This thread is for asking any questions that might seem obvious, tangential, silly or what-have-you. Don't be shy, everyone has holes in their knowledge, though the fewer and the smaller we can make them, the better.
Please be respectful of other people's admitting ignorance and don't mock them for it, as they're doing a noble thing.
To any future monthly posters of SQ threads, please remember to add the "stupid_questions" tag.
An excellent question! I have now written a meta document of "How do I learn X" which I have sent off to a friend to be checked before I post it on Lesswrong. I will post a link (probably in the next 24 hours) to a discussion thread. I think the meta-strategy is going to be more helpful and for more people. I can write a specific list after.
As a teaser:
1. Make a list of your knowledge in the area
2. Confirm what you think you know (via brief research), replace your existing knowledge with correct knowledge.
3. Make a list of the topics of knowledge in the area.
4. spend time finding the best resource (as a trade off of searching-time, $cost, time-to-cover-the-resource)
5. delve in, absorb the knowledge
6. devise ways to test yourself, and/or experiment that you have gained the knowledge. (experimental methods include controlled environments, repeated tests, evaluation)
7. teach others in order to cement your knowledge.
This list is a teaser; there are more points, but you can probably cover 1-3 by the time I get to publish the list.
This thread is for asking any questions that might seem obvious, tangential, silly or what-have-you. Don't be shy, everyone has holes in their knowledge, though the fewer and the smaller we can make them, the better.
Please be respectful of other people's admitting ignorance and don't mock them for it, as they're doing a noble thing.
To any future monthly posters of SQ threads, please remember to add the "stupid_questions" tag.