I find annoying speakers way easier to process as transcripts, and Barnett does appear to say some useful things in the talk. As for the content:
So… Newton already had his degree when the plague hit. It’s not clear to me how much that stopped him from learning.
Spending time thinking is very useful, especially if you have a first-rate mind. But it’s not clear to me that “stop learning” is the right way to sell that, or that “think in your own unique way” is always the best advice. Yes, if you make a startling new contribution, it will be because you think that way and others (in that field) didn’t. But there are also alien modes of thought that will make you better off if you adopt them. Most of my learning in social areas has done much better than my thinking in social areas, as an example.
The best advice he gives is “I didn’t play video games, I thought about shapes.” But, again, spending your time creating instead of consuming is not an atomic act; there is engineering involved, and learning that sort of self-management is important.
Thanks for the comment. I was twitching slightly as the negative karma came and went and came back.
From my point of view, it was important to get past how annoying he was to the content. I agree that some of his worst habits faded as the talk went on.
I think his point is that formal learning can fill time in a way that’s almost as wasteful as video games, and that there’s a lot of fruit which isn’t exactly low-hanging, but can be reached by thinking about what you already know.
…formal learning can fill time in a way that’s almost as wasteful as video games...
I would like to point out that:
books, music, socialising, board/card games etc can fill time “in a way that is as wasteful as video games”
conversely video games can provide an interesting, enriching and fulfilling experience, just as books, music etc can (of course YMMV—for all of these media!)
...and express a wish that video games are not used as a proxy for “evil time wasting”.
I think his point is that formal learning can fill time in a way that’s almost as wasteful as video games
I agree that much of formal learning is explicitly designed to keep kids out of trouble by filling time and keeping them in one place where a relatively small number of adults can watch them, and that that purpose (though not other purposes of school) would often be better fulfilled by having the kids play video games in a giant room.
From my point of view, it was important to get past how annoying he was to the content.
Do you mean that the content was important enough to overcome his deficiencies as a speaker, or that his deficiencies as a speaker contributed to the content? (Thankfully, the largest problem I had with his talk will be fixed by puberty, and other presentation problems can be corrected by a small amount of deliberate practice. I suspect it’ll be better for him to keep some deficiencies as counter-signalling, but we’ll see what he chooses.)
I felt like much of his point could be better conveyed by someone that understood the purposes of the system- to him, as mostly a victim of the system, it’s easy to say “yeah, special ed was a total waste of my time; the system isn’t set up to make the most of first-rate minds.” Right- it really isn’t. But what are the tradeoffs that the system designers face?
I find annoying speakers way easier to process as transcripts, and Barnett does appear to say some useful things in the talk. As for the content:
So… Newton already had his degree when the plague hit. It’s not clear to me how much that stopped him from learning.
Spending time thinking is very useful, especially if you have a first-rate mind. But it’s not clear to me that “stop learning” is the right way to sell that, or that “think in your own unique way” is always the best advice. Yes, if you make a startling new contribution, it will be because you think that way and others (in that field) didn’t. But there are also alien modes of thought that will make you better off if you adopt them. Most of my learning in social areas has done much better than my thinking in social areas, as an example.
The best advice he gives is “I didn’t play video games, I thought about shapes.” But, again, spending your time creating instead of consuming is not an atomic act; there is engineering involved, and learning that sort of self-management is important.
Thanks for the comment. I was twitching slightly as the negative karma came and went and came back.
From my point of view, it was important to get past how annoying he was to the content. I agree that some of his worst habits faded as the talk went on.
I think his point is that formal learning can fill time in a way that’s almost as wasteful as video games, and that there’s a lot of fruit which isn’t exactly low-hanging, but can be reached by thinking about what you already know.
I would like to point out that:
books, music, socialising, board/card games etc can fill time “in a way that is as wasteful as video games”
conversely video games can provide an interesting, enriching and fulfilling experience, just as books, music etc can (of course YMMV—for all of these media!)
...and express a wish that video games are not used as a proxy for “evil time wasting”.
I agree that much of formal learning is explicitly designed to keep kids out of trouble by filling time and keeping them in one place where a relatively small number of adults can watch them, and that that purpose (though not other purposes of school) would often be better fulfilled by having the kids play video games in a giant room.
Do you mean that the content was important enough to overcome his deficiencies as a speaker, or that his deficiencies as a speaker contributed to the content? (Thankfully, the largest problem I had with his talk will be fixed by puberty, and other presentation problems can be corrected by a small amount of deliberate practice. I suspect it’ll be better for him to keep some deficiencies as counter-signalling, but we’ll see what he chooses.)
I felt like much of his point could be better conveyed by someone that understood the purposes of the system- to him, as mostly a victim of the system, it’s easy to say “yeah, special ed was a total waste of my time; the system isn’t set up to make the most of first-rate minds.” Right- it really isn’t. But what are the tradeoffs that the system designers face?