As encouragement to OP, I haven’t read The Things They Carried either, but OP totally makes sense, and it’s interesting and helpful, and I’m glad ze posted it. (… But now I realize OP has been edited before I got to it, so maybe parent applied more beforehand. :-)
Before I edited it, it was like the current one with the second paragraph removed, the last two sentences of the third paragraph removed, and the third and fourth paragraph combined into one, roughly. I’m glad gwern posted his comment, though, because I think the post is much better now.
As encouragement to OP, I haven’t read The Things They Carried either, but OP totally makes sense, and it’s interesting and helpful, and I’m glad ze posted it. (… But now I realize OP has been edited before I got to it, so maybe parent applied more beforehand. :-)
Before I edited it, it was like the current one with the second paragraph removed, the last two sentences of the third paragraph removed, and the third and fourth paragraph combined into one, roughly. I’m glad gwern posted his comment, though, because I think the post is much better now.