Another hypothesis that occurs to me is that people with short attention spans could prefer my more skimmable style. But I haven’t tested this.
Speaking as someone with fairly serious attention deficit disorder, I find Eliezer’s style (and Yvain’s as well) is particularly good at holding my attention for long periods of time. Where a more bare-bones article would require me to use willpower to finish reading, I will tend to become hyperfocused (a less commonly recognized aspect of ADD) on one written in a style I find entertaining.
I have ADHD, and also find EY’s writing to be more engaging.
EDIT: Part of the problem with lukeprogs “more skimmable style” is that it is actually possible to skim and sortof get away with it, whereas in EY’s “more narrative style”, you lose the narrative flow if you start skipping, so there is a higher apparent cost to not paying attention. Hence I remain engaged with EY’s writing, and start skipping things in luke’s.
Speaking as someone with fairly serious attention deficit disorder, I find Eliezer’s style (and Yvain’s as well) is particularly good at holding my attention for long periods of time. Where a more bare-bones article would require me to use willpower to finish reading, I will tend to become hyperfocused (a less commonly recognized aspect of ADD) on one written in a style I find entertaining.
I have ADHD, and also find EY’s writing to be more engaging.
EDIT: Part of the problem with lukeprogs “more skimmable style” is that it is actually possible to skim and sortof get away with it, whereas in EY’s “more narrative style”, you lose the narrative flow if you start skipping, so there is a higher apparent cost to not paying attention. Hence I remain engaged with EY’s writing, and start skipping things in luke’s.
Thirded.