If you could turn this into advice or guidance, it’d be really helpful. Even sharing a metric so we could say “you should be more selective if X, less selective if Y” would be better than a direction with no anchor (“too unselective”, no matter what). I don’t know if I’m in your target audience, but I’m at least somewhat selective in what I read, and I’m quite willing to stop partway through a {book, article, post, thread} when I find it low-value for me.
What I had in mind when I say “people” is myself, and the average non-LW friends around me.
Worthless is a bad word choice, I just mean that there are better things to read.
Additionally:
I also think I have the tendency of trying to read everything in a textbook, even if it is quite low in information density, with many filler stories or sentences served as conjunctions. I probably should be trying to skip sentences, paragraphs and sections where I have sufficient confidence of either 1. I have already learned it and don’t need a refresher, or 2. They are not important for me (filler material or unimportant knowledge)
I will try to make a more quantitative metric, but I don’t have one right now, just intuitions.
Thanks, “don’t read everything in a textbook” is good practical advice. Learn to skim, and to stop reading any given segment when you cross the time/value threshold. Importantly, learn to NOTICE what value you expect from the next increment of time spent. Getting that meta-skill honed and habitual pays dividends in many many areas.
I don’t necessarily disagree generally, but I do somewhat disagree for myself. Since I don’t have visibility into other people’s reading habits or selectivity, I’m unsure if I’m an outlier or if I actually do disagree. What does “many people” mean, and more importantly how can an individual (specifically: me) tell if they are too unselective, on what dimensions?
If you could turn this into advice or guidance, it’d be really helpful. Even sharing a metric so we could say “you should be more selective if X, less selective if Y” would be better than a direction with no anchor (“too unselective”, no matter what). I don’t know if I’m in your target audience, but I’m at least somewhat selective in what I read, and I’m quite willing to stop partway through a {book, article, post, thread} when I find it low-value for me.
Clarifications:
What I had in mind when I say “people” is myself, and the average non-LW friends around me.
Worthless is a bad word choice, I just mean that there are better things to read.
Additionally:
I also think I have the tendency of trying to read everything in a textbook, even if it is quite low in information density, with many filler stories or sentences served as conjunctions. I probably should be trying to skip sentences, paragraphs and sections where I have sufficient confidence of either 1. I have already learned it and don’t need a refresher, or 2. They are not important for me (filler material or unimportant knowledge)
I will try to make a more quantitative metric, but I don’t have one right now, just intuitions.
Thanks, “don’t read everything in a textbook” is good practical advice. Learn to skim, and to stop reading any given segment when you cross the time/value threshold. Importantly, learn to NOTICE what value you expect from the next increment of time spent. Getting that meta-skill honed and habitual pays dividends in many many areas.
My comment at the point of time of his reply:
Many people are too unselective on what they read, causing them to spend a lot of time reading worthless material (This applies to this shortform).
I don’t necessarily disagree generally, but I do somewhat disagree for myself. Since I don’t have visibility into other people’s reading habits or selectivity, I’m unsure if I’m an outlier or if I actually do disagree. What does “many people” mean, and more importantly how can an individual (specifically: me) tell if they are too unselective, on what dimensions?