4 ms·

One surprising thing I've discovered, as an adult, is that most people never really learn to write or read very well. Their having obtained a degree usually doe

One surprising thing I've discovered, as an adult, is that most people never really learn to write or read very well. Their having obtained a degree usually doesn't even change the odds that much. As a kid, I'd never have guessed that was the case. I don't know whether this has been the case forever, or if it's a new development—I mean, I know widespread literacy wasn't the norm for much of history, but what about after compulsory education became A Thing? A typical letter home from the US civil war or even WWII, from conscripts, not officers, seems to be hyper-literate compared to modern norms, but that may be selection bias (who wants to read the ones that aren't good? Perhaps my perception of "typical" is skewed)

floren 4y ago
> One surprising thing I've discovered, as an adult, is that most people never really learn to write or read very well. I think people underestimate how much reading will help you write. You can't spend your life reading and not absorb some information about structure, style, and the language. As a kid, I went to the lower levels of spelling bee competitions pretty much every year because the kind of words they throw at you at lower levels are largely words I would encounter reading Jules Verne and the like. I'd eventually get knocked out because I never studied the official list of spelling bee words, but my voracious reading held me in good stead for most of it.
- asdff 4y ago
  One of the recommended ways to study for the GRE essay section is to start reading long form articles in the new york times or similar places. Basically, you try and retrain your mental language model on good english, versus the crappy english you use in texts or instagram captions that its typically trained on.
- ineedasername 4y ago
  A good point. People aspiring to be professional writers are often encouraged to widely read as much as they can of the genre in which they're interested. As you said, some information about structure, style, etc is absorbed. In addition they gain an understanding of the current status quo in the area that allows them to see the direction they may want to go in to make their own voice unique, which tropes they may want to subvert, or the style of specific sub-genres that may resonate with them and inspire them in that direction. Or the type that is most commercially successful in current tastes & trends. it is after all a business and the writer, no matter how hard they strive to make their voice unique, is trying to make a living. I've followed Charlie Stross's writing about the business side of the industry and it's very common to work with editors & agents to ensure they're writing in a marketable sub genre. For example, imagine a writer that had a story outline set in a alternate timeline epic fiction where magic existed, but current tastes among readers looking for epic length books skewed towards space opera. An author might without too much difficulty map many plot points onto space opera settings. Magic becomes advanced technology. Empires can exist in both; historical details can be mapped onto the fictional societies & their history, etc. At the same time, the tropes specific and unique to alternate timeline historical fiction might be adapted and morphed in the space opera genre to create something a bit more unique. But a writer could not easily make those kinds of adaptions without being well read in the umbrella genre.
deckard1 4y ago
There is an environmental difference. Today we are inundated with information, much of it text. People are constantly reading today. Text messages, emails, Facebook posts. But these are all low-quality. Additionally, messages have to be concise. If someone at work emails me and it's longer than a Tweet, I'm not reading it. I don't have time for it and, if it's like the majority of emails I receive, it's irrelevant anyway. As information noise goes up, attention spans go down. Which means flowery language, formality, and long text starts to disappear. When I've been reading on a computer all day for work, do I have the patience and energy to read a long book at home? Or would I rather watch a movie and relax. But here's the silver lining I'm hoping for: AI could be a way out of this mess. AI can sift out the noise from the signal. But it has to be on the personal level. Open source, self-hosted, private. No corporation slanting the biases. There are a lot of interesting implications here. Much like it's impossible to get a human on the phone when calling up your wireless provider, it may become difficult to reach other humans. To "pierce" their AI shield, that protects them from The Infinite Noise.
- wobbly_bush 4y ago
  > When I've been reading on a computer all day for work, do I have the patience and energy to read a long book at home? Or would I rather watch a movie and relax. Or somewhere inbetween - audiobooks. They are written with higher quality than most other text forms, and the narration lowers effort to consume them.
robocat 4y ago
Counterpoint: I think our writing in general has vastly improved, but because it happens slowly we don’t notice the absolute difference. I have two examples of middle aged friends who have changed drastically after 2000. One dyslexic friend got a job at 30 where they had to email professionally, and their writing improved a lot (not just spelling, but metaphors etcetera). Another was functionally illiterate (got others to read), but they needed to read and write for work, and they learnt to do the basics (I can send a text and get a reply). Most jobs now require writing, and most people when doing anything will learn to do it better over time.
- ineedasername 4y ago
  >I have two examples of middle aged friends who have changed Yes. My experience teaching college courses gives me wider & more systematic knowledge on college freshmen in particular, but more anecdotally I see people who never quite learn how to organize their ideas effectively in a written form during college. If they get there, they gain it over time in their professional careers by example & through absorbing the cultural norms of communicating in their professional sphere. And this ability is the foundation of persuasive communication, written or verbal. That is particularly problematic because persuasive ability is so important in day to day life, career, personal relationships, etc. You need to persuade people to give you a job[1]. You need to persuade colleagues to listen to & adopt your ideas or suggestions when they differ from the established path, or to initially establish a path to begin with. You need to persuade potential dating partners to date you (which may just be a dating profile) and then to continue dating you (which is much more complex than a profile and is perhaps more tied to personality than persuasive ability. Persuasion is required in nearly all aspects of life. I frequently have to persuade people to make decisions that are better in the long term but less appealing in the short term, (and sometimes vice versa) and the nature of my work is to do so with solid data & analysis. (And I'm not always successful even when they agree my data is accurate & reasoning is sound!). People just don't make decisions by following the results of formal logical expressions like p ~ [1] less so than previously maybe?? As an initial first-pass these days you need to game the AI screening tool to put you through to an actual human review
- ineedasername 4y ago
hex4def6 4y ago
I think it's because of the essay-style formula that gets drilled into kids throughout much of their academic career. Just copy-pasting some of the examples from: https://k12.thoughtfullearning.com/resources/studentmodels https://k12.thoughtfullearning.com/resources/studentmodels got me anywhere from 10% - 60% "AI generated" ratings. The "Rosa Parks" 12-grader example essay scores 43%, for example.

floren 4y ago

> One surprising thing I've discovered, as an adult, is that most people never really learn to write or read very well. I think people underestimate how much reading will help you write. You can't spend your life reading and not absorb some information about structure, style, and the language. As a kid, I went to the lower levels of spelling bee competitions pretty much every year because the kind of words they throw at you at lower levels are largely words I would encounter reading Jules Verne and the like. I'd eventually get knocked out because I never studied the official list of spelling bee words, but my voracious reading held me in good stead for most of it.

asdff 4y ago
One of the recommended ways to study for the GRE essay section is to start reading long form articles in the new york times or similar places. Basically, you try and retrain your mental language model on good english, versus the crappy english you use in texts or instagram captions that its typically trained on.
ineedasername 4y ago
A good point. People aspiring to be professional writers are often encouraged to widely read as much as they can of the genre in which they're interested. As you said, some information about structure, style, etc is absorbed. In addition they gain an understanding of the current status quo in the area that allows them to see the direction they may want to go in to make their own voice unique, which tropes they may want to subvert, or the style of specific sub-genres that may resonate with them and inspire them in that direction. Or the type that is most commercially successful in current tastes & trends. it is after all a business and the writer, no matter how hard they strive to make their voice unique, is trying to make a living. I've followed Charlie Stross's writing about the business side of the industry and it's very common to work with editors & agents to ensure they're writing in a marketable sub genre. For example, imagine a writer that had a story outline set in a alternate timeline epic fiction where magic existed, but current tastes among readers looking for epic length books skewed towards space opera. An author might without too much difficulty map many plot points onto space opera settings. Magic becomes advanced technology. Empires can exist in both; historical details can be mapped onto the fictional societies & their history, etc. At the same time, the tropes specific and unique to alternate timeline historical fiction might be adapted and morphed in the space opera genre to create something a bit more unique. But a writer could not easily make those kinds of adaptions without being well read in the umbrella genre.

deckard1 4y ago

There is an environmental difference. Today we are inundated with information, much of it text. People are constantly reading today. Text messages, emails, Facebook posts. But these are all low-quality. Additionally, messages have to be concise. If someone at work emails me and it's longer than a Tweet, I'm not reading it. I don't have time for it and, if it's like the majority of emails I receive, it's irrelevant anyway. As information noise goes up, attention spans go down. Which means flowery language, formality, and long text starts to disappear. When I've been reading on a computer all day for work, do I have the patience and energy to read a long book at home? Or would I rather watch a movie and relax. But here's the silver lining I'm hoping for: AI could be a way out of this mess. AI can sift out the noise from the signal. But it has to be on the personal level. Open source, self-hosted, private. No corporation slanting the biases. There are a lot of interesting implications here. Much like it's impossible to get a human on the phone when calling up your wireless provider, it may become difficult to reach other humans. To "pierce" their AI shield, that protects them from The Infinite Noise.

wobbly_bush 4y ago
> When I've been reading on a computer all day for work, do I have the patience and energy to read a long book at home? Or would I rather watch a movie and relax. Or somewhere inbetween - audiobooks. They are written with higher quality than most other text forms, and the narration lowers effort to consume them.

robocat 4y ago

Counterpoint: I think our writing in general has vastly improved, but because it happens slowly we don’t notice the absolute difference. I have two examples of middle aged friends who have changed drastically after 2000. One dyslexic friend got a job at 30 where they had to email professionally, and their writing improved a lot (not just spelling, but metaphors etcetera). Another was functionally illiterate (got others to read), but they needed to read and write for work, and they learnt to do the basics (I can send a text and get a reply). Most jobs now require writing, and most people when doing anything will learn to do it better over time.

ineedasername 4y ago
>I have two examples of middle aged friends who have changed Yes. My experience teaching college courses gives me wider & more systematic knowledge on college freshmen in particular, but more anecdotally I see people who never quite learn how to organize their ideas effectively in a written form during college. If they get there, they gain it over time in their professional careers by example & through absorbing the cultural norms of communicating in their professional sphere. And this ability is the foundation of persuasive communication, written or verbal. That is particularly problematic because persuasive ability is so important in day to day life, career, personal relationships, etc. You need to persuade people to give you a job[1]. You need to persuade colleagues to listen to & adopt your ideas or suggestions when they differ from the established path, or to initially establish a path to begin with. You need to persuade potential dating partners to date you (which may just be a dating profile) and then to continue dating you (which is much more complex than a profile and is perhaps more tied to personality than persuasive ability. Persuasion is required in nearly all aspects of life. I frequently have to persuade people to make decisions that are better in the long term but less appealing in the short term, (and sometimes vice versa) and the nature of my work is to do so with solid data & analysis. (And I'm not always successful even when they agree my data is accurate & reasoning is sound!). People just don't make decisions by following the results of formal logical expressions like p ~ [1] less so than previously maybe?? As an initial first-pass these days you need to game the AI screening tool to put you through to an actual human review
ineedasername 4y ago

hex4def6 4y ago

I think it's because of the essay-style formula that gets drilled into kids throughout much of their academic career. Just copy-pasting some of the examples from: https://k12.thoughtfullearning.com/resources/studentmodels https://k12.thoughtfullearning.com/resources/studentmodels got me anywhere from 10% - 60% "AI generated" ratings. The "Rosa Parks" 12-grader example essay scores 43%, for example.