4 ms·

Because most nonfiction books are one, relatively small set of ideas (profound or not, novel or not) that could be concisely written as a few blog posts or a si

by voisin 3y ago

Because most nonfiction books are one, relatively small set of ideas (profound or not, novel or not) that could be concisely written as a few blog posts or a single long form article, but in order to monetize and build the author’s brand, get exaggerated into a full book. It is really painful and something I hope GPT will help the rest of us cut through in the future (“summarize the points. Dig into that point. What evidence is given? Etc etc etc” as a conversation rather than wasting 30 hours reading noise for a book)

owisd 3y ago
You can just leverage the “second brain” crowd — for every vaguely well-known non-fiction book someone has written up a summary for themselves and posted it on their blog.
- smcin 3y ago
  Sure, but be sure to check they're vaguely objective, not just shills, compensated reviewers or affiliates.
ratg13 3y ago
Most people don’t absorb concepts immediately with only a simple explanation. Unless you are reading a topic you are already familiar with, reinforcement of an idea helps you to examine a concept from different angles and to solidify what is being discussed. If everyone fully absorbed and understood everything they read, schooling could be completed years in advance.
- 1letterunixname 3y ago
  Apart from CYOA, I think a hypertext "book" would be the most effective way to dynamically scale detail preferences without resorting to skimming or skipping. Some people want more or less evidence based on their level of skepticism or critical thinking, while others want more evidence to reinforce the soundness of their inferred position on a topic, especially if it's a topic unfamiliar to them. Other people are under time constraints and just want the key points and a brief presentation.
olvy0 3y ago
That's exacerbating the original environmental problem, in addition to thick paper books, filled with filler material just to promote the author's brand, you now want to waste electricity on running an LLM that will give you a the short version? That's.... short sighted. This should be dealt with by pressuring the publishing industry not to inflate books and fill them with fluff. This could be done by not buying these kind of books, and publicly shaming publishers who engage in this behavior. It's easier in non fiction books since the amount of fluff in fiction books is a more subjective matter.
- CuriouslyC 3y ago
  Except that a lot of people read these books for the entertainment value of the anecdotes, and a lot of people enjoy feeling self-important for having read long books.
  - smcin 3y ago
    Not just self-important, but the anecdotes are designed to be bite-sized to be easily retellable, like the 2016 NYT Abraham Wald/ beware survivorship bias on graphing bulletholes on WWII airplanes viz which locations were more damaging. So you get a decade of "business nonfiction" bookstand fodder which is claims with high shock quality but often not relicable, mixed with anecdotes, to signal the reader's self-declared learnedness. Combine this with the long-tailed nature of the statistic "the average American only reads one book a year" and it's frightening. I think Scott Galloway said sales of his e-book are >10x more than his paper book. And during Covid lots of people got exposed for having fake bookshelf backdrops.
    - mikhailfranco 3y ago
      There was one Covid Zoom podcast (about economics?) with a middle-aged man sitting in front of a large set of bookshelves, housing row-upon-row of gnarly old books. The only recently-used book was lying flat on top of the other books. Can you read the title? https://pasteboard.co/imwZw8fcSpLy.png https://pasteboard.co/imwZw8fcSpLy.png
- 3y ago
geodel 3y ago
Well, life of most people on the earth is just same boring repetitions with few novel events. So I wonder what would people do with their ample amount of saved time thanks to ChatGPT. Perhaps writing another Javascript framework, launch new food delivery apps besides raging on social media.

by voisin 3y ago

owisd 3y ago

You can just leverage the “second brain” crowd — for every vaguely well-known non-fiction book someone has written up a summary for themselves and posted it on their blog.

smcin 3y ago
Sure, but be sure to check they're vaguely objective, not just shills, compensated reviewers or affiliates.

ratg13 3y ago

Most people don’t absorb concepts immediately with only a simple explanation. Unless you are reading a topic you are already familiar with, reinforcement of an idea helps you to examine a concept from different angles and to solidify what is being discussed. If everyone fully absorbed and understood everything they read, schooling could be completed years in advance.

1letterunixname 3y ago
Apart from CYOA, I think a hypertext "book" would be the most effective way to dynamically scale detail preferences without resorting to skimming or skipping. Some people want more or less evidence based on their level of skepticism or critical thinking, while others want more evidence to reinforce the soundness of their inferred position on a topic, especially if it's a topic unfamiliar to them. Other people are under time constraints and just want the key points and a brief presentation.

olvy0 3y ago

That's exacerbating the original environmental problem, in addition to thick paper books, filled with filler material just to promote the author's brand, you now want to waste electricity on running an LLM that will give you a the short version? That's.... short sighted. This should be dealt with by pressuring the publishing industry not to inflate books and fill them with fluff. This could be done by not buying these kind of books, and publicly shaming publishers who engage in this behavior. It's easier in non fiction books since the amount of fluff in fiction books is a more subjective matter.

CuriouslyC 3y ago
Except that a lot of people read these books for the entertainment value of the anecdotes, and a lot of people enjoy feeling self-important for having read long books.
- smcin 3y ago
  Not just self-important, but the anecdotes are designed to be bite-sized to be easily retellable, like the 2016 NYT Abraham Wald/ beware survivorship bias on graphing bulletholes on WWII airplanes viz which locations were more damaging. So you get a decade of "business nonfiction" bookstand fodder which is claims with high shock quality but often not relicable, mixed with anecdotes, to signal the reader's self-declared learnedness. Combine this with the long-tailed nature of the statistic "the average American only reads one book a year" and it's frightening. I think Scott Galloway said sales of his e-book are >10x more than his paper book. And during Covid lots of people got exposed for having fake bookshelf backdrops.
  - mikhailfranco 3y ago
    There was one Covid Zoom podcast (about economics?) with a middle-aged man sitting in front of a large set of bookshelves, housing row-upon-row of gnarly old books. The only recently-used book was lying flat on top of the other books. Can you read the title? https://pasteboard.co/imwZw8fcSpLy.png https://pasteboard.co/imwZw8fcSpLy.png
3y ago

geodel 3y ago

Well, life of most people on the earth is just same boring repetitions with few novel events. So I wonder what would people do with their ample amount of saved time thanks to ChatGPT. Perhaps writing another Javascript framework, launch new food delivery apps besides raging on social media.