4 ms·

I'd rather not learn more, faster, and I think the attitude of wanting to do so is unhealthy, as well as is the attitude of optimizing productivity. I think it

I'd rather not learn more, faster, and I think the attitude of wanting to do so is unhealthy, as well as is the attitude of optimizing productivity. I think it's better to learn for the love of it, and keep the automation of learning to a minimum. I understand the desire to make learning faster in the short term, but I can't help thinking that in the long-term it leads to imbuing learning with an atmosphere of necessity and the stripping of beauty from the holistic experience of learning as wonderful discovery. No thanks.

lgas 1y ago
Learning more faster and learning for the love of it are not mutually exclusive. Also there are different contexts in which I want to learn, and in some of them, speed matters, in some it doesn't. I don't think it makes sense to make blanket statements like this even about your own learning, much less about others.
- vouaobrasil 1y ago
  I think when speed matters in learning, it's time to modify one's life so that it no longer matters. I understand necessity, but that's just the constraint of a suboptimal condition. I think it makes total sense, and we need more absolute stances rather than acting like optimizing machines.
  - diggan 1y ago
    > rather than acting like optimizing machines Just because sometimes you just want a 30 second break down on how to boil pasta, or whatever, doesn't mean we're becoming "optimizing machines", just that the context matters. Sometimes I don't want to or need to know the "fundamentals of why water boils", I just need to know enough in order to complete some other thing. > it's time to modify one's life so that it no longer matters It sounds like you have 100% control of your own life, which might be great and all, but it isn't very realistic for most humans on the planet. Time is limited, and what we spend our time on is a choice. I too probably spend too much time learning about stuff I cannot really apply, because I like learning, but sometimes you're faced with something, you need to make a choice within N minutes/hours/days, and spending 1 month researching the topic before making a choice just isn't feasible.
    - vouaobrasil 1y ago
      > Just because sometimes you just want a 30 second break down on how to boil pasta, or whatever, doesn't mean we're becoming "optimizing machines" If I want a 30-second breakdown of how to boil pasta, I'll look on the back of the box. > Sometimes I don't want to or need to know the "fundamentals of why water boils", I just need to know enough in order to complete some other thing. False dichotomoy, because even if I want to quickly know how to do something, I don't need AI, nor do I need to research everything either. > Time is limited, and what we spend our time on is a choice That's fine, and I agree. But that doesn't mean we need to go to the level of AI to learn something, and I'd argue it's even harmful in the long run as even a study by Microsoft [1] shows that AI makes people stupider, so not really learning at all. [1] https://slashdot.org/story/25/02/10/1752233/microsoft-study-finds-ai-makes-human-cognition-atrophied-and-unprepared https://slashdot.org/story/25/02/10/1752233/microsoft-study-...
      - diggan 1y ago
        > If I want a 30-second breakdown of how to boil pasta, I'll look on the back of the box. Yeah, but then you're in a foreign country or whatever, you understand that was just an example right? To illustrate something... Have some imagination. > False dichotomoy, because even if I want to quickly know how to do something, I don't need AI, nor do I need to research everything either. Right, I'm not claiming it's impossible to "learn X quickly without AI", but I would make the claim that I can learn X faster with AI, than without. YMMV and all that. > But that doesn't mean we need to go to the level of AI to learn something I don't have to use Wikipedia or the Internet instead of going to my local library, but if I'm in a rush, and need something quickly, I probably prefer those two options rather than the last. > as even a study by Microsoft [1] shows that AI makes people stupider, so not really learning at all. That study says no such thing, and the amount of people mislead by that paper is kind of shocking to me. If you're curious what the paper actually says, feel free to read the actual paper instead of a "YouTube AI thought-leader" summarization of it, or whatever you got the whole "AI makes people stupider" from: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/lee_2025_ai_critical_thinking_survey.pdf https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/...
- aminsadeghi 1y ago
  Pracically, most of the time, IMO, where learning speed matters, is when you're competing against someting, could be an individual, or a startup, etc, which doesn't seem to be the optimal condition one would like to be in.
  - Jarwain 1y ago
    First counterexample that comes to mind, you're traveling to a country for one reason or another, and it'd be helpful to learn or know more of the language. The faster you learn, the more helpful it'll be. Another example, your friend's band's guitarist got sick and you've got a week to learn a full set's worth of music Generally I find some urgency to be a nice motivator

lgas 1y ago

Learning more faster and learning for the love of it are not mutually exclusive. Also there are different contexts in which I want to learn, and in some of them, speed matters, in some it doesn't. I don't think it makes sense to make blanket statements like this even about your own learning, much less about others.

vouaobrasil 1y ago
I think when speed matters in learning, it's time to modify one's life so that it no longer matters. I understand necessity, but that's just the constraint of a suboptimal condition. I think it makes total sense, and we need more absolute stances rather than acting like optimizing machines.
- diggan 1y ago
  > rather than acting like optimizing machines Just because sometimes you just want a 30 second break down on how to boil pasta, or whatever, doesn't mean we're becoming "optimizing machines", just that the context matters. Sometimes I don't want to or need to know the "fundamentals of why water boils", I just need to know enough in order to complete some other thing. > it's time to modify one's life so that it no longer matters It sounds like you have 100% control of your own life, which might be great and all, but it isn't very realistic for most humans on the planet. Time is limited, and what we spend our time on is a choice. I too probably spend too much time learning about stuff I cannot really apply, because I like learning, but sometimes you're faced with something, you need to make a choice within N minutes/hours/days, and spending 1 month researching the topic before making a choice just isn't feasible.
  - vouaobrasil 1y ago
    > Just because sometimes you just want a 30 second break down on how to boil pasta, or whatever, doesn't mean we're becoming "optimizing machines" If I want a 30-second breakdown of how to boil pasta, I'll look on the back of the box. > Sometimes I don't want to or need to know the "fundamentals of why water boils", I just need to know enough in order to complete some other thing. False dichotomoy, because even if I want to quickly know how to do something, I don't need AI, nor do I need to research everything either. > Time is limited, and what we spend our time on is a choice That's fine, and I agree. But that doesn't mean we need to go to the level of AI to learn something, and I'd argue it's even harmful in the long run as even a study by Microsoft [1] shows that AI makes people stupider, so not really learning at all. [1] https://slashdot.org/story/25/02/10/1752233/microsoft-study-finds-ai-makes-human-cognition-atrophied-and-unprepared https://slashdot.org/story/25/02/10/1752233/microsoft-study-...
    - diggan 1y ago
      > If I want a 30-second breakdown of how to boil pasta, I'll look on the back of the box. Yeah, but then you're in a foreign country or whatever, you understand that was just an example right? To illustrate something... Have some imagination. > False dichotomoy, because even if I want to quickly know how to do something, I don't need AI, nor do I need to research everything either. Right, I'm not claiming it's impossible to "learn X quickly without AI", but I would make the claim that I can learn X faster with AI, than without. YMMV and all that. > But that doesn't mean we need to go to the level of AI to learn something I don't have to use Wikipedia or the Internet instead of going to my local library, but if I'm in a rush, and need something quickly, I probably prefer those two options rather than the last. > as even a study by Microsoft [1] shows that AI makes people stupider, so not really learning at all. That study says no such thing, and the amount of people mislead by that paper is kind of shocking to me. If you're curious what the paper actually says, feel free to read the actual paper instead of a "YouTube AI thought-leader" summarization of it, or whatever you got the whole "AI makes people stupider" from: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/lee_2025_ai_critical_thinking_survey.pdf https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/...
aminsadeghi 1y ago
Pracically, most of the time, IMO, where learning speed matters, is when you're competing against someting, could be an individual, or a startup, etc, which doesn't seem to be the optimal condition one would like to be in.
- Jarwain 1y ago
  First counterexample that comes to mind, you're traveling to a country for one reason or another, and it'd be helpful to learn or know more of the language. The faster you learn, the more helpful it'll be. Another example, your friend's band's guitarist got sick and you've got a week to learn a full set's worth of music Generally I find some urgency to be a nice motivator