Many books I read are pretty good, they aren’t dense with new information, but they are dense with justifications for the information they’re giving. Much of the time I am not super surprised about the evidence presented after hearing the claim, but it makes later analysis not computationally intractable. This is important when trying to change your mind in light of contradictory arguments & necessary when approaching the claims with a critical eye[1].
I would add textbooks to the list of books that are worth reading. Not always, but often its the best way to learn a complex new field. Open to suggestions of alternative formats, like reading papers—though if you want an intro & problems, textbooks are still great.
Of course, if you have access to the person making the argument, or aren’t mainly trying to learn a technical subject, books are probably inefficient.
This is why I think books have the faults which you mention, compared to blogs. At least the good ones need to make an argument robust to many different criticisms, since the feedback loop between publication, and public commenting is far longer than that for blogs. Publishers notice that good books tend to be long, since there are usually many criticisms you can make, and so regardless of how narrow the author’s assertion is, they make their book 300 pages to increase the appeal.
There are two reasons I like books:
Many books I read are pretty good, they aren’t dense with new information, but they are dense with justifications for the information they’re giving. Much of the time I am not super surprised about the evidence presented after hearing the claim, but it makes later analysis not computationally intractable. This is important when trying to change your mind in light of contradictory arguments & necessary when approaching the claims with a critical eye[1].
As I said after the Hanania post
Of course, if you have access to the person making the argument, or aren’t mainly trying to learn a technical subject, books are probably inefficient.
This is why I think books have the faults which you mention, compared to blogs. At least the good ones need to make an argument robust to many different criticisms, since the feedback loop between publication, and public commenting is far longer than that for blogs. Publishers notice that good books tend to be long, since there are usually many criticisms you can make, and so regardless of how narrow the author’s assertion is, they make their book 300 pages to increase the appeal.