IlyaShpitser comments on Is Scott Alexander bad at math? - LessWrong
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I very much appreciate your interest. I'm sympathetic to the points that you raise. The trouble is that it's hard to even state my main thesis without presenting a lot of background information (!!). It's as though someone wanted to know about monstrous moonshine, and I started explaining what a modular function is, and the person said "ok, rather than giving so much motivation, I'd prefer it if you just told me what monstrous moonshine is." Then I state the theorem, and the person says "wait, what's the modular j-function?"
But it's much easier to speak to an individual's situation than it is to speak to the general question of how people can get better at math. What's your background and what are your goals? I may not be able to respond at length individually, but I'll try to offer quick thoughts at least, and your comments will inform what I write about subsequently.
Completely unrelated: long ago, I took a lower division math class from Borcherds. I don't think anything rubbed off, though :(.
Yeah, I know people who have seen his calculus lectures, and if I understand correctly he sticks to the book when he teaches undergraduate courses and doesn't share his special insights. You would have had to go to office hours :P.