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Comment by bckr | Hacker News Reader

I was going to suggest writing, and I'll go one further: Do write a blog, but don't just write a blog.

Write a blog, and then create a video for each blog post, and upload it to YouTube (where the eyeballs willing to consume intellectual material are).

Also do livestreams.

Start interviewing anyone who will take you seriously. Set a goal for who your dream interviewee is.

Do this for a couple years, putting out content every week, and then glue & edit all that stuff down into a book that says something interesting, useful, and at least somewhat new.

Publish that book. Get interviewed yourself by other people.

Being a writer is not cliche. There's an enormous world there and a career you can build, and I think it's a very good idea to pursue that, so that you can get paid for pursuing your curiosity. In 10 years or so, if you keep at it, you could be doing very well for yourself and have "built" some things you're really proud of.

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> YouTube (where the eyeballs willing to consume intellectual material are).

Whyyyyyyyyy?!

Seriously I'm curious, what happened? Do intellectuals (whatever that means) really not prefer reading any more?

A desire for Podcasts/audiobooks I can understand, as someone who occasionally has to drive places, but video?

The problem with text as far as I see is discoverability. Google promotes YouTube videos, but the text sites I've seen ranked are just garbage like "7 ways to clean your sink".

And video is a more addictive medium.

If you are doing some researches, Google almost never is your friend. Alphabet/Google/Youtube are not interested in moving science forward, their work is to pump your attention with their ads. Your friends are: torrents which are storing some books, sci-hub for free access to whitepapers, github for having some free software. So sorry that free access to whitepapers is less legal than advertisement of some scams like some kind of "investments".

> And video is a more addictive medium.

IMHO it is not about video but about smartphones. They are too optimized for consuming ads instead of sciences. For example, it is way more handy to watch videos while constantly being interrupted by social networks than to silent reading if you are already taking a smartphone in your hands.

I think "intellectuals" are willing to read books.

I think videos are the best way to consume content in ~20 minutes.

But isn't reading a preferable way to consume the same content in ~2 minutes?

hmm, I'm not sure about that.

I think that good videos add something on top of the raw script. Visuals, body language, sound effects and music, timing,... That's just for the kinds of videos where the bulk of information is in the script, which excludes things like videos about music production or the like.

Maybe if you spend 20 minutes reading a book, there's going to be a lot of interleaved information: kind of repetition, but with change, so that you really get a good feeling for the core ideas.

A video that would take the same amount of time to watch might not have the same density of language (and I'm not even sure what the ratio would be: i don't think it's 10X, as you implied)--well, maybe it achieves a similar effect, that of increasing comprehension, not by repetition or extra examples, but by the non-linguistic information I listed above.

The 2 minute article just doesn't have the same sticking power.

I agree, but we appear to be in the minority. I find videos unengaging personally.

I feel that you can assign a separate IQ-like score to many different components of human intelligence. I score badly on book comprehension relative to other components.

I find it easier to concentrate for an hour or two on a video than a book. I'm probably slightly dyslexic or something. At university I made sure I never missed a lecture but hardly ever read a book. I did above averagely well.

This is a disadvantage though. I have friends who can read books in a couple of hours and absorb the content. I'd have to sit through more hours of video to get the same content, even watching the videos at 2x speed.

Wild speculation: being intellectual used to require being good at book comprehension. Maybe only 10% of the population are good at that. Maybe some of the remaining 90% are still clever. If so, video content could allow those book-comprehension-limited people to become intellectual. That'd be nice.

> I find it easier to concentrate for an hour or two on a video than a book.

That is because video does not requires you to concentrate. Imagine a book which is required to be read in 1x or 1.25x or 1.5x or 2x only. Pretty impossible to read, isn't it? You know, some paragraphs may require several hours to be read. Video just doesn't support to be consumed at different speeds per paragraph.

How can you seriously say "video does not requires you to concentrate". I'm genuinely curious as to why you would think this is true.

While reading you're more prone to analyze and think about the subject, while videos are sort of mechanized, in which generally people don't pause and reflect on what's being said.

> "video does not requires you to concentrate"

My English is not enough eloquent yet, so I share my anecdotal evidence. Some sentences in books is not understandable if reading only once, and we usually do not go to next one if the previous has been not understood. It is OK to read a sentence 5 times and to read another 2 places in previous parts of a book in order to understand that sentence. Going to a special place from previous parts of lecture might be a pain because of needness to re-listen some extra materials.

While watching video it is too easy to skip that hard sentences especially if professor is too charismatic to let us feel the needness to stop his lecture for a moment in order to think. And it is too hard to re-listen only the part is needed for re-listening, like when you can not parse one word (0.5 seconds long), so you press backwards and you realize that you need to relisten extra 4.5 seconds each re-reading.

That circumstances leads us to just keep listening while the pyramid of non-understanding actually grows on.

I can't even read light fiction. I read the first Harry Potter book once. To give a feeling of how hard reading is for me: it took me longer than working out how car understeer and oversteer physics work from first principles and making a simulation in C++ [1].

[1] Admittedly crap 2D car sim https://github.com/abainbridge/car_sim

I'll appeal to aphantasia here again. For me, I love to watch videos, but the visual images vanish the moment I stop watching. As such, they are an inefficient way for me to learn. I retain more when I read.

I suspect this is at the root of disagreements about 'visual learners', etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia

YouTube has quite good discovery (for me anyway) of related content. Some of it is highly produced. In the best case it’s also more compelling to watch the delivery.

And finally, I often go to YouTube for something specific, like say researching a camera, and as long as I’m already there I catch a few short videos on this or that idea.

I still read magazines (online because of where I live) and a few blogs and listen to maybe half a dozen podcasts regularly, but unless you show up on one of them, you’re much more likely to cross my radar on YouTube.

+1 for writing and also doing some YT videos, also +1 for interviews, and if you have time and a pleasant voice the. consider doing a podcast.

Why is it hard to believe that some consume information more effectively through video than text? I find it particularly useful to be able to watch/listen to a video on a topic when I have chores to do around the house that prevent me from sitting and reading a book. I suppose an argument could be made that reading is objectively better than watching something but watching something is closer to having a conversation with someone which is (I think) the best way to consume and understand information.

I don't get it either. I'd rather read an information-dense 5-10 minute article than watch a 30 minute video. The way youtube videos try to engage you with music and animations, and the intonation of the speakers, is uncomfortable for me. I accept that's a minority view though.

Because attending lectures in person is anachronistic.

Monkey see, monkey do. For physical skills, watching somebody do it while they explain why they are doing it that way is much more illuminating that text alone.

For strictly intellectual skills I find short introductory lectures on YouTube a great way to survey a topic. For a topic I know nothing about I find YT great place to find which direction is most interesting to pursue.

Spoken word was the original form of communication for "intellectuals". (e.g. Sokrates was famously against writting things down).

I've been reading Stolen Focus by Johann Hari and one of the points he makes is that there actually is a general decline in the ability to focus enough to enjoy reading books, even amongst educated and intellectual people. A lot of the blame gets put on the usual suspects (smartphones, social media, etc.), but there are a lot of factors like the stressful and distracted nature of our work environments, our diets, our sleep patterns, pollution, etc. that may genuinely be contributing to a increased inability to focus enough to disappear into a book.

How did you read my mind? I've thought of most of these things and thought I was completely crazy dreaming.

I absolutely want to interview people, dig their brains, hear their stories, etc.! This reminds me of how I used to go to my profs office hours because I just loved hearing them talk passionately about their subjects.

A question, livestream of what?

Dig into intellectual / political Twitch. One guy I've paid attention to is Hal Sparks, a comedian/TV personality turned webby political analyst.

He just reads a bunch of stuff and then does a livestream talking about current events and connecting them with what he's read (plus jokes). There's also a lot of reacting to YouTubers' video essays and the news.

Bullet points for livestreaming subject matter:

* Reacting to the news.

* Reacting to YouTubers / web content.

* Q&A sessions (this is key--the strength of livestreaming is audience interactivity, and that audience will be fiercely loyal).

* Spitballing -- You can give a rough version of a presentation you might give in a video.

* Live writing / creating -- This sounds crazy, but people actually watch people write code, create music etc.

Additional considerations:

* Create a ritual that people show up for. Livestreaming and video audiences love rhythm.

* You don't have to be that entertaining -- people often turn to Twitch/YouTube to fill a similar need in their life that they use podcasts for -- background noise / a distraction where they can feel like they're in the room with a public figure / community.

Thanks so much for all these! So eye-opening!

This is a great reminder, because there are LOTS of people doing this successfully, and in all likelihood, nothing separates them from you except that they've started and you haven't.

Is it possible they're more capable/interesting/competent than you are? Sure, but in all likelihood, it's actually just the discipline to keep doing it and iterating to make it better that separates you.

I most certainly agree that writing isn't cliche, but the exceedingly low barrier to entry makes it hard to distinguish yourself from the crowd of untalented hacks who want to squeeze money out.

More what I'm saying is that the environment requires shedloads of marketing acumen. Not that that's impossible to learn, but it means you're either getting someone to sell it for you (i.e., a publisher) or have to do a lot of work you probably don't love (i.e., not writing).

Or you could be like me and make stuff for fun, and never expect to get paid for it!

I think what you're saying is probably right, but I also think there's a big overlap between being a great writer and being a great marketer.

There's bonus value in getting paid because it's a relatively simple metric for "how good of a writer am I".

Another question, if you don't mind: What sort of things do you think I could write as a novice in these fields?? I don't think I'm interested in writing study notes or summaries etc. I think I'm more inquiry-inclined, something more critical, more engaged.

"A beginner's guide to..." is always a great format.

"Book reports" are better when they're not simply notes/summaries but engage the content from your point of view as a reader and go a bit deeper into the subject matter.

Most important: Just start putting your writing out there and getting feedback. Also study and imitate the styles of writers you appreciate. You'll probably suck for a few years. Keep going.

That's really great advice. I especially like your point on going beyond basic notes/summaries. Thanks again!! :)

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