With regard to your point #10 ("Expecting people to follow written instructions"): I used to work from home, preparing income tax returns. I would often need to get additional information from clients. I found that if I emailed a client and asked multiple questions, I would get a reply that answered just the first question – or sometimes just the last question. Very frustrating.
1. Would be interesting to consider effects of important books before and after the Internet. My life/mind was actually changed when I was young in the 20th century and read Orientalism, Room of One’s Own, Diet for a Small Planet.
Perhaps the powerful ideas in those books now are conveyed in a parade of TikToks that have the same impact?
2. Benefit of nonfiction is to absorb the whole schema rather than the specifics, almost like how much procedural knowledge you learn in school that you don’t remember learning but are essential to know. Just as you don’t say (let’s hope), what a waste elementary school was, I can’t remember what I did all day there.
But the pile on of details as in The Power Broker constructs an understanding that you leave the book with. You may not remember the names of the highways and such but The Power Broker leaves you understanding how important cohesive neighborhoods are to the life of a city and what a lasting destructive effect racism in city planning continues to have many decades later. A detail rich text has you living and absorbing understanding rather than consciously accruing it.
3. Importance of first hand voices bearing witness and telling you how it was: Frederick Douglass memoir, Anne Frank, Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz’. At the very least, the undeniable humanity of those voices have a lasting impact on readers. But maybe memoirs is not what you meant by non-fiction.
Thanks for freeing me from the worry that I am writing too many words.
Oh, number 13! I write a LOT of instructional text as part of my job. I have come to understand this as text that I can someday point to in court..."see! I TOLD him not do that here, and here and here., on this legal document." I think of this as liability leverage literature. Sigh...🤷♂️
For number 28, isn’t this assuming you don’t weigh yourself? Every person I know who tracks calories also weighs themselves and adjusts their calorie targets down if they stop losing weight. The best calorie trackers will do this automatically if you put your weight in consistently
I think when it comes to nonfiction books, one has to keep in mind that most aren't good. That is to say, it isn't that the nonfiction book doesn't work as a form, but that most people are bad at it and have nothing to say. There are definitely cases where they work amazingly well and change your life and how you see things.
Also, when it comes to religions without God, Buddhism might want a word with you. Although we tend to like religions with a human face as it were, you have to stretch the definition of "gods" pretty far to cover all of those without a specific pantheon.
With acupuncture and multivitamins, it's a case by case basis. Every holistic practice has people who don't know what they're doing, just like many doctors in Western medicine (and every field, for that matter). Just because a handful of people exploit or misinterpret or misuse these things doesn't mean they never work. I understand skepticism, but it can be harmful to make generalizations about old wisdom and medicine that has historically helped many people.
But I would argue against your nonfiction book contention, at least for me. Robert Wright's "The Moral Animal" and "Why Buddhism Is True" and Robert Sapolsky's "Determined" - life changing.
I completely agree with #36, but Apollo 11 is an illustration of the principle, not a counterexample as you posed it. All the previous Apollo missions -- and Gemini and Mercury missions -- were steps in solving problems and figuring out what would be required for a successful Apollo 11.
A "trying to figure it all out ahead of time" approach would have had engineers plan and design and build prototypes in a lab for 7 years without launching a single actual space mission, then build a big rocket based on their theories, and try to launch it hoping that it would work. (Of course, it would probably have blown up.)
#35 is something I can attest is false in at least two situations. One, when any attempt to improve your existing code makes it worse. You're trying to get to the top of the mountain, but any path leads to a dead end. The only way to actually get there is to go back to the bottom and go a different way, or just be happy with the point you've reached.
Or two: fixing someone else's code. Sometimes every attempt to improve someone else's absolute garbage just reinforces the problems, cementing them into deeper structures, like a bone healing incorrectly.
I think give Roam and Tana another try daily for a month. That'll help you use Zettlekasten notetaking tools. I'm using Obsidian a bit now and can understand why starting there would make high failure rates likely. It also helps to have a reason to use it (e.g. course notes, research notes) and collaboration in a multi-user workspace for socializing.
With regard to your point #10 ("Expecting people to follow written instructions"): I used to work from home, preparing income tax returns. I would often need to get additional information from clients. I found that if I emailed a client and asked multiple questions, I would get a reply that answered just the first question – or sometimes just the last question. Very frustrating.
"Solving supply shortages with consumption subsidies"
This.
Also, this one:
"Rewriting your code from scratch." has a Wikipedia page devoted to it: The Second System Syndrome.
This is very good indeed and led me to the Tunnel Guy. Thank you, John.
Also! Some things I originally planned to include in this list but found to my surprise they do seem to work at least somewhat:
- Vitamin D supplementation
- Citronella
- Microwaving stuff without liquid water (as long as there are polar molecules or maybe charged ions)
Re: non-fiction books
1. Would be interesting to consider effects of important books before and after the Internet. My life/mind was actually changed when I was young in the 20th century and read Orientalism, Room of One’s Own, Diet for a Small Planet.
Perhaps the powerful ideas in those books now are conveyed in a parade of TikToks that have the same impact?
2. Benefit of nonfiction is to absorb the whole schema rather than the specifics, almost like how much procedural knowledge you learn in school that you don’t remember learning but are essential to know. Just as you don’t say (let’s hope), what a waste elementary school was, I can’t remember what I did all day there.
But the pile on of details as in The Power Broker constructs an understanding that you leave the book with. You may not remember the names of the highways and such but The Power Broker leaves you understanding how important cohesive neighborhoods are to the life of a city and what a lasting destructive effect racism in city planning continues to have many decades later. A detail rich text has you living and absorbing understanding rather than consciously accruing it.
3. Importance of first hand voices bearing witness and telling you how it was: Frederick Douglass memoir, Anne Frank, Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz’. At the very least, the undeniable humanity of those voices have a lasting impact on readers. But maybe memoirs is not what you meant by non-fiction.
Thanks for freeing me from the worry that I am writing too many words.
Oh, number 13! I write a LOT of instructional text as part of my job. I have come to understand this as text that I can someday point to in court..."see! I TOLD him not do that here, and here and here., on this legal document." I think of this as liability leverage literature. Sigh...🤷♂️
I think that this is all rather brilliant
For number 28, isn’t this assuming you don’t weigh yourself? Every person I know who tracks calories also weighs themselves and adjusts their calorie targets down if they stop losing weight. The best calorie trackers will do this automatically if you put your weight in consistently
Good list.
I think when it comes to nonfiction books, one has to keep in mind that most aren't good. That is to say, it isn't that the nonfiction book doesn't work as a form, but that most people are bad at it and have nothing to say. There are definitely cases where they work amazingly well and change your life and how you see things.
Also, when it comes to religions without God, Buddhism might want a word with you. Although we tend to like religions with a human face as it were, you have to stretch the definition of "gods" pretty far to cover all of those without a specific pantheon.
With acupuncture and multivitamins, it's a case by case basis. Every holistic practice has people who don't know what they're doing, just like many doctors in Western medicine (and every field, for that matter). Just because a handful of people exploit or misinterpret or misuse these things doesn't mean they never work. I understand skepticism, but it can be harmful to make generalizations about old wisdom and medicine that has historically helped many people.
"Communism"
Random blogger > Marx
Right... that's your argument. Nice post though.
Wow, so much good stuff.
But I would argue against your nonfiction book contention, at least for me. Robert Wright's "The Moral Animal" and "Why Buddhism Is True" and Robert Sapolsky's "Determined" - life changing.
I completely agree with #36, but Apollo 11 is an illustration of the principle, not a counterexample as you posed it. All the previous Apollo missions -- and Gemini and Mercury missions -- were steps in solving problems and figuring out what would be required for a successful Apollo 11.
A "trying to figure it all out ahead of time" approach would have had engineers plan and design and build prototypes in a lab for 7 years without launching a single actual space mission, then build a big rocket based on their theories, and try to launch it hoping that it would work. (Of course, it would probably have blown up.)
#35 is something I can attest is false in at least two situations. One, when any attempt to improve your existing code makes it worse. You're trying to get to the top of the mountain, but any path leads to a dead end. The only way to actually get there is to go back to the bottom and go a different way, or just be happy with the point you've reached.
Or two: fixing someone else's code. Sometimes every attempt to improve someone else's absolute garbage just reinforces the problems, cementing them into deeper structures, like a bone healing incorrectly.
This can, and often do, overlap.
I think give Roam and Tana another try daily for a month. That'll help you use Zettlekasten notetaking tools. I'm using Obsidian a bit now and can understand why starting there would make high failure rates likely. It also helps to have a reason to use it (e.g. course notes, research notes) and collaboration in a multi-user workspace for socializing.
I’ve been using Anki for non-fiction books and I think it’s the way to go.