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jimrandomh comments on What are the best ways of absorbing, and maintaining, knowledge? - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (40)
My reason for thinking the flashing-words-in-a-window thing will increase reading speed is that there's already software that does it, which has been confirmed to work. Most people don't use them more than briefly, though, because of the inconvenience.
My own experience was that brief usage of a speed-reading tool increased my reading speed while not using that tool, and that using a speed-reading tool increases my reading speed by enough to justify filtering most of the things I read through one.
Software that does it (google-friendly phrase: "rapid serial visual presentation") has been available on all the major platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux) for at least 15 years. I know from personal experience that on Windows and Linux, the software worked reliably and without any annoying glitches or performance problems. Yet hardly anyone uses it more than briefly. What exactly is this confirmation that you speak of that would move the expected value back to anywhere near where it was before taking into account that hardly anyone in the last 15 years has used it more than briefly?
"Hardly anyone": am I wrong about that? Can you name two people who do not have a large financial or academic-prestige stake in it who have ever used it more than briefly?
It is not enough to show that it has benefits. You also have to show that it does not have major drawbacks that cancel out the benefits. I have a specific drawback in mind that with probability .88 cancels out any benefits for the vast majority of potential users. It is not ignorance on the part of computer users or inconvenience. My experience with using it on Windows 95 and Linux was that although it would be more convenient if softwares like browsers and operating systems were better integrated with it, the inconvenience of using it is not particularly high especially after one takes into account that the user can reserve its use for longish passages while handling short passages the ordinary way. (Do not recall the name of the Windows RSVP software I tried. The Linux software was call sview.)
What drawback did you have in mind? I'm confused why you would allude to this without specifying what it was, and curious as to whether it's one I've already thought of and tried to mitigate, one that I've thought of but can't mitigate, or one that I haven't thought of.
I will explain the drawback I have in mind if you answer my two questions in grandparent to my satisfaction.
My reason for holding back on the explanation of the drawback is that it will require an appeal to one or two highly technical concepts (from the field of neuropsychology roughly speaking), and I know you well enough by now to know that you will probably latch onto the highly technical concepts and refuse to write or think about the only part of this thread of conversation that has any significant interest to me: namely, the fact that, unless I am extremely mistaken about your plan, you already have enough information to know that your plan of creating yet another RSVP software is a waste of time even if I had made no mention of any drawback. I predict that you will persist in not updating on this information you already have.
You seem to be under the impression that I'm implementing naive RSVP with a slightly improved UI. I've made improvements that I haven't told you about, and I'm experimenting with different variations on the concept. I believe that people don't persist with RSVP because the software is bad - in addition to the inconvenience of getting started, they periodically force task loads into timeslices where they don't fit, which derails the reader badly. I wrote my own software because I believe I've found ways to reduce how often that happens, and to reduce the disruption when it does.
If you think you know something about RSVP that I don't, just say it. Don't play games.
Are you going to follow up on this?
I would rather just drop it because grandparent's score is currently at minus 3, and by convention downvotes mean, "I don't want to see more like this".
The downvotes are for the "I will only explain if you answer my questions first" thing. If you have insights about RSVP, I do want to hear them.
(Upvoted back up to 0 because this is an entirely reasonable response! Why on earth would someone be expected to want to continue a conversation in which they were getting downvoted?)
You may not have read the context of that comment. Here's how the conversation went, from my perspective:
rhollerith: Hey, I know something very important about the project you're working on right now.
Me: And what's that?
rhollerith: Not telling. You'd just ignore me anyways. (-2)
Me: Don't play games.
...
Me: Are you going to follow up on this?
rhollerith: I'd like to drop this conversation now because I was downvoted.
Needless to say, I am quite unhappy with how this conversation went. But ending it there would make it much worse, since I don't know whether rhollerith actually noticed something important, or is defecting by accident, or if I offended him somehow and forgot about it.
I read the context but just don't object to rhollerith exiting the conversation. You've already had your chance to punish him (via vote and social positioning) for what you perceive to be not paying you your due respect and it isn't necessarily wise for him to make himself vulnerable to another salvo if he anticipates an aggressive response. Even paying the courtesy of responding to "are you going to continue?" was probably a mistake since it allowed you to draw attention to his earlier faux pas. Either don't respond at all or respond with something thoroughly polished.
Basically I am reluctant to expect people to do things that are clearly bad for them unless I have a damn good reason to. (Even if this is a rather trivial instance with respect to degree of 'demand' and 'bad for'.)
In rhollerith's story (if I am modelling him correctly) it would be you who was defecting by not answering the questions he had already asked. His mistake was that by social convention it is usually ok to ignore an adversary's questions, especially if witnesses aren't paying close attention. But including "to my satisfaction" was never going to be received well, even by a casual observer - it is a defection that just seems banal and almost cringe-worthy. He could have drawn attention back to his questions in a more effective manner. Perhaps by first giving the example and then hammering down the questions again.
No, the mistake was that I wasn't actually interested in convincing him (or anyone) of anything - I was only trying to use the thread to collect ideas.
Looks to me like he was willing to talk about what you wanted to talk about if you were willing to talk about what he wanted to talk about. Unless I'm missing one of your comments, you didn't acquiesce to his request, so he didn't acquiesce to yours.
Parent is right: I wanted to extract some sort of concession or token act of reciprocity from him because I have been feeling that my efforts on LW are unappreciated. I considered extracting a promise that he would email me not more than 3 months from now and not less than 4 weeks from now with a report on where his work on RSVP has led, but I settled on, "first answer my questions, and then I will answer yours".
I have an intellectual commitment to trying to be helpful to people who are trying to improve the world and who are not destructive or irresponsible about it (e.g., who are not trial-and-erroring AGI designs) but lately I have been having trouble summoning the actual short-term motivation to do so. Either upvotes or some indication from the person I am trying to help that he considers me more than just an information-supplying machine whould probably have provided that short-term motivation in the present case.
It is no big deal because this period during which I do not feel sufficiently good about myself and my status to continue to attempt small thankless good deeds on the internet will probably pass in a few months. Alternatively I will replace thankless good deeds on the net with some other way for me to try to improve the world.
Speaking of thanks, I hereby thank wedrifid for his analysis. In my defense, I knew the downvoted comment was unsatisfactory, and I was in the process of rewriting it from scratch when I noticed I had accidentally posted it.
I have PMed jimrandomh the information he wanted. (800 words of it.) He is sincerely trying to improve the world and is doing so in a responsible non-destructive way, so I want to help him for some value of "want".