later. You will see a clear improvement. | | And of course, teachers are invaluable. See if you can take an | evening class somewhere, or if you have money hire a tutor - | you can pay a grad student at your local university. | ant6n wrote: | Practice? Using bullet points as a first step to make a draft | of the overall structure seems like it could be helpful. | clolege wrote: | I've also been trying to improve my writing recently. What's | helped me was to read through a couple of resources on how to | write better [0,1,2], and then: | | 1. Apply the better writing advice to my everyday _speech_ | | 2. Focus on writing down exactly what I wanted to say, and how | I would have said it | | School taught me to be super wordy and focus overly on the | editing stage. Nowadays, I read everything I write out loud and | if it sounds awkward (or not like me) then I just delete it and | write it again from scratch. Oftentimes it helps to just close | my eyes, say what I want to out loud, then write down what I | just said. | | It can turn out to be a little bit wordier, but it almost | always ends up being easier to read :) | | [0] https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell- | foundation/orwel... [1] | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31060362 [2] | https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-Classic-Guide-Nonfiction... | byteflip wrote: | Nice tips and resources thanks! | duckmysick wrote: | > Nowadays, I read everything I write out loud and if it | sounds awkward (or not like me) then I just delete it and | write it again from scratch. Oftentimes it helps to just | close my eyes, say what I want to out loud, then write down | what I just said. | | This does sound like editing to me (in a good way). Unless | you meant something else when you wrote that school taught | you to focus overtly on the editing stage. | clolege wrote: | Now that you mention it, my old style of editing might have | been something that I learned, rather than was explicitly | taught. | | I used to frame writing as a painful activity, so once I | had a "workable" rough draft, I would break out a scalpel | and try to make it readable with _word surgery_. I would | spend hours staring at the same few paragraphs, and it was | horrible. | | Now I just delete it. It feels like a clean slate, but the | slate in my brain has made opinions about what's important | to say and how to say it better. | | The two approaches exercise completely different muscles, | and what I like about the "rewrite" approach is that it | exercises some of the same muscles that will help me | communicate myself properly on the first try. | ChaitanyaSai wrote: | "Quantum entanglement" / "quantitative easing" Can we think of a | substitute to writing that will allow us to coin these phrases | (which in turn sit on a stack of coined sequences of syllables) | and make them stick? Speech can communicate writing in its | entirety. But in committing to paper, we take these fleeting | streams (sequences) of thoughts and sounds, let them live outside | our limited working memories, and allow for new meanings and | ideas to emerge and breathe and survive. With far greater | likelihood and frequency than speech alone. Fascinating to think | about what invention might make writing obsolete. Will have to be | something that allows for effortless creation and storage of new | sequences of old ideas... | marcusverus wrote: | IMO, the need to express new ideas by combining or redefining | old words is a bug in natural language, rather than a feature. | It makes communication less precise and that imprecision is | prone to gamesmanship. | | An example is the attempt by some, in the US, to redefine the | meaning of "equality" in the context of our political system, | from the traditional "equality under the law" to "equality of | outcome". This sort of persuasion by redefinition, in which you | take a word attached to a popular idea and hijack/redirect it | to your pet idea, is a Jedi-mind-trick which is enabled by the | ambiguity of natural language. | | A more rational system of communication, in which distinct | ideas were represented by distinct, immutable symbols, rather | than combinations/reuses of old symbols, would make for vastly | superior communication---if we could wrap our brains around | such a thing! | barnacled wrote: | This really chimes with me, I'm writing a book about the Linux | memory management subsystem [0] and my primary motivation is to | learn the subject more deeply and what Paul says here really | aligns with my experience. | | The effort to explain its machinery demands that I look very | deeply - trying to answer questions like 'how does a page of | memory get reclaimed?', or 'how does a userspace allocation | propagate through the kernel?' - and following the white rabbit | all the way down the burrow, forces a far deeper level of | understanding than simply figuring something out for a patch. | | (Obligatory plug!) For anybody who's interested in the topic, I | plan to launch the book in a year or so, to be notified when it's | released, sign up at | https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSen0gefOrPWi6ZtEQ25... | | [0]:https://ljs.io/book.html | paulpauper wrote: | _That sort of thing is unlikely to happen anytime soon. Not just | because it would be hard to build a replacement for reading, but | because even if one existed, it would be insufficient. Reading | about x doesn 't just teach you about x; it also teaches you how | to write. [1]_ | | I rea a lot as a kid, and still do, but suck at writing. I think | it's at best a tangentially related skillset. Writing is not just | about conveying information but doing so in a way that people are | enticed to want to read, which is way harder than just the first. | raywu wrote: | Write simple sentences. Don't use adverbs. That's what my high | school teacher told me. I still find it true. | npunt wrote: | There's much more to the story than writing is a way of thinking, | and reading is a big input into writing. Specifically, how each | interplay with ideas, as most of us after all are in the business | of creating things. And here, the most important bit is not | reading, its curiosity. Curiosity about others' ideas drives | reading, curiosity about one's own ideas drives writing. | | The time we spend chasing each type of curiosity is important. If | we want to create, reading must have it's limits, and sometimes | pretty harsh limits, else we'll be infected with others ideas | about everything. Some choice quotes on this: | | "When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his | mental process..." "This is the case with many learned persons: | they have read themselves stupid." - Arthur Schopenhauer | | "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 | | "If you read all the time what other people have done you will | think the way they thought. If you want to think new thoughts | that are different, then do what a lot of creative people do - | get the problem reasonably clear and then refuse to look at any | answers until you've thought the problem through carefully how | you would do it, how you could slightly change the problem to be | the correct one. You need to keep up more to find out what the | problems are than to read to find the solutions. The reading is | necessary to know what is going on and what is possible. But | reading to get the solutions does not seem to be the way to do | great research. So I'll give you two answers. You read; but it is | not the amount, it is the way you read that counts." - Dick | Hamming | | EDIT: On the other hand, if you first principles all your | thinking and just write write write, you may spend hours on | something that could be understood and moved on from in seconds. | This meme explains the reading/writing spectrum quite well: | https://www.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/vwq8yh/this_true/ | Kaibeezy wrote: | Wild guess... Schopenhauer, Einstein, et al, were referring to | their peers and associates, many sigmas out on the curve. I'm | imagining a sensor of the larger sample reaching the "reading | limit"; it would make a neutrino detector look like fireworks | at a disco. | npunt wrote: | The quotes are for the most part about ideas and creativity | being stifled by reading, and this can happen to anyone - | it's related to the curse of knowledge and the preservation | of the beginner's mind. | | Reading others' ideas, especially polished ones with a lot of | authority behind them, can act as a filter on one's own | (delicate, barely formed) ideas. Ideas already have a | difficult path into reality, and others' biases and filters | are one major contributor. | | I regularly choose not to read on a given subject if I have | an idea I want to explore or to clarify my own thinking, and | only afterwards do I consult what others have said. Usually I | wind up in the same place (or a crude version of that) but | sometimes I find a new insight and those are worth it! | amadeuspagel wrote: | And when Schopenhauer wrote this, it was much harder to find | stuff to read, so his advice is all the more important today. | woolion wrote: | Good list of quotes! I would add one by Nietzsche: | | "Ultimately no one can hear in things--books included--more | than he already knows." | | Reading can help you formalize, or put established concepts | upon what you have already understood, even if only | unconsciously. | | I remember the gist of a quote about the need to read as much | as possible in a young age to inform a Weltanschauung (world | view) from which in adulthood you're supposed to build on, but | can't remember any source. | achow wrote: | > _..most of us after all are in the business of creating | things.. If we want to create, reading must have it's limits, | and sometimes pretty harsh limits, lest we be infected with | others ideas about everything._ | | The point perhaps is what PG is saying "A good writer will | almost always discover new things in the process of writing." | | Writing is creating and the process of creation is about | discovery. When one is sculpting a clay, one is discovering | materials and its properties, one is discovering ones emotions, | and infact one could be discovering or understanding oneself | (this ignoring the pre creation phase where one is discovering | and studying art movements, various sculptors, their ideas and | techniques...). | | Any creation process roughly follows same patterns unless you | are a facsimile creator. | dj_mc_merlin wrote: | Excuse me if this is rude but there is an irony to using | others' words to argue one should think for themselves more. | npunt wrote: | Hah on the surface I suppose. But I'm not arguing _whether_ | people should think for themselves, I'm arguing that it | matters _when_ people should think for themselves. If you're | more curious about others ideas on a given topic than your | own ideas, then you should absolutely read! | unsafecast wrote: | I think this is more about credibility - GP made a pretty | good argument without the quotes. But the fact that Albert | Einstein supposedly agrees puts a lot more weight onto it. | woolion wrote: | It's a variant on the 'doubt paradox' (somebody telling you | "you should not believe everything people tell you") itself a | variant of the Epimenides paradox (simply known as the liar | paradox): a bunch of people who have read more than you tell | you to be careful about not reading too much. | cbeach wrote: | Can one think without language? It's a question my headmaster | once posed in a general studies class. | d4rkp4ttern wrote: | Something I didn't see mentioned enough in the discussion -- | Reading is also a fantastic antidote to mindless phone scrolling | or web surfing. | Kaibeezy wrote: | Since getting Covid, it's been harder to put down the phone and | pick up a book :( Sort of the opposite of that thing about | toxoplasmosis creating alpha wolves. | Deutscher wrote: | This is OT and has probably been covered elsewhere, but why does | PG not use https on his site? Also, why does it not trigger | showing the 'Toggle Reader View (F9)' button in the Firefox | addressbar, if anyone knows? | zozbot234 wrote: | You can connect via https, but your browser will ask you to | trust a Yahoo Store certificate since it has no clue how Yahoo | Store might relate to paulgraham.com | samsquire wrote: | I would prefer to read other people's explanations of what the | problems their code solves rather than the code to implement it. | | Wikipedia is almost enough to implement a few algorithms that | I've implemented from written descriptions (btrees, tries and | multiversion concurrency control). But for other algorithms I | just use the pseudocode such as for A*. | | I would prefer that the English explanation was good enough to | implement the code. | | I journalled computer, software, parallelism, multithreading and | futuristic software and architecture ideas out in the open since | 2013. I am up to 700 entries. Writing is manifested thinking. | Writing is very good for you. Links are in my profile. | synctext wrote: | "Writing is Thinking" - my master thesis | professor. | TheOtherHobbes wrote: | Interesting, but nostalgic. | | Magical brain upload technology would likely require AI, and | would almost certainly include assistive cognition - the use of | technology to automate and speed up learning and original | thought. | | We're edging towards a revolution that will be more of a | disruption than the invention of print. Instead of thoughts that | are "manually" generated and externalised as static symbols - | albeit electronically distributed - thinking and learning will be | automated and integrated. | | You can use Wikipedia to access a lot of human knowledge. But | imagine a meta-Wikipedia that would integrate and summarise an | entire domain, combined with assistive cognition that made it | possible to hold that summary in your head as a single perceptual | entity. | | You wouldn't just have the skills offered by domain competence, | but you would also be able to look for trends and patterns, | compare the domain with others, expand the "shape" with new | features in creative but congruent ways, and so on. | jamager wrote: | A visitor came to Richard Feynman's office. When he saw Fenyman's | notebooks, he was excited to see records of Feynman's thinking. | Feynman replied: They aren't a record of my thinking process. | They are my thinking process. | kang wrote: | If one learns to write by reading, one would learn to 'upload' by | 'downloading'. The method of knowing is not dependent on the | medium. I can present the steps in knowing to demonstrate it, but | I have already made my point. | moffkalast wrote: | Yeah it seems weird to assume that it wouldn't be possible to | 'write' that way. In fact it could possibly be far more | powerful since you wouldn't be limited by words and language, | but could write just about anything the human brain can | experience. It's not like those download packages make | themselves. | | It's almost an 'old writer yells at cloud' type post. | javajosh wrote: | How would you respond to Socrates' objections to writing [0]? | Especially: | | "You know, Phaedrus, writing shares a strange feature with | painting. The offsprings of painting stand there as if they are | alive, but if anyone asks them anything, they remain most | solemnly silent. The same is true of written words. You'd think | they were speaking as if they had some understanding, but if you | question anything that has been said because you want to learn | more, it continues to signify just that very same thing forever. | When it has once been written down, every discourse roams about | everywhere, reaching indiscriminately those with understanding no | less than those who have no business with it, and it doesn't know | to whom it should speak and to whom it should not." | | I often wonder if our ancestors, who were a great deal more | private about things like techniques and guild knowledge, not to | mention esoteric religious teachings, didn't have the right idea. | Perhaps even the penchant for writing scientific articles in | Latin and Greek was an explicitly chosen shibboleth to avoid the | kinds of informational chaos we see coming to a head in the | internet age of 2022. | | 0 - | https://newlearningonline.com/literacies/chapter-1/socrates-... | rossdavidh wrote: | I am very much in agreement with PG's thesis in this essay, but | I am a little surprised that he didn't at least address | Socrates' famous critique of writing (and not just by pointing | out that the only reason we know about it is that somebody else | wrote it down). | gtsnexp wrote: | I might be wrong but, from his most recent posts, I get the | feeling that PG is growing increasingly laconic. Makes sense? | kaushalvivek wrote: | I wonder if the core idea here is limited to reading books, or if | it extends seamlessly to articles, blogs and other quality | content. | myle wrote: | Video content is replacing writing/reading for the masses. | backpropaganda wrote: | Good video content is created by first writing the script. | antirez wrote: | Many of us are programmers. Some of us are also trying to be | writers. Trust me: writing is like programming. Reading code is | very useful to become a better programmer, but you learn | programming mostly by _writing_ code. Similarly you mostly learn | how to write prose by writing prose, tons of it. Reading is | especially useful if you identify certain books that are very | high in style (for me one of such books was "Vite di uomini non | illustri" by Giuseppe Pontiggia), for your taste at least, for | what you beleive the best writing is. You read these books many | times, to understand what's going on, what are the patterns, how | to do the same magic. As a casual reader you can read 200 books | every year and yet remain a terrible writer. | | EDIT: more about that on my blog if you care -> | http://antirez.com/news/136 | inglor_cz wrote: | I wrote eight books, sold about 35 000 copies (fairly huge | number for Czechia with its not-quite-11 million people), and I | am also a programmer. | | The similarities are pretty strong. In both cases, you need to | express yourself so that the receiving party may understand | you. | | That said, human readers are a lot more welcoming and friendly | consumers of your written work than computers. Positive | feedback from computers is basically nonexistent. | barnacled wrote: | Incredible work! I'm writing my own book (obligatory mailing | list link [0] and description [1]) and I wondered how you | tackled the mental side? It is a bit of a rollercoaster I am | finding. That constant fear gnawing in the back of your head | 'is this really any good at all?' :) I suppose it is the | price of caring. | | [0]:https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSen0gefOrPWi6ZtE | Q25... [1]:https://ljs.io/book.html | inglor_cz wrote: | Prior to writing my first book, I already published quite a | lot of articles, so I knew that there was some non-empty | audience set out there :) | | I started a crowdfunding project for the first book too, so | that the printing and typesetting costs get covered. They | were covered fully, so I knew that I won't dip into red | numbers as a consequence. (This was a major worry of mine.) | | I was still pretty nervous about acceptance, but it turned | out OK. Whew. | Hendrikto wrote: | > Positive feedback from computers is basically nonexistent. | | 412 tests passed, 0 warnings, 0 errors. | inglor_cz wrote: | I know, I know. | | That said, receiving an e-mail like "I spent a week reading | all your books, PLEASE WRITE SOME MORE" is much more | satisfying. | bstpierre wrote: | I suspect this is tongue in cheek, but passing tests aren't | really the computer's feedback. They're feedback from Past | You, who wrote the tests. The computer is just performing | the tests. The tests might be incomplete or even wrong. The | code might be horrendous. The computer doesn't care. | | Human feedback on the code, design, usability, appearance, | documentation, etc. is all very different from passing | tests. | antirez wrote: | Don't you want to hug your monitor when it compiles? :D | inglor_cz wrote: | I do, the trouble is, the monitor doesn't hug me back :D | | Right now I am sitting in a train to southern Moravia, a | long-time reader has invited me to a pork feast. That is | not what computers do. | antirez wrote: | Enjoy! | amelius wrote: | Personally waiting for the day when you can layout your | thoughts in a bulletpoint list, and GPT-3/4/5 turns it into a | coherent and pleasant to read whole. | duckmysick wrote: | If you don't want to wait, you can get someone on fiverr to | do it for you. | henrik_w wrote: | Absolutely agree that programming and writing have lots in | common. I usually don't write anything longer than a blog post, | but even a short blog post takes a lot of time for me. | Expressing your thoughts in words is hard! Likewise for | programming :-) | | When I thought about the similarities I came up with: | | - both are about communicating your ideas clearly. For that you | need good structure, and having a logical order. | | - editing and revising is key. Also, compare with refactoring | in coding. | | - style - there are lots of ways you can have a unique style, | even in programming. | | More here: https://henrikwarne.com/2019/03/30/programming-math- | or-writi... | kingkongjaffa wrote: | I write probably 30-100 emails a day, I struggle with writing | longer form things. | sn41 wrote: | Reading makes a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an | exact man. - Francis Bacon, "Of Studies" [1] | | [1] http://www.literaturepage.com/read/francis-bacon- | essays-102.... | euroderf wrote: | Related: a GTTW Loop (gripe-think-try-write loop). | | When I'm stuck on a technical problem, I start writing a grumpy | email to the support-PoC. I anticipate their questions and find | the answers and add them into the email. This is repeated as | necessary. It's not unusual then that at some point the answer | magically drops into my lap and the grumpy email is tossed into | the gripe-recycler. | avindroth wrote: | To facilitate writing, 'pages' have to be ubiquitous. There is | always something to write about, and ubiquity of pages | facilitates the ink on paper, the pixels on screen. | | Writing is a medium, and an excellent one at that. I'd agree that | writing is a unique medium in generating a special kind of | thoughts that are deeply introspective and concept-revealing. But | I find that you can view writing not as one medium, but as a host | of various submedia. | | Typing on a keyboard is very different from writing on a | whiteboard. The kinds of thoughts you can host to different | 'pages' vary. Even electronic writing can vary depending on the | psychological and technological context. Writing on Twitter on | mobile varies from writing encrypted notes on your personal | machine. | | Is one thing better than the other? I don't think we can easily | claim such. Use whiteboards when whiteboards are good, use paper | when paper is good, use iPads when iPads are good. But access to | various hosts for just the right occasion surely nurtures ideas | faster in the right medium of growth. | kenjackson wrote: | Also with advancements in converting natural language to | programming, most programming and automation will be done by | simply concise writing. Writing well will become more important | in STEM than it already is. | yourgranny wrote: | Since this is a Paul Graham post, I'm gonna ask because it is the | elephant in the room. Why has Hacker News been so quiet about | Twitter? I think I know but I want my suspicions confirmed. I | would prefer politics be kept out of Hacker News completely but | the stories that don't appear seemingly lean in a single | direction and it is turning me away now. | matthewmacleod wrote: | I was a bit surprised myself, but after thinking about it - the | discussions under the Twitter stories that I've seen on the | front page have mostly rapidly deteriorated to the point of | being pretty unedifying for everyone. | | That's not surprising, since it's a story that meets at the | intersection of tech, business, politics, and controversial | public figures. There are quite a lot of strong views on it, | and in my experience this community doesn't tend to deal in a | particularly adult way with events like that. | | That kind of discussion usually sinks pretty quickly - I assume | mostly because of the algorithm down-ranking overheated | discussions. Then you have the general leaning of HN towards a | bit of a libertarian, counter-mainstream narrative - it's not | hard to see that the pattern you describe being a natural | outcome of all that, no shadowy motives required. | | It kinda sucks to be honest, because from many different | perspectives it's absolutely gigantic news with lots of really | interesting stuff to think and talk about. | camillomiller wrote: | I have noticed the same, and I would have the same question. | | I don't wanna think that it's because it's mostly a community | of (male) Musk-Jack-SamAltman simps and wannabes that are just | a good startup idea away from being billionaire themselves. A | good, well elaborated answer, might help me to steer away from | this conclusion. | ramblerman wrote: | > I would prefer politics be kept out of Hacker News completely | | your post achieves the exact opposite. | | -- | | Either way it's pretty bad etiquette to hijack a thread for | some completely different purpose. Don't let the inevitability | of your your post getting flagged further your conspiracy | narrative. | matwood wrote: | There was a lot of Twitter news early on, but Musk continuing | to act like a child is old news we don't need to see here again | and again. I would prefer to see another Twitter story when | there is actually a story and not simply 'someone was | fired/hired/let on/kicked off'. | [deleted] | imgabe wrote: | You're free to submit stories and say whatever you want. It | should be pretty clear why nobody is talking about Twitter on a | completely unrelated thread. | thenerdhead wrote: | If you haven't yet, try doing 3 handwritten morning pages each | day. This technique is pretty well known in helping with | unblocking creativity by the author Julia Cameron in "The | Artist's Way". | | Journaling is by far the most effective technique I've come | across in my life so far. It gets the rumination out. Helps you | brainstorm. Gets you reflecting on unresolved things in your | life. I wish I started sooner. | wyre wrote: | I got so burnt out from doing morning pages I haven't been able | to journal significantly in months. I agree it is incredibly | effective, but it took me at least an hour to fill up my three | A5 pages, it became hard to make the time in the mornings. | Ideally, it wouldn't take this long. Cameron's suggestion is | when there is a pause in the writing to start writing a mantra, | over and over, until more words come, but that's easier said | than done in my experience. | | 3 pages is not a good control. How big are the pages? How small | is your handwriting? I read the Artist's Way and nowhere did | she specify how large the paper should be. | | In my experience the deeper insights came on the second page | about 30 minutes in, after depleting my brain of its | ruminations and searching for more thoughts to fill up the | page. | IntFee588 wrote: | I think it's a tradeoff. As a comparison, I like learning about | coding and software architecture through videos and other online | resources. The field is so vast that looking at other peoples' | code is the easiest way to absorb the broadest amount of | material. However, eventually, actually sitting down and writing | original software is key to achieving true expertise. I suspect | reading & writing follows a similar pattern. | jawadch93 wrote: | unixhero wrote: | Does HackerNews count as reading? | ignoramous wrote: | The front page posts? May be. The comments section? Not really. | INeedMoreRam wrote: | Some comments are better written than posts so to disqualify | them as not reading is disingenuous. | eligro91 wrote: | A suggestion for those who do not have time to write: record | yourself. | | use the time when you commute, when driving, when walking the | dogs, cleaning, or anything ritual you're doing on daily basis. | just tap the recorder in your phone and start talking about | topics that bothers your mind during the day. | | I'm maintaining a recording diary, and I'm talking about | everything. It's helping me to be more confident on some ideas I | want to share with others, to be more prepared to arguments with | my wife, and to understand better myself - what I'm thinking | about situations, why I'm doing things that I don't like and what | I can do about that. | | You can as well use it as retrospective analysis. we won't | remember 99.9% of the things we did in our life. those recordings | can help you in few years, you can extract the data from them and | have a easy way to listen / read things you've said 1-2 years ago | on some topics and see how you've evolved since then. | chiefalchemist wrote: | Two things come to mind: | | - When you have to explain something to someone else - and you | wish to do it well - you're forced to rethink, reprocess, etc. | The exercise deepens your own understanding. | | - Our senses (and associated neural support) are weighted to the | visual. Reading plays to that strength. | theuseus wrote: | > Writes a post abour reading. > Talks exclusively about writing. | | GG | Joeyjoejoe24 wrote: | "You can't think well without writing well" | | What about socrates, epictete etc ? Who rejected the very idea of | writing in favor of oral teaching. They seemed to be pretty good | at thinking. | | Beware the writing excess Paul | 411111111111111 wrote: | These tidbits always have to be taken in the context they've | been said in. | | Paul Graham is a venture capitalist in a hyper-connected | society, where pretty much everyone can read and write. | | When these ancient philosophers preferred oral exchanges over | text based communication you've to realize that text wasn't | quiet as easily produced and consumed in their society and what | they were likely going for was a fluid exchange of ideas, which | was pretty hard to do with written words in that age. | quickthrower2 wrote: | To start writing your ideas: do it. No one else needs to read | them. It can be on your local hard drive. It is valuable to do. | | Reading doesn't have to be back to back books or papers. Blogs, | tutorials, comments also count! | rcarr wrote: | "I feel the need, the need to read." - Maverick, Top Gun | exhaze wrote: | Folks here mentioned that the core point is not about the need to | the importance of reading, but the importance of writing. No, | it's really about becoming better at deep, structured thinking. I | think that's quite a good thing to focus on. | | The world we live in is becoming more complex. I think it's | because our communication pipelines now have unlimited IO - | there's too much to consume, too much to process, too many | thoughts we feel the need to express in response to all these | inputs. All of this at the unforgivably quick eventual | constituency cross-region replication guarantees afforded to us | by Google, Facebook, Apple, Twitter, and many others. | | I write more these days. | | I don't share most of what I write. | | I write for myself, because I think that writing my thoughts | helps to refine these thoughts, retain them for future me, and, | on occasion, share them with another person, thru conversion, or | by just copy pasting something I wrote. | | You don't need a blog to start writing. Just start writing. VS | Code. Notepad. Emacs. A piece of paper. It doesn't matter. As | long as you can do it when you feel like it. Write. | balaji1 wrote: | Weatherford, in his Genghis Khan book, says there isn't much | surviving text about that period and region. But whar sources | he uses in that book are all by "chroniclers" of that era - my | understanding is that the chroniclers are average reporters of | that period, with a decent patronage; just documenting things | on paper as they hear/research/study it; without the intention | of publishing for widespread readership. | | So here's a random idea based on that: Can we incentivize more | people to report on a topic/event today? Just write, do not | have to publish. | | ^ If more people just write commentary/summary like this for | whatever they consume, it might double as a decent diversion | from just consuming content online. And maybe.. maybe it will | make us mindful about what we consume online :D | exhaze wrote: | > average reporters of that period, with a decent patronage; | just documenting things on paper as they hear/research/study | it; without the intention of publishing for widespread | readership. | | We don't really have that anymore though right? | | The current internet is economy strongly incentivizes people | to write things in favor of engagement. | | Sometimes this aligns with ground truth (e.g. Gergely Orosz, | who has documented Musk's Twitter takeover via daily | updates). Many times it does not. | | Who is supposed to be the historical record keeper, at this | time, when trust in record keepers is at an all time low? | | I find myself uncomfortable asking such controversial | questions, but I do feel like they should be asked | abledantheman wrote: | > Who is supposed to be the historical record keeper, at | this time, when trust in record keepers is at an all time | low? | | All of us. | | I don't think we need to get hung up on 'who', not really. | I mean with regard to historical sources, how we do know | that these were always 'true' reporting and not | (deliberately or otherwise) untrustworthy, at best | misunderstood, by whoever wrote them because they may have | not had all the informarion or reporting second/third hand | or an agenda. | | Sometimes it isn't necessarily what is written as much as | it is who wrote it and when and under what circumstances. | rgrieselhuber wrote: | Recently I've heard it put in the context of how we can use | rituals to build up our personal power (in the energy / ability | to get things done sense, not the psychotic sense). This | prompted me to make a list of things that can be ritualized for | this purpose and writing is a big one. | exhaze wrote: | I kind of stumbled upon writing by accident. To me it's not | about ability to get things done (thought it helps). It's | about feeling some semblance of control and structure, | something I think so many struggle with in the past few years | (Trump, COVID, Ukraine/Russia, recent tech layoffs, etc etc). | | As others here mentioned, it's kind of like programming. | | We used it to live in "hello world". | | Now we all got thrown into this crazy distributed | microservice world. The language of this new world is still | the same. It's (mostly) English. Except it's more complex now | and you have to be faster and better at writing. So write. | rgrieselhuber wrote: | Distributed microservice world is a great way of putting it | as formerly monolithic systems dissemble into factions. | exhaze wrote: | By the way, here's a thought that worries me - where does | "let's all become good deep structural thinkers by | writing a lot" break down? How will we know it happened? | What do we do then? | rgrieselhuber wrote: | Revert to stone tablets? | clolege wrote: | > You can't think well without writing well, and you can't write | well without reading well. | | I find it hilarious that pg chose to use two double negatives to | get across _this_ point. | | Double negatives sound profound, but they use more contextual | overhead to convey less information than their positive | counterparts. pg is a much better writer than me, but I think it | would be more accurate (and stick better) if it instead was just: | | _Your reading limits your writing, and your writing limits your | thinking._ | Kaibeezy wrote: | I suspect the author is making a good point, but it is far from | adequately supported. Merely an assertion of opinion, not a even | really a fleshed-out essay. | | Here's the real shit, scariest thing I've ever read: | | _The Erosion of Deep Literacy_ , Adam Garfinkle, National | Affairs, 2020 | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25311662 | iillexial wrote: | The first comment in your link says basically the same what you | have said: | | >This article makes far reaching societal claims with | essentially no evidence. | | and | | >I suspect the author is making a good point, but it is far | from adequately supported | Kaibeezy wrote: | So read the article. It's way better supported than this one. | I'll be interested in your reactions and happy to engage in a | conversation. See you later? | iillexial wrote: | Sorry, I didn't mean to claim that article that you sent | makes false claims. It was just fun seeing a comment that | claims about not well supported article, following the | link, and seeing the same comment. Nothing more. | personjerry wrote: | It's interesting that the article's thesis is about reading, but | most of the article is actually about _writing_. And I think that | 's an understated point. I myself wrote a blog piece about | "Blogging as Structured Thinking" earlier this year. | | I think that actually plenty of people do reading in various | forms of content. The real challenge is getting people to do more | writing. | | If you want to be a thinker, you have to write. | | It really forces you to address your ideas more formulaically and | concretizes your theses. | | Start a blog! If you're reading this chances are you know how to | buy a domain and spin up a blog in less than 30 minutes. Try | Wordpress, or hugo with templates if you want more control. And | if you don't know what to write about, this link was recently | shared on HN, I thought it was pretty useful: | https://simonwillison.net/2022/Nov/6/what-to-blog-about/ | | And yes, it's important to publish it. It makes your thoughts | real. And ideas were meant to be shared. | sasha_fishter wrote: | Simon Willson explanation is actually really good. Thank you | for sharing this! | dirtyid wrote: | Yes, for me reading can be replaced and optimized by listening | text to speech at speeds at faster than my typical reading. | Writing still essentialto retain and formalize ideas. Listening | doesn't fully replace reading, still need to go back to text to | revist ideas when writing, but listening, at least for me, | incentivizes approaching new content in first place. | silvestrov wrote: | When writing you have to actual flesh out the details and | figure out what to include and what to omit. It is so easy to | skip that in day dreaming. | | Thinking is like drawing a bridge on paper. Writing is to | actual construct the bridge and test it. | | What looks like the strongest bridge (built of paper) is not | always the strongest one: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtMx7FZUC6A | dEnigma wrote: | "It doesn't need to be imagined, it needs to be written | down." -- Philip Glass | [deleted] | mck- wrote: | If blogging is like a webpage, then a Zettelkasten is like a | Wikipedia for your brains. | | Inspired by a thread on HN ~2 years ago, I've now written 1,075 | interconnected notes, and no longer feel that I forget 80% of | any non-fiction book I read. | | Linking is key; it allows you to connect any new insight to | your existing externalized knowledge base, resulting in deeper | understanding and retention. | | It also creates the space to connect thoughts across disparate | domains, which spawns novel ideas at an even greater rate. For | example, I might link an idea about neuroscience to my chess | writings that links to a note about workout methods which links | to a piano technique note. Now I suddenly see a new connection | about applying a piano practice technique to leveling up my | chess score. | | It has changed the way I read, or consume information | generally. | | A great book that got me started is Ahrens, S. (2017). How to | Take Smart Notes | [deleted] | DenisM wrote: | So do you take notes as you read? How do you handle charts? | mck- wrote: | Yes indeed, anytime anything is worth remembering (or | connecting with other notes) I write it down. It interrupts | reading, so I don't churn through as many books. | | I used to set goals like x books per year, but now I | realize it's a vanity metric and instead read for insights. | | I use Obsidian for note taking, which supports images too. | User23 wrote: | > It's interesting that the article's thesis is about reading, | but most of the article is actually about writing. And I think | that's an understated point. | | I got some excellent feedback from my manager's manager early | in my career and it was, paraphrasing, "keep reading, but write | more about what you read." | | Publishing doesn't have to be public either. At a large | organization internal communications are plenty sufficient. | syliconadder wrote: | I think this level of kindness makes it easy for people to feel | okay expressing themselves. Thank you for this beautiful | message. | mdp2021 wrote: | > _If you want to be a thinker, you have to write_ | | It's what was done at school, since primary... | | But it was "at school", because the learner is to be guided | with critical thinking and ability of assessment, over his own | or anybody else's production. | Silverback_VII wrote: | >Start a blog! | | but do not expect someone to read it! because with GTP-3 | automated content creation I'm increasingly less interested in | everything which will be or is already heavily affected by it | i.e. News articles, blogs and new books... | xboxnolifes wrote: | The goal isn't for someone to read it. We just covered that. | The goal is more writing, less reading. | johnny_reilly wrote: | What Simon said! I've found that blogging hugely helps me | clarify my own thinking on a topic, and flush out areas of | ignorance. | | Another excellent option for making getting going with blogging | simple is Docusaurus - makes it very easy to get up and | running! | | https://docusaurus.io | slorber wrote: | Yes, great choice :) | johnny_reilly wrote: | Declare your interest Sebastien ;-) | | I migrated my own blog to Docusaurus from Blogger about a | year and a half ago. I became very enamoured (and still am) | with the idea of writing blog posts as markdown, storing | them as code and publishing them as a website. | | I was delighted at how much Docusaurus aligned with that. | So much so that I wrote a guide to help others migrate: | | https://blog.johnnyreilly.com/definitive-guide-to- | migrating-... | skydhash wrote: | My own blog is on bearblog.dev. There's also nicheless.blog | if you want a shorter length as a constraint - and excuse ;). | I've tried setting a static generator and even wrote my own, | but I spent more time fiddling with them than writing. Now I | just write. Pretty much raw thoughts like how I would speak | with a friend. Doing more structured writing takes all the | joy about it for me. | thunky wrote: | > If you want to be a thinker, you have to write. | | > Start a blog! | | Posting to HN counts as writing, too. | kragen wrote: | posting to hn has its disadvantages | | most of the interactions you get are people trying to prove | you wrong | | this is great when it's with evidence, but half the time | instead they accuse you of lying, argue from their own | authority, or insult you | | the options for including equations, data tables, and | diagrams are very limited, and these are important when what | you're thinking about is objectively falsifiable propositions | | the options for structuring your writing into sections with | titles with a table of contents, so readers can navigate an | argument that takes more than two minutes to read, are | similarly weak | | nobody reads what you write after a week, and it's hard for | you to even find it yourself | | worst of all, if you discover that you were wrong two weeks | or more after your initial comment, there's no way to append | a correction | akkartik wrote: | You are already so prolific outside HN, have you considered | collecting your HN comments in your own space? | | Once I started doing this I found HN comments would grow | off HN. Now there are a few subjects where I can just point | people at a link the next time a subject comes up. And the | link has often grown out of repeated iterations of debate | on HN and elsewhere. | | It doesn't bother me that people forget HN comments. I | don't forget them, and that seems the important thing. | | You _are_ right that one needs to keep HN at arms length. | Over the years I try not to engage in repeated back and | forth. I'm not writing primarily for whoever I'm arguing | with. I'm writing for the silent readers. | kragen wrote: | oh thanks | | i did edit some hn comments into dercuano, derctuo, and | dernocua | | which comments of mine here do you think would be worth | saving | akkartik wrote: | After many years I recently have a way to follow people | on HN once again (https://www.hnfollow.com). Since I | started following you, I've favorited a couple in | particular: | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33641298#33644090 | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33679360#33684545 | | But I think there are others. Your view of your own | darlings will be different from others. It might be worth | downloading the archive in | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33389843, just | because it's recent and so going to be up to date. | kragen wrote: | thank you! | rerdavies wrote: | ... all of which seem like motivation for writing better. | Keep on posting! | kragen wrote: | doubt i will | | posting here makes my life worse | Wowfunhappy wrote: | > In the science fiction books I read as a kid, reading had often | been replaced by some more efficient way of acquiring knowledge. | Mysterious "tapes" would load it into one's brain like a program | being loaded into a computer. That sort of thing is unlikely to | happen anytime soon [...] because even if one existed, it would | be insufficient. Reading about x doesn't just teach you about x; | it also teaches you how to write. | | Well, but if we could produce a tape that taught x, presumably we | could also produce a tape that taught writing. | fossuser wrote: | I think he's referencing Asimov's profession novella there, | though the main point of that story was that the protagonist | couldn't get the tapes because of the capability for original | thought (some people had to make the tapes). | | And yeah, probably a tape that structured your brain in some | way that had the knowledge may include the prerequisites | necessary for it to work (better language/reasoning and | writing). | | But even if it didn't, Asimov's story agrees with him - it was | insufficient. It's why they made some people avoid the tapes. | Wowfunhappy wrote: | I haven't read that Asimov story. However, I suppose the core | question is this: from a neurological perspective, is | learning factual information different from learning a skill? | | I'm inclined to believe it's not, because we're actually | pretty bad at rote memorization. We usually need to | _understand_ the memory--how it can be used, or why it 's | important. Professionals construct "mental palaces", | effectively building artificial meaning. | magicloop wrote: | I see reading as a knowledge compression function. So it is | efficient to read something that the writer otherwise spent a | long time assembling. | | But reading is just a route to quality thinking. Another route is | via technical debate. You verbally describe a problem and | solution and then your peers drill into that and offer | counterpoints. This is in my experience as beneficial as reading | due its interactive aspect - which reading does not offer. | eatonphil wrote: | Every time I write something I intend to be permanent I reread | what I've written multiple times out loud. I find complicated | sentences, or related phrases that are unnecessarily far apart, | or words that I'd never use in speech. Then I make modifications | to minimize these. | | So even aside from reading what others write, I think you can | only write well yourself if you assiduously read what _you_ | write. | borroka wrote: | Editing a few days after writing does wonders to improve the | quality of the writing, especially allowing you to find those | parts, expressions, words that you do not hear as your own | voice. Reading and rereading immediately after writing is | certainly helpful, but it presents a "fluency" problem. That | is, due to the fatigue of rereading what is still fresh in our | minds and in our hands and the increasing familiarity with the | text, we bypass some parts of the text while reading. | | It's kind of like having a weird uncle in the family: after we | see this guy running around the living room naked for some | years, we think it's ordinary, fine, ok: "oh, it's just Uncle | Bob", we tell ourselves. | | Then we go to college, come home for vacation after meeting new | people, lost the "familiarity" of family life, and when we | finally see Uncle Bob running around the living room naked, our | reaction is not one of jovial acceptance like before, but one | of horror. | copperx wrote: | Citations are needed for such bold claims if PG wants to be | persuasive. | shmageggy wrote: | I've noticed SV rich guys never use citations (Sam Altman is | another that comes to mind), probably because of the uncritical | fawning they receive regardless. Why bother backing up what you | say with evidence when the audience doesn't demand it. | breck wrote: | I highly recommend the book "How to Read a Book" by Mortimer | Adler. I've been rereading it every few years since it changed my | life in high school (turned me into a lifelong autodidact). | sasha_fishter wrote: | I've seen this popping up every now and then. I just put it on | my wishlist for next order... | kingkongjaffa wrote: | I'm thinking about this more and more in the context of being a | developer and product manager. I'm a knowledge worker, my unit of | work is often writing, either for a computer to read or people to | read. | | Getting better at writing, and simply writing more is a core goal | and something I struggle with. | | I'm looking at different systems like evergreen notes, | zettlekasten etc. and trying to incorporate those in my own note | taking. | | https://notes.andymatuschak.org/Evergreen_notes | thoughtpeddler wrote: | For two decades I've been a heavy "event-driven journaler" (i.e. | I journal when events occur in my life that I need to think | through by writing, vs. journaling as a routine daily practice). | | This has been an immensely helpful way to structure my thinking, | in the way PG writes about. It also develops a record of thoughts | that I refer back to and reflect on. It's driven my personal | growth, and helped me uncover personal blindspots. | | In more recent times, life is busier, and journaling the way I | used to is harder to make time for. (Either that, or the Day One | app just isn't doing it for me anymore, I'm not sure.) | | Instead, I've started to use the voice memos app to voice dictate | my thoughts, as if I'm being interviewed on a podcast. My tone is | that of an interviewee, providing their answer, sharing their | reasoning on a topic, debating the pros and cons, and arriving at | a conclusion. | | I use this format for both personal matters or thoughts related | to professional endeavors. It's really working for me. It's a | higher velocity way to get my thoughts out, yet still keep them | structured. Thanks to increased playback speeds, I can go through | my past thoughts more easily too. I highly recommend more people | try this, especially if writing/typing it out seems like a chore. | photochemsyn wrote: | If we were back in pre-writing days, when people memorized long | sagas word for word, then anyone contemplating the creation of a | new saga would similarly be told of 'the need to listen'. | sixstringtheory wrote: | I find the quality of my thinking is much higher when writing by | hand, but it's so slow I feel like I get down a particular path | and forget so many of the other things I was considering in | parallel. | | I can type much faster than I can write but it feels like a | messier thought process. It feels more like jamming a gearbox, | while writing by hand feels like a smooth shifting bicycle, with | the wind in my hair. | | Should I try dictation and then writing it down later? Or typing | up my handwritten notes after writing them? Any other ideas? | zktrust wrote: | you must be much older than me. i never had a chance to | handwrite my notes or thoughts. all goes to straigh to typing. | I fear though my generation and future generations are missing | out substantially. | itisit wrote: | > i never had a chance to handwrite my notes or thoughts. | | Really? Yet to come across a pen and paper in your however | many years of life? I'm not sure what point you're trying to | make. Are those things so exceedingly anachronistic to you | that you'd be at a loss? I'm sorry, but I feel you're being | disingenuous. | thenerdhead wrote: | I rediscovered this at 27. Used to do everything with a | keyboard or recorder. It's very powerful although I do my | handwriting on an iPad with a pencil. | zktrust wrote: | have you seen nassim taleb's recent comments about this guy? | Taleb while harsh, always is truthful to the truth. I'm too young | to know the story behind Hacker News and ycombinator, but reading | some of the recent stuff makes me question prevailing sentiments | about PG. | vortegne wrote: | I think they're both egomaniacs who treat their own word as | gospel. PG is just less brash about it, so comes off as more | "reasonable" to many. I think they're both just prime examples | of survivorship bias and I try to avoid any of their opinions | at all times. Of course, sometimes curiosity takes over, but I | never leave feeling good after reading anything they have to | say. | bustedblade wrote: | read all of PG's stuff.. promise you will think otherwise. | Taleb's books is hilarious and insightful but PG's essays | convey those same truths and many more in a much more succinct | format. | [deleted] | throwboi123 wrote: | Link? | zktrust wrote: | u mean for the tweet? google please. there are many. | TekMol wrote: | How about an excercise in writing? Instead of referring to | "comments" by someone else, tell us your own thoughts. What is | the prevailing sentiment you see? And how do you question it? | enan wrote: | The essay makes this central claim but then spends most of the | time talking about writing leading to better thinking (which I | think is well proven). Does anyone know of research that backs up | the main thesis? | | "Reading about x doesn't just teach you about x; it also teaches | you how to write." | raghavtoshniwal wrote: | > Mysterious "tapes" would load it into one's brain like a | program being loaded into a computer. | | > That sort of thing is unlikely to happen anytime soon | | Probably just my lived experience, but watching youtube at faster | playback speed feels like downloading information. Increasing | speeds at parts which I can easily grok and decreasing it when it | takes time to understand the content. | wskish wrote: | Here is the output of GPT reading and summarizing this (see | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33748363). Model seems to be | hallucinating the author. Any thoughts on how to improve it? | | "The Need to Read is an essay written by Kevin Kelly. In it, he | argues that reading is essential not just for acquiring | knowledge, but for learning how to write. He cites the example of | a science fiction book in which reading has been replaced by a | more efficient method of knowledge transfer. He argues that even | if such a method existed, it would be insufficient because it | would not allow for the kind of discovery that writing does. He | concludes that people who want to have ideas can't afford not to | read." | TekMol wrote: | Does GPT-3 offer summaries out of the box? Or do you do it by a | prompt like "The summary of the text above is:"? | wskish wrote: | we are strategically prompting it as such: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33750013 | | open to all ideas here | TekMol wrote: | Is a "prompt prefix" a thing in GPT-3 or do you mean you | combine that prefix with the text of the page into a | prompt? | wskish wrote: | We prepend the prompt prefix to the page text to create | the actual model prompt. GPT doesn't have any such | abstraction. | TekMol wrote: | And GPT-3 remembers the prefix at the end of a long story | and writes a summary? | | That sounds very surprising to me. I would have strongly | expected it continues the story. | zktrust wrote: | i think that's also rubbish, just like PG's written opinion | piece. How on earth did we then get the great work by William | Shakespeare. ShakeSPeare born a time when reading a lot wasn't | even possible. There was little to none good content material | out there. He was writing more than he could have possible read | anywhere else. | pavlov wrote: | Shakespeare wrote about Julius Caesar, Titus Andronicus, | Richard III, Henry IV, and so on. How did he learn about | these people if there was nothing to read? | zktrust wrote: | u make one hell of a point that i thought about. this is | recursion but in different languages, which is not really | applicable with exception of Richard and Henry. Read in | latin, then translate it to THE ORIGINAL OTHER LANGUAGE | ENGLISH. You are diluting my genuine point that I am | making. The content of way back then was negligible to | content that exists now. In all fairness, the opinion | brought forward by your messiah PG is not really fit for | standing judgement because of the point i brought forward. | | Good writer, good idea makers exist without the need to | have been good at reading. | arcturus17 wrote: | > The content of way back then was negligible to content | that exists now | | But enough to fill a single person's lifetime regardless? | So whether you take Shakespeare or Murakami, their | individual perspectives are not that different since | either of them could have filled their lifetimes with | reading. | | > The content of way back then was negligible to content | that exists now | | The burden of proof remains on you. You need to find us | an example of an outstanding writer who didn't read much. | This doesn't even hold for the classics (eg, Marcus | Aurelius or Plato) as far as I can tell. | | > your messiah PG | | This is low-level, disrespectful, intellectually | dishonest and a phallacy. GP said nothing about Graham | and you are pulling this out of nowhere. | zktrust wrote: | the last point was for a different thread but as u see | platform has been making sure i cant respond in timely | fashion to all threads. I sequeezed it in there. | | > The burden of proof remains on you. You need to find us | an example of an outstanding writer who didn't read much. | This doesn't even hold for the classics (eg, Marcus | Aurelius or Plato) as far as I can tell. | | I think it's fair to say that we don't actually know much | about Plato. All stories being told about plato are in | third person narrative. I think you are contradicting | yourself, Socrates and other ancients were a big | proponent of discarding writing in place of dialogue. I | think this should suffice as point. | arcturus17 wrote: | Sorry for calling you dishonest; you do not seem so. | mikebenfield wrote: | So you are under the belief that the written output of one | man born in 1564 was of greater quantity than all "good" | writing prior to his time? Are you sure you thought this | through? | zktrust wrote: | no i am not under the belief of anything other than | mentioning PG in a slightly bad light will get me downvotes | or a ban on this platform. | | > So you are under the belief that the written output of | one man born in 1564 was of greater quantity than all | "good" writing prior to his time? Are you sure you thought | this through? | | This is not the point i was trying to make. | inglor_cz wrote: | It is not PG, it is your sneering and arrogant attitude | that attracts downvotes. | | I haven't downvoted you, but if I did, it would be for | the tone of your comments alone. I don't care about PG | one way or another, but I am sick of the total level of | glibness on the Internet, and while I gave up on | mainstream social media, I would prefer HN to stay a | little bit friendlier and less toxic than Twitter or | Reddit. | zktrust wrote: | thank you for not downvoting me. i am less arrogant than | you think i am a true effective altruist. hahahahaha | inglor_cz wrote: | You're welcome. Transmitting one's true personality | across TCP/IP is harder than it looks. | mikebenfield wrote: | I am not a huge fan of PG and I seriously doubt that had | anything to do with your downvotes. | wskish wrote: | I tweaked the GPT prompt to include the domain name from the | story url as additional context. That fixes this one and a few | other problematic ones. Here is a typical summary of this story | now: | | "This is an essay written by Paul Graham in November of 2022. | In it, he talks about how reading is necessary not just for | acquiring knowledge, but for learning to write well. He argues | that there is no substitute for reading, and that people who | want to have ideas need to be good at reading." | rookie_knight wrote: | Is this in response to Vitalik's tweet or is the tweet in | response to this? | knome wrote: | Asimov had a nice short story about taped knowledge, | "Profession". | | It's a really good read. | jholman wrote: | I think there is clear historical evidence that this thesis is, | at a minimum, greatly exaggerated. Socrates never wrote, and I | think he had more good ideas than Paul Graham ever will. Muhammad | was not even literate, and unless he was inspired by divinity, | his ideas were extremely powerful. | | I mean, I do personally find that writing is a powerful tool for | thinking. Maybe that means that Paul Graham and I are normal, and | Socrates and Muhammad were atypical. But maybe it says more about | humans-in-our-society than it does about the essential human | condition. If humans learned "by tape" (as per the SF books from | the Silver Age, referenced in TFA's opening para), maybe idea- | production would work along different lines. | | I admit, I tend to agree with him about the usefulness of | writing. But I think it's just an irrational intuition, not the | clear argument he implies. | Arisaka1 wrote: | Socrates had the ancient agora, which was (oversimplifying) a | group of experts gathering in the same place bouncing off ideas | from each other verbally. It's time to stop discounting the | role of one's environment in personal growth. | eternalban wrote: | > Muhammad was not even literate, and unless he was inspired by | divinity, his ideas were extremely powerful. | | He used to take retreats in the caves near Mecca to _meditate | and reflect_. It was during one of these sessions that he later | claimed that he was overwhelmed with the inescapable presence | of archangel Gabriel who commanded him to _" Read!"_. This | directive of Gabriel to Mohammad is held to be the first verse | of the divine revelation in Islam. Read! | In the Name of your Lord Who created Created Man(kind) | from a clot of blood Read! And your Lord is | Ar-Rahman Who Taught by the 'Pen' Taugh Man(kind) | that which he knew not. [Q.96 'Al-Alaq'] | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad%27s_first_revelation#... | | As mentioned in a comment to a dup post, Paul is neglecting the | _reflect_ phase. For some this occurs prior to writing. Others, | take time when writing to pause and reflect. | | p.s. | | > Muhammad was not even literate | | We _do_ know that he dictated and others wrote messages | [correspondences] that were sent. So no records of him writing, | but this was not an uneducated man. He was a merchant, | traveled, and conversed with other men at markets, oasis rest | stops along the trade route. (And he was not a frivolous man.) | | The reason Muhammad is said to have been "illiterate" is | because Qur'an refers to him (yes, it is the most meta book | I've ever read) as "the un-lettered Prophet". "Ummi". | | Personally, I think this is a misreading, since these are | technical terms (like 'Pen' in above cited verses), and | 'letter' refers to the 'mystic letters* given to Moses'. | | i.e. Mohammad the _Gentile_ Prophet. The prophet for the un- | Lettered, _the Gentile_. | | *consult your local Rabbi :) | | https://aish.com/the-mystical-power-of-hebrew-letters/ | Razengan wrote: | > _the reflect phase. For some this occurs prior to writing. | Others, take time when writing to pause and reflect._ | | First you load the dataset then you train the model. | eternalban wrote: | That's Zen. | selimthegrim wrote: | There is some debate about whether that's better translated | as 'recite' as opposed to 'read' | thenerdhead wrote: | It is a good point, but with time comes change. Plato was an | excellent scribe of Socrates and Aristotle after him. Just | because Socrates thought it was inhuman to write things down, | doesn't mean his successors did and we are all thankful they | did such a diligent job in doing so. But then again the | argument of writing things down expands the metaphysics of | philosophy, especially Socrates perspective given it's not in | his head. | photochemsyn wrote: | Many people in ancient civilizations were trained in a mostly | forgotten art, the recital of long stories, aka 'oral | histories'. However, it's doubtful that any one person could | retain a whole library of such oral histories, i.e. it was | probably closer to one long text per person, given the | limitations of human memory. Writing was essentially the | creation of an external memory system that other people could | refer to. For example, the first records of Icelandic sagas: | | https://retrospectjournal.com/2016/10/10/from-oral-to-writte... | sagz wrote: | His first reference around audiobooks it's particularly | resonating, in so far as to express, record and iterate ideas | with mind maps! | | Mind maps, sketches, doodles, mocks, are ineffably (pun intended) | great at _having_ good ideas. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-11-26 23:00 UTC)