lukeprog comments on Scholarship: How to Do It Efficiently - Less Wrong

113 Post author: lukeprog 09 May 2011 10:05PM

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Comment author: lukeprog 15 May 2011 03:12:47AM *  16 points [-]

Oh goodness, no. I wasn't claiming mastery of these fields. I was claiming to have understood them well enough to get the information I wanted from them - well enough to have written the (relatively well-researched) posts I linked to in that sentence. Mastery of nearly all fields is not worth the investment of my time. That's what division of labor is for. But I have a much, much better understanding of these fields than reading a few Scientific American and pop-sci books will give someone.

Comment author: autodidaterous 15 May 2011 07:00:14AM 17 points [-]

You may want to clarify that when you say things like:

"As an autodidact who now consumes whole fields of knowledge in mere weeks"

People might take it out of context :)

Division of labor is all well and good, but if you've spent much time around others in a business you soon realise that it isn't all that it's cracked up to be. There's a reason why so many of histories prolific inventors had an enormous array of skills in many different areas: because the only person you can really count on to be there is yourself. Employees and colleagues come and go, the only constant is you.

Comment author: [deleted] 03 March 2012 11:17:47AM *  7 points [-]

"As an autodidact who now consumes whole fields of knowledge in mere weeks"

I also read this in a way that for a whole minute made me despair at my knowledge-acquisition abilities.