Some time ago, I noticed that lukeprog seems to have an exceptional knack for reading up on a subject and actually putting what he’s learned to practical use. At first I thought he might be some weird genetic freak, literally—some people are good at math, others are good at languages, maybe Luke is just good at putting stuff he’s read to practical use. That, or I hoped he had some secret to it that he could put into words and share with the rest of us.
But then then it occurred to me that Luke, by his own account, has spent a ridiculous amount of time reading self-help books. In a LessWrong post, he says, “I’ve spent several years studying scientific self-help”; IIRC his personal site used to have a ridiculous number of reviews of self-help books, including ones with a less scientific approach. This makes me suspect that probably, spending all that time reading self-help books made him better at learning how to do things. Even reading crappy self-help books (which again IIRC Luke’s old website said he did a lot of, at first) may have helped, insofar as it taught him to tell good advice from bad.
He may be able to verbalize some of what he learned, like “look for books that take a scientific approach,” but I suspect he’s developed considerable non-verbalizable yet learnable skill in this area. I see a parallel here for my own skill at doing library research factual questions: some of it I can verbalize (Google it, read the Wikipedia article, look rigorous academic work, look for hard data on the opinions of experts), but a lot of it is stuff I can’t verbalize, which another person could only gain through spending as much time doing research as I have.
I’ve previously had an aversion to reading much in the way of self help and how to books because of an expectation that mostly they’ll suck, but now I think that maybe, when I get some spare time, I should buckle down, pick a topic (maybe writing), and read a bunch of how to books anyway, with a hope of actually getting better at the thing but mostly as an exercise in learning to learn how to do things. But I’m curious to know if other people think this is a good idea—if they see a flaw in my logic, or if anyone who’s read a lot of self help and how to books can comment on whether they think it helped them tell good advice from bad.
Is it worth your time to read a lot of self help and how to books?
Some time ago, I noticed that lukeprog seems to have an exceptional knack for reading up on a subject and actually putting what he’s learned to practical use. At first I thought he might be some weird genetic freak, literally—some people are good at math, others are good at languages, maybe Luke is just good at putting stuff he’s read to practical use. That, or I hoped he had some secret to it that he could put into words and share with the rest of us.
But then then it occurred to me that Luke, by his own account, has spent a ridiculous amount of time reading self-help books. In a LessWrong post, he says, “I’ve spent several years studying scientific self-help”; IIRC his personal site used to have a ridiculous number of reviews of self-help books, including ones with a less scientific approach. This makes me suspect that probably, spending all that time reading self-help books made him better at learning how to do things. Even reading crappy self-help books (which again IIRC Luke’s old website said he did a lot of, at first) may have helped, insofar as it taught him to tell good advice from bad.
He may be able to verbalize some of what he learned, like “look for books that take a scientific approach,” but I suspect he’s developed considerable non-verbalizable yet learnable skill in this area. I see a parallel here for my own skill at doing library research factual questions: some of it I can verbalize (Google it, read the Wikipedia article, look rigorous academic work, look for hard data on the opinions of experts), but a lot of it is stuff I can’t verbalize, which another person could only gain through spending as much time doing research as I have.
I’ve previously had an aversion to reading much in the way of self help and how to books because of an expectation that mostly they’ll suck, but now I think that maybe, when I get some spare time, I should buckle down, pick a topic (maybe writing), and read a bunch of how to books anyway, with a hope of actually getting better at the thing but mostly as an exercise in learning to learn how to do things. But I’m curious to know if other people think this is a good idea—if they see a flaw in my logic, or if anyone who’s read a lot of self help and how to books can comment on whether they think it helped them tell good advice from bad.