That advice fights the natural tendency to read forward. It's always hard to get people to stop and do the exercises.
Are there ways they could? Hmm... First, you could advise the reader to read through one time, then come back and do the advised exercises. That way they're not fighting the urge to read through... but then they're fighting the urge to put down the book.
You could structure it kind of like a choose-your-own-adventure, with the choices being how your encounter went. That way, there is no one, natural place to go next. Could help, but it would be obnoxious.
Third: get all the epiphanies done with early on. Throw them all at you. Part 2 is applications. It has zero epiphanies, and it should be dry, perhaps even boring, so you can go out and do things. Basically like the first idea, but with the two runs optimized for their respective purposes.
Third: get all the epiphanies done with early on. Throw them all at you. Part 2 is applications. It has zero epiphanies, and it should be dry, perhaps even boring, so you can go out and do things. Basically like the first idea, but with the two runs optimized for their respective purposes.
This means (if my experience is at all typical) that the second section is unlikely to be read.
LW doesn't seem to have a discussion of the article Epiphany Addiction, by Chris at succeedsocially. First paragraph:
I like that article because it describes a dangerous failure mode of smart people. One example was the self-help blog of Phillip Eby (pjeby), where each new post seemed to bring new amazing insights, and after a while you became jaded. An even better, though controversial, example could be Eliezer's Sequences, if you view them as a series of epiphanies about AI research that didn't lead to much tangible progress. (Please don't make that statement the sole focus of discussion!)
The underlying problem seems to be that people get a rush of power from neat-sounding realizations, and mistake that feeling for actual power. I don't know any good remedy for that, but being aware of the problem could help.