This is an important corollary of Paul's essay that I wish he mentioned. Sometimes when you update your model of the world significantly, you still have a cache of previously computed facts that were computed using the old model. You have to clear out that cache and recompute with the new model, and that takes a significant amount of time. Often, rereading is a core part of that, since it forces you to revisit a lot of source material and recompute.
"Research shows that even when news reports have been retracted, and we are aware of the retraction, our beliefs are largely based on the initial erroneous version of the story. This is particularly true when we are motivated to approve of the initial account." - http://mindhacks.com/2011/05/04/why-the-truth-will-out-but-d...
This is what makes so many people getting "breaking" sensational headlines from partisan blogs so dangerous. It becomes calcified reality for the vast majority of people; most folk are not hygenic with their belief structures. I actively seek disconfirmation of my beliefs, but most people seek reinforcement only.
How facts backfire - Researchers discover a surprising threat to democracy: our brains
"In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger."
The extreme cases can be found in cults where followers cling tighter to their beliefs once exposed.
A great example are the followers of Harold Camping, the Christian radio broadcaster who predicted the end of the world a few years ago, and kept re-predicting when it never came.
But to complete the Camping story, and validate your argument (you still believe only the original, not the recant); Camping stopped after 2 failed dates, re-read his source material, and stated that he no longer believed that anyone could predict the end of the world. (Source: Netflix documentary on Camping)
This tends to happen to an exceptional degree when news has a strong emotional impact, which is of course what sensationalized headlines try to emphasize (whether out of partisanship or because emotionally charged information is more viral).
People's belief systems about the relative threats of terrorism and pedophiles is thus distorted by the media because the amount of time they spend watching terrorist attacks or episodes of "To Catch A Predator" is massively disproportionate to the actual level of risk posed by those kinds of things, and so especially is the emotional impact of that media.
The Russians are utilizing it alright. However glancing at todays headlines eg. "Russian rouble in free-fall despite shock 17% rate rise" I'm not sure how well that's working out for them.
Their propaganda is targeted mainly domestically. Despite economical difficulties, Putin's approval rating still skyrockets, so I say it does work really well.
I've always wanted a short name for this phenomenon, where a lie takes hold and never leaves no matter how thoroughly it is debunked. Maybe the 'swift boat effect'?
"The same book would get compiled differently at different points in your life. Which means it is very much worth reading important books multiple times."
For me, this quote was the most powerful. I strongly and immediately agreed, yet I hadn't consciously considered the idea before. I now ask myself the question, "Which ones were the important books?" Some seem obvious, but I may have a deeply rooted worldview established a long time ago that needs to be reevaluated. I may have read books that added support to that worldview, and have since forgotten from where that support came.
I'm not very well read yet, but I have a question for those of you who are. What are some methods you utilize to remember which books are the important ones?
Edit: The comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8753656 contains a great idea. I agree that taking notes and writing a journal can be great solutions, but I don't often read the notes and entries I've written. A personal wiki that is searchable and contains references seems very interesting.
The nice thing about reading is that it's not very risky. You can pick up a book, jump around it, if it's interesting then continue else not. You don't have to plan ahead, just... Do.
When I look back, I find that most of the things I've learned that I enjoyed the most, am the most proud of, or have been most helpful, have in fact been accidental, and not a result of planning. I found so-and-so article then downloaded so-and-so package, experimented with it and realized it could benefit a certain project I was working on. Sorta like going down a Wikipedia hyperlink rabbit hole -- very in the moment, just chasing your will and not questioning yourself, doing simply what feels right.
Look back at your bookshelf and pick what feels right. If you start reading it and it feels wrong, then put it back. Being told what to read is annoying, so why would you do that to yourself? Do what you're doing when you playing music improvisationally, but with your life instead.
One way to better internalize information/concepts for me has been reading a lot of books on the same topic. For example at different times in my life I have been interested in Finance, Behavioral Finance, Stoic Philosophy, GISes etc.I typically read about 4-5 books on the same topic and it helps me internalize the concepts better.
>What's "important"?
(That may seem like a misguided question, but it's not.)
I'm not certain if this question was meant for me directly. If it was rhetorical, I apologize for misunderstanding and answering.
I prefer not to define "important" in this context to avoid excluding any definitions subjective to those who may respond to my question. That way, I may learn both what makes a book important to someone and tips on remembering which were important.
Edit: Now that I know the question was intended for me, I'll provide a little more depth to my answer.
The first thought I had when considering what makes a book important is how strongly it resonated within me, and the intensity of my emotions when reflecting upon what I've learned or how my perspective changed shortly after reading it. I know those stronger emotions may derive from a bias I had at one point in my life, and may no longer have.
Therefore, I can't help but think my definition is wrong because it's relative to the period in my life which I read the book. So some books that were important before may not be now. That's why I was curious to learn others' definitions of "important" books, and how to identify them for rereading.
My kids recently caught me claiming the world population is 6 billion people. Having learned the number more recently, they had the more accurate value.
While you make a good point (that one always needs to ensure the facts they know/take for granted are correct and haven't changed), it doesn't seem that is what he is referring to.
The need to reread and reconsider books, ideas, etc. is not to check if the facts have changed, but to make sure you didn't miss a point because of lack of knowledge or bias.
For example (on a very basic level), I find that if I reread a book on a programming language after using it for some time I notice things which I missed on a previous reading or wasn't able to appreciate due to lack of familiarity with the language. The same can apply to history - or any other study - where one only appreciates certain details after understanding the larger picture and surrounding events.
For this reason there lies an advantage in both rereading the same book (immediately or after some time) by itself and reading after studying more on the topic from other sources.
People don't grasp exponential growth[1]. That pattern will be useful for a very short time, and then you are wrong again.
And then, when you finally accept that you don't grasp it and start calculating with a formal growth rate, the growth rate suddenly changes.
[1] Nobody does. Some people know they don't, some are completely naive, the others lie to themselves. The first group have a chance of dealing correctly with it.
Population growth isn't exponential. The rate of population growth has been steadily declining since the 1960's, and I believe the world population is expected to level out around 9 billion people in a few decades.
Worse still many of these are formed in childhood from large misunderstandings. I'm constantly finding myself "closing out" old bogus lines of thought decades old.
I've argued with grown adults about childhood facts learned in error. It's frustrating, although I'm certain I have beliefs of my own that are still incorrect.
You're overestimating the difficulty of Facebook by over a factor of 50. Not to mention similar systems already existed. In fact, this is the first time I remember someone claiming that actually building the FB initial product was challenging (versus timing, acting on the idea, marketing, etc.)
Edit: parent comment was saying it's so much easier to with work with inexperienced people, and that an experienced "corporate" dev couldn't make Facebook if all the screens were given to them.
