I’ve done similarly. It’s actually remarkable how little time it takes to overview the history of breakthroughs in a sub-field, or all the political and military leaders of an obscure country during a particular era, or the history of laws and regulations of a a particular field.
Question to muse over —
Given how inexpensive and useful it is to do this, why do so few people it?
Given how inexpensive and useful it is to do this, why do so few people it?
I actually considered putting a paragraph on this in the OP. I think we’re currently in a transitional state—prior to the internet, it would have been far more expensive to conduct this sort of exercise. People haven’t had much time to figure out how to get lots of value out of the internet, and this is one example which I expect will become more popular over time.
Makes sense. This is probably worth a top level post? —
People haven’t had much time to figure out how to get lots of value out of the internet, and this is one example which I expect will become more popular over time.
Sounds obvious when put like that, but I think — as you implied — a lot of people haven’t thought about it yet.
Given how inexpensive and useful it is to do this, why do so few people it?
Because there are so many possible topics, that even if each of them takes relatively little time, together they would take a lot?
For example, in your example, you mentioned ” an obscure country” and “a particular era”, and also a focus on politics and military (as opposed to science, or art, or sport). Okay, maybe you can do it in a week, or in an afternoon. But why that country, and why that era? How much it would cost to get a comparable knowledge of all countries and, uhm, let’s say the entire 20th century?
I think eventually patterns start to emerge — so eventually, you start reading about federalization of Chinese Law and you’re “ah, this is like German Unification with a few key differences.”
While you do find rare outliers — the Ottoman legal system continues to fascinate me ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millet_(Ottoman_Empire) ) — you eventually find that there’s only a few major ways that legal systems have been formulated at larger modern country scales than earlier local scales.
Science, art, and sport are also ones I’ve delved into incidentally. And there’s also some patterns there.
What population did you have in your mind when you said “so few”?
Depending on what your answer is there, I think a large amount might be explained by—many are not really “intellectuals” or perhaps most are more specialist than “infovores”.
Phenomenal post.
I’ve done similarly. It’s actually remarkable how little time it takes to overview the history of breakthroughs in a sub-field, or all the political and military leaders of an obscure country during a particular era, or the history of laws and regulations of a a particular field.
Question to muse over —
Given how inexpensive and useful it is to do this, why do so few people it?
I actually considered putting a paragraph on this in the OP. I think we’re currently in a transitional state—prior to the internet, it would have been far more expensive to conduct this sort of exercise. People haven’t had much time to figure out how to get lots of value out of the internet, and this is one example which I expect will become more popular over time.
Makes sense. This is probably worth a top level post? —
Sounds obvious when put like that, but I think — as you implied — a lot of people haven’t thought about it yet.
Because there are so many possible topics, that even if each of them takes relatively little time, together they would take a lot?
For example, in your example, you mentioned ” an obscure country” and “a particular era”, and also a focus on politics and military (as opposed to science, or art, or sport). Okay, maybe you can do it in a week, or in an afternoon. But why that country, and why that era? How much it would cost to get a comparable knowledge of all countries and, uhm, let’s say the entire 20th century?
Ahh, great question.
I think eventually patterns start to emerge — so eventually, you start reading about federalization of Chinese Law and you’re “ah, this is like German Unification with a few key differences.”
While you do find rare outliers — the Ottoman legal system continues to fascinate me ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millet_(Ottoman_Empire) ) — you eventually find that there’s only a few major ways that legal systems have been formulated at larger modern country scales than earlier local scales.
Science, art, and sport are also ones I’ve delved into incidentally. And there’s also some patterns there.
What population did you have in your mind when you said “so few”?
Depending on what your answer is there, I think a large amount might be explained by—many are not really “intellectuals” or perhaps most are more specialist than “infovores”.