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Every now and then someone posts some humorous easily-digestible technical content to Hacker News and commenters say stuff like "All mathematics/science/softwar

Every now and then someone posts some humorous easily-digestible technical content to Hacker News and commenters say stuff like "All mathematics/science/software development textbooks should be written this way", and some commenters throw out a few similar links, and the story slowly drops down the HN front page, as stories do, and then it's mostly forgotten, until the next one comes along. If education matters, and if human intelligence augmentation matters, then we should be researching how to make difficult technical material more easily digestible, for example by enhancing it with an appropriate level of humour. Millions of dollars are being spent on making machines more intelligent (or is it billions?). Someone should be spending some time, money and effort on making people smarter. Also, compared to other possible human intelligence augmentation technologies, writing textbooks in a more humorous style is less intrusive than taking "smart pills" or placing electrodes inside your brain.

dangom 10y ago
Through the history of mankind we've been researching ways to make difficult technical material more easily digestible. And may the invention of print itself, and the subsequent invention of "the textbook" be a showcase example of this. Though humorous style is less intrusive than taking "smart pills" or placing electrodes inside our brains, it is very context-sensitive. I believe humour should definitely be used more often in oral presentations of complicated material, where the presenter is able to "feel" the context of those listening; but maybe not so much in written text. To make a point, there are many technical textbooks that use funny examples and exercises as a way to draw students attention - and that does generally work quite well - but it can be quite a tiring read if you are going through the material multiple times.

dangom 10y ago

Through the history of mankind we've been researching ways to make difficult technical material more easily digestible. And may the invention of print itself, and the subsequent invention of "the textbook" be a showcase example of this. Though humorous style is less intrusive than taking "smart pills" or placing electrodes inside our brains, it is very context-sensitive. I believe humour should definitely be used more often in oral presentations of complicated material, where the presenter is able to "feel" the context of those listening; but maybe not so much in written text. To make a point, there are many technical textbooks that use funny examples and exercises as a way to draw students attention - and that does generally work quite well - but it can be quite a tiring read if you are going through the material multiple times.