I perceive heavily diminishing returns to exercise past the first few hours of exercise a week, and to meditation past the first 15 minutes per day. For books, I would say it depends on the book. This short blog post has more insight in it than most of the books I read as a kid. Many of Paul Graham's essays would probably be book-length if they were written by a less exceptional writer. In general the best internet writing I read seems more insight-dense than the best book writing I read, but the best internet writing is scattered.
Wow, I would say in general the book reading i've done has been far more fruitful than the internet reading I've done - the signal to noise ratio in an individual post might be higher, but the signal to noise ratio of finding good content is much much higher for online (IME) - additionally, I think the real issue here is the return of posting an article vs. reading a book, not of reading an article vs. reading a book.
My post on the fact that incentive structures are eating the central place to be for rationalists has generated 140 comments which I have generated no clear action in the horizon.
I post here again to incentivize that it also generates some attempts to shake the ground a bit. Arguing and discussing are fun, and beware of things that are fun to argue.
Is anyone actually doing anything to mitigate the problem? To solve it? To have a stable end state in the long run where online discussions still preserve what needs being preserved?
Intelligent commentary is valuable, pools are interesting. Yet, at the end of the day, it is the people who show up to do something who will determine the course of everything.
If you care about this problem, act on it. I care enough to write these two posts.