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I didn't read past the first point because it's dead wrong. THAT statement is dead wrong. Or at least, in dead opposition to my approach to learning. If someon

I didn't read past the first point because it's dead wrong. THAT statement is dead wrong. Or at least, in dead opposition to my approach to learning. If someone says five things, and four are wrong but the last one teaches me something new or gives me a new perspective on something I already know... Reading the four things cost me maybe two mintes. The last one cost me thirty seconds to read, plus another couple of minutes to savour. The total investment is maybe ten minutes and I learned something. Of course, if I skip everyone who seems to be wrong right off the bat I'll avoid some situations where all five are wrong. But I have something to help me out with that: The post is on HN and some other nice people are voting it up. So something must be right, why don't I navigate into the cave, around the pit of vipers, past the deadfall, and onto the intellectual treasure? And in fact, I read past your first statement and liked the rest. See how that works? ;-)

poet 16y ago
It's most certainly not the approach I take to learning. It is, however, the approach I take towards the conical "I disagree with Paul Graham" blog posts. Why? Because everyone's a critic. If the critic in question doesn't demonstrate a general understanding of the subject matter I do not invest my time. In this case, it was a misreading of an essay, but it really could be anything. I apply this approach to critics of all kinds. Do I apply this approach to published essayists or programmers with well known software? Not usually, because getting published or becoming well known is a sort of vetting in itself. But a vetting process is certainly necessary for blog posts on criticism or some random repository on Github. There just isn't enough time in the day to dive into things that don't have a solid foundation. Why would I read a 5000 line Ruby program whose initial functions are written poorly? At best I'll end with one or two nice tricks and a large headache.
- raganwald 16y ago
  Hey, I only disagreed with you so vehemently as a rhetorical device, to mirror your own statement:-) Your strategy for filtering information obviously works for you, and my guess is that if you missed something good, it'll come back to you later when someone you respects says "Hey, I know Raganwald is usually a waste of time, but did you see X?" So... Rock on! And yes, I enjoyed reading your comment and the reply to my thoughts. Thanks for taking the time to post.

poet 16y ago

It's most certainly not the approach I take to learning. It is, however, the approach I take towards the conical "I disagree with Paul Graham" blog posts. Why? Because everyone's a critic. If the critic in question doesn't demonstrate a general understanding of the subject matter I do not invest my time. In this case, it was a misreading of an essay, but it really could be anything. I apply this approach to critics of all kinds. Do I apply this approach to published essayists or programmers with well known software? Not usually, because getting published or becoming well known is a sort of vetting in itself. But a vetting process is certainly necessary for blog posts on criticism or some random repository on Github. There just isn't enough time in the day to dive into things that don't have a solid foundation. Why would I read a 5000 line Ruby program whose initial functions are written poorly? At best I'll end with one or two nice tricks and a large headache.

raganwald 16y ago
Hey, I only disagreed with you so vehemently as a rhetorical device, to mirror your own statement:-) Your strategy for filtering information obviously works for you, and my guess is that if you missed something good, it'll come back to you later when someone you respects says "Hey, I know Raganwald is usually a waste of time, but did you see X?" So... Rock on! And yes, I enjoyed reading your comment and the reply to my thoughts. Thanks for taking the time to post.