Summarization is the tool of the gamma. Learn just enough about a topic that you can inject yourself into uninvited conversations with a “Did you know that…”
This reminds me of C. S. Lewis’ commentary on changing primary school standards in England. It used to be that the teacher would teach the subject, the smart kids would learn it and the dumb kids would not. And everyone would recognize who was is which category. The dumb kids would learn to recognize the smart and the learned, and that they were not in the club.
But already in the 1940s-50s, the standards were changing to make sure all the students could pass the class. Leading to no distinction between learned/intelligent and unlearned/unintelligent. Leading to more people pontificating as if they really understood. He laid quite a few societal problems at the feet of this phenomenon.
Often with Vox’s writing one has to actually sit down and read it a few times to at least attempt an understanding - even then I would never try to explain it.
I once ran a Veriphysics essay through ChatGPT and asked it to condense it as though it was explaining to an 8 year old and it ruined the entire essay. Was alarming the complete and utter mess it made if it. Even with my own limited comprehension I could at least see that it had completely perverted the original. It’s actually easier to put in the effort and reread a few times and sit with not knowing.
It’s quite funny because cliff notes always missed the entire point of the books and would really make classes harder not easier if you were ever were lazy and tried to rely on them at school and this is a bit of the same thing. Understanding takes time and effort.
Consider the case where a writer produces a flawed, but original thesis with some valuable insight. Then a smarter person comes along, takes the valuable parts, extends it logically to make a consistent whole that is better than the original. This is also a transformation and perversion of the original.
How often is the original writer upset about this? It depends how it's presented and whether they have a glimmer of comprehension of the revised version. Idiots reject any attempt to steelman their positions and cling to incoherent assertions (L=~5).
Presumably smart people will respond better if it's clearly stated that this is not a summary but someone else's unique perspective. But it may still vary because people are emotionally invested in their ideas, and for other aesthetic reasons. I believe Vox rejects evopsych mythologies that explain the SSH on principle, even though presumably there is an explanation that's correct.
The same dynamic destroys a lot of "journalism," even when malice isn't present. I've had people try to edit things in my area of expertise, flipping the conclusion to the opposite of the article that they clearly never grasped in the first place. All despite a Grade 9 written language level, but if you don't know the subject...
We can route around the media by publishing ourselves. The Popularization Filter is a trickier thing; we have to look at religions to find useful counter-strategies, and even then their limitations are clear.
A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.
There is nothing more dangerous than a little knowledge - summaries being almost perfect examples.
The only way I learn is by reading-reading-reading.....simply looking for confirmation of my already established presumptuous presuppositions is DELUSION INC.
I've been on this journey for 25+ years - 10 years on the net - 50 years if you count Bible research - many wrong turns and twists on the road - but still plugging along....knowing full well that we ALL still 'see through DaGlass DARKLY'!
One of my best teachers often refused to spend too much time on a confusing concept. If a student was confused, he'd clarify once, rarely twice. After the first clarification, he would utter the most frustrating words of that class: "take some time to think about it."
Every time he uttered those words, a shudder went through the room, like we'd all been sentenced to intellectual purgatory. But after a few weeks, I noticed several things: first, I would often understand the thing after a few days of chewing on it; second, it became easier to grasp things more quickly in other, easier classes as time went on; third, his behavior gradually drew a plumb line between those students who could, after a few days to a few weeks, understand the concepts, and those who could not.
I'll forever be grateful to that professor. He understood better than I that some understanding can only come with time and deliberate effort. Thanks to him, I'm much more comfortable with uncertainty because I know that sometimes, confusion is temporary.
Gents, if you know you don't understand something, take a cue from one of my best professors. Stop typing, put the screen away, and take some time to think about it.
"And it’s always better to know you don’t understand something than to think you understand something you don’t."
This kind of understanding is critical for knowing God and reading the Bible.
The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Part of that is understanding God is far above us and we do not, cannot, operate at God's level. His ways are not our ways. He does things that are far better than we can ask or imagine.
Look at the difficulties most people have processing Vox's thoughts - and recall there's a bigger gap between us and God.
If it's hard to understand, don't be quick to say what it means. Read it over again. Don't toss out the details you don't get, but let it sink in as necessary context. Allow that you don't understand and mentally mark it as such.
I pay my dentist to think about teeth. She is paid and trained to know about teeth. I am not. And considering how annoying 'so what you are saying is ...', I could shut up and leave the thinking and the feeling about my teeth to her. Or I could experience pain and costly extra visits to her.
I promised her not to drink a single sugary drink, and I'm going to follow that. If it's that brand, from one of those cans or bottles, just no. Coffee is okay. It is simple. Just shut up, don't think, and let her summary lead me.
- The wall of text was written as short as it could be, and it's still a wall of text. Every single piece is needed. Every attempt to simplify it further is going to remove a critical detail.
This does not apply to most walls of text on the Internet, but it's important to recognize when you're dealing with someone who is smarter than you who is communicating in highly information dense language.
High intelligence thinking already simplifies the concepts so that they can be efficiently processed. Though we should also appreciate excellent cross-domain translations like Ricardo Retardo.
"...then insist on that transformed version being the correct and only interpretation, even though it is obviously wrong."
I was reading a 2007 VP post yesterday and Vox identified this same problem. In another old post, he mentioned it as a significant reason he doesn't deal with theology or scripture much on the blog:
"1. Take a Bible verse
2. Assign a possible meaning to it.
3. Insist this is the ONLY possible meaning, even when the meaning doesn’t make sense. (In this case, the problem is apparent a priori, but usually it is only evident when considered in context with other, contradictory verses.)
4. Ignore all other plausible interpretations, especially more logical and Biblically supported ones."
It fits the pattern of many of the theological discussions I've had with other Christians. It's almost always a giant waste of time. Ironically, the more strict one is with definitions and standards of coherence, the more free one's thinking becomes because it is not weighed down by the additional false constraints on top of the real ones. The Triveritas is a great tool for identifying those exact false constraints.
Summarization is the tool of the gamma. Learn just enough about a topic that you can inject yourself into uninvited conversations with a “Did you know that…”
This reminds me of C. S. Lewis’ commentary on changing primary school standards in England. It used to be that the teacher would teach the subject, the smart kids would learn it and the dumb kids would not. And everyone would recognize who was is which category. The dumb kids would learn to recognize the smart and the learned, and that they were not in the club.
But already in the 1940s-50s, the standards were changing to make sure all the students could pass the class. Leading to no distinction between learned/intelligent and unlearned/unintelligent. Leading to more people pontificating as if they really understood. He laid quite a few societal problems at the feet of this phenomenon.
Often with Vox’s writing one has to actually sit down and read it a few times to at least attempt an understanding - even then I would never try to explain it.
I once ran a Veriphysics essay through ChatGPT and asked it to condense it as though it was explaining to an 8 year old and it ruined the entire essay. Was alarming the complete and utter mess it made if it. Even with my own limited comprehension I could at least see that it had completely perverted the original. It’s actually easier to put in the effort and reread a few times and sit with not knowing.
It’s quite funny because cliff notes always missed the entire point of the books and would really make classes harder not easier if you were ever were lazy and tried to rely on them at school and this is a bit of the same thing. Understanding takes time and effort.
So easily we're persuaded
When the lines are blurred and faded
This is how villains are made.
Consider the case where a writer produces a flawed, but original thesis with some valuable insight. Then a smarter person comes along, takes the valuable parts, extends it logically to make a consistent whole that is better than the original. This is also a transformation and perversion of the original.
How often is the original writer upset about this? It depends how it's presented and whether they have a glimmer of comprehension of the revised version. Idiots reject any attempt to steelman their positions and cling to incoherent assertions (L=~5).
Presumably smart people will respond better if it's clearly stated that this is not a summary but someone else's unique perspective. But it may still vary because people are emotionally invested in their ideas, and for other aesthetic reasons. I believe Vox rejects evopsych mythologies that explain the SSH on principle, even though presumably there is an explanation that's correct.
The same dynamic destroys a lot of "journalism," even when malice isn't present. I've had people try to edit things in my area of expertise, flipping the conclusion to the opposite of the article that they clearly never grasped in the first place. All despite a Grade 9 written language level, but if you don't know the subject...
We can route around the media by publishing ourselves. The Popularization Filter is a trickier thing; we have to look at religions to find useful counter-strategies, and even then their limitations are clear.
A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.
Bertrand Russell
How can AI summarize something so new? AI has to read a bunch of reddit posts to know anything.
Know, or Know Not. There is no “summarize.”
This here is a profound fucking post.
There is nothing more dangerous than a little knowledge - summaries being almost perfect examples.
The only way I learn is by reading-reading-reading.....simply looking for confirmation of my already established presumptuous presuppositions is DELUSION INC.
I've been on this journey for 25+ years - 10 years on the net - 50 years if you count Bible research - many wrong turns and twists on the road - but still plugging along....knowing full well that we ALL still 'see through DaGlass DARKLY'!
One of my best teachers often refused to spend too much time on a confusing concept. If a student was confused, he'd clarify once, rarely twice. After the first clarification, he would utter the most frustrating words of that class: "take some time to think about it."
Every time he uttered those words, a shudder went through the room, like we'd all been sentenced to intellectual purgatory. But after a few weeks, I noticed several things: first, I would often understand the thing after a few days of chewing on it; second, it became easier to grasp things more quickly in other, easier classes as time went on; third, his behavior gradually drew a plumb line between those students who could, after a few days to a few weeks, understand the concepts, and those who could not.
I'll forever be grateful to that professor. He understood better than I that some understanding can only come with time and deliberate effort. Thanks to him, I'm much more comfortable with uncertainty because I know that sometimes, confusion is temporary.
Gents, if you know you don't understand something, take a cue from one of my best professors. Stop typing, put the screen away, and take some time to think about it.
“I didn’t understand it, so I’m going to summarize it” is totally
incoherent.
In order to summarize something, even for just your own understanding, you have to read and re-read and re-read again until you understand it.
What this guy is really saying is “I didn’t understand it, so I’m going to simplify it” Which is not the same as summarizing.
Huh. An author believing his readers can with effort grow. I like it.
"And it’s always better to know you don’t understand something than to think you understand something you don’t."
This kind of understanding is critical for knowing God and reading the Bible.
The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Part of that is understanding God is far above us and we do not, cannot, operate at God's level. His ways are not our ways. He does things that are far better than we can ask or imagine.
Look at the difficulties most people have processing Vox's thoughts - and recall there's a bigger gap between us and God.
If it's hard to understand, don't be quick to say what it means. Read it over again. Don't toss out the details you don't get, but let it sink in as necessary context. Allow that you don't understand and mentally mark it as such.
I pay my dentist to think about teeth. She is paid and trained to know about teeth. I am not. And considering how annoying 'so what you are saying is ...', I could shut up and leave the thinking and the feeling about my teeth to her. Or I could experience pain and costly extra visits to her.
I promised her not to drink a single sugary drink, and I'm going to follow that. If it's that brand, from one of those cans or bottles, just no. Coffee is okay. It is simple. Just shut up, don't think, and let her summary lead me.
Another way of looking at it:
- The wall of text was written as short as it could be, and it's still a wall of text. Every single piece is needed. Every attempt to simplify it further is going to remove a critical detail.
This does not apply to most walls of text on the Internet, but it's important to recognize when you're dealing with someone who is smarter than you who is communicating in highly information dense language.
High intelligence thinking already simplifies the concepts so that they can be efficiently processed. Though we should also appreciate excellent cross-domain translations like Ricardo Retardo.
"...then insist on that transformed version being the correct and only interpretation, even though it is obviously wrong."
I was reading a 2007 VP post yesterday and Vox identified this same problem. In another old post, he mentioned it as a significant reason he doesn't deal with theology or scripture much on the blog:
"1. Take a Bible verse
2. Assign a possible meaning to it.
3. Insist this is the ONLY possible meaning, even when the meaning doesn’t make sense. (In this case, the problem is apparent a priori, but usually it is only evident when considered in context with other, contradictory verses.)
4. Ignore all other plausible interpretations, especially more logical and Biblically supported ones."
It fits the pattern of many of the theological discussions I've had with other Christians. It's almost always a giant waste of time. Ironically, the more strict one is with definitions and standards of coherence, the more free one's thinking becomes because it is not weighed down by the additional false constraints on top of the real ones. The Triveritas is a great tool for identifying those exact false constraints.