3 ms·

It's not the reading books, it's the wanting to read books.

dmd 2y ago
It's the general attitude of "I want to know more" vs. "It would never occur to me that there is more to know" or "I would literally rather do anything else than learn more about anything".
righthand 2y ago
School is not cool and that’s a problem.
- FredPret 2y ago
  Is this still true? I thought the current school generation started to like nerds more because that's who's doing the coolest jobs / companies
  - righthand 2y ago
    Do they like nerds more but refuse to learn as much as nerds because tech like CoPilot enables you to not care about technical details? To me it seems like “school is lame” is more tolerant of nerds, not necessarily interested in learning more. It’s like the rise of popular science fiction movie genre. It’s good at a high level but not as impressive at the ground level if most of it is super hero sub-genre movies with all very similar content.
- boothby 2y ago
  It's even more general than that: effort is antithetical to cool. Being seen making effort is as embarrassing as failure itself, perhaps moreso -- there's a peculiar glory in spectacular failure. Parents these days are taught (well, speaking for myself here) to praise effort over results. As if parents can overturn culture so easily...
- HKH2 2y ago
  Well, when students are not kept back for failing, they are given an incentive to fail.
  - righthand 2y ago
    Students probably fail because of external factors (depression, anxiety from poor home life) not because they’re a dumb-dumb. When the course work requires you to understand subjects that have no real world use or your curriculum doesn’t teach you how to apply the education, you’re incentivized to fail as well.
    - HKH2 2y ago
      > Students probably fail because of external factors (depression, anxiety from poor home life) not because they’re a dumb-dumb. Standards may seem harsh, but eventually it's way harsher to have no effective standards at all. > When the course work requires you to understand subjects that have no real world use or your curriculum doesn’t teach you how to apply the education, you’re incentivized to fail as well. True. If students are not interested in learning, they should have a pragmatic curriculum.
majormajor 2y ago
There's a big gap between "doesn't care" and "wants to learn more" but there's ALSO a big gap betweeen "wants to learn more" and "actually learns more." The post touches on this with "how do you know which books to read" but I think it's incredibly important to stress the motivation/execution part too of actually reading, learning, and practicing the new things.
- fancyfredbot 2y ago
  This is just semantics I think. Certainly some people may express a desire to learn but not be able to motivate themselves to read a book. However people who actually want to learn are intrinsically motivated to read and don't fall into that group.
  - dasil003 2y ago
    Certainly some of this is a question of degree (eg. motivation to read a blog post versus a longer, more comprehensive book), but the gap between reading and practicing is real and very important. Just as the OA is referring to practitioners who are too lazy to pick up a book, you also have people who go the opposite way and spend all their energy reading and theorizing without putting anything into practice.
youoy 2y ago
I agree with you! Correlation is not causation. Being particularly motivated about a subject causes you to read more books, and both combined cause you to improve on that subject. Setting the goal to arbitrarily read more books just because you think it will make you more successful will fail you in the long term. The key is to learn not to ignore/suppress your internal drive.
keybored 2y ago
Interest is most of it. Interest in studying will also make it stick.
ludicity 2y ago
Yeah, basically. Although the reason I venerate books specifically is that a great book is just amazing for personal growth. That's true for any great learning resource, but there are things about books specifically that I love, and some of that might just be sentimentality about the role that books have played in my own life. A great YouTube course just wouldn't hit the same.

dmd 2y ago

It's the general attitude of "I want to know more" vs. "It would never occur to me that there is more to know" or "I would literally rather do anything else than learn more about anything".

righthand 2y ago

School is not cool and that’s a problem.

FredPret 2y ago
Is this still true? I thought the current school generation started to like nerds more because that's who's doing the coolest jobs / companies
- righthand 2y ago
  Do they like nerds more but refuse to learn as much as nerds because tech like CoPilot enables you to not care about technical details? To me it seems like “school is lame” is more tolerant of nerds, not necessarily interested in learning more. It’s like the rise of popular science fiction movie genre. It’s good at a high level but not as impressive at the ground level if most of it is super hero sub-genre movies with all very similar content.
boothby 2y ago
It's even more general than that: effort is antithetical to cool. Being seen making effort is as embarrassing as failure itself, perhaps moreso -- there's a peculiar glory in spectacular failure. Parents these days are taught (well, speaking for myself here) to praise effort over results. As if parents can overturn culture so easily...
HKH2 2y ago
Well, when students are not kept back for failing, they are given an incentive to fail.
- righthand 2y ago
  Students probably fail because of external factors (depression, anxiety from poor home life) not because they’re a dumb-dumb. When the course work requires you to understand subjects that have no real world use or your curriculum doesn’t teach you how to apply the education, you’re incentivized to fail as well.
  - HKH2 2y ago
    > Students probably fail because of external factors (depression, anxiety from poor home life) not because they’re a dumb-dumb. Standards may seem harsh, but eventually it's way harsher to have no effective standards at all. > When the course work requires you to understand subjects that have no real world use or your curriculum doesn’t teach you how to apply the education, you’re incentivized to fail as well. True. If students are not interested in learning, they should have a pragmatic curriculum.

majormajor 2y ago

There's a big gap between "doesn't care" and "wants to learn more" but there's ALSO a big gap betweeen "wants to learn more" and "actually learns more." The post touches on this with "how do you know which books to read" but I think it's incredibly important to stress the motivation/execution part too of actually reading, learning, and practicing the new things.

fancyfredbot 2y ago
This is just semantics I think. Certainly some people may express a desire to learn but not be able to motivate themselves to read a book. However people who actually want to learn are intrinsically motivated to read and don't fall into that group.
- dasil003 2y ago
  Certainly some of this is a question of degree (eg. motivation to read a blog post versus a longer, more comprehensive book), but the gap between reading and practicing is real and very important. Just as the OA is referring to practitioners who are too lazy to pick up a book, you also have people who go the opposite way and spend all their energy reading and theorizing without putting anything into practice.

youoy 2y ago

I agree with you! Correlation is not causation. Being particularly motivated about a subject causes you to read more books, and both combined cause you to improve on that subject. Setting the goal to arbitrarily read more books just because you think it will make you more successful will fail you in the long term. The key is to learn not to ignore/suppress your internal drive.

keybored 2y ago

Interest is most of it. Interest in studying will also make it stick.

ludicity 2y ago

Yeah, basically. Although the reason I venerate books specifically is that a great book is just amazing for personal growth. That's true for any great learning resource, but there are things about books specifically that I love, and some of that might just be sentimentality about the role that books have played in my own life. A great YouTube course just wouldn't hit the same.