> ... they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant
By claiming he doesn't notice something that he clearly and explicitly mentions, I feel you are directly making his point.
So, yes, he explicitly mentioned something, that's why I mentioned too.
What I think the problem is that he implies in that sentence that either reading is more instructionless than hearing/talking, or that somehow good instruction itself should just grow on trees, or that instruction is always good, or that ratio of instructioned knowledge vs "ignorance" matters.
What I try to point out is that what matters is applied knowledge, which is still very rare even today, yet the chance of picking up a book that helps with acquiring the skills to gather and apply knowledge has more chance than hearing it from someone.
There's a good amount of research inicating that discussion and speaking lead to significantly more information retention than hearing or reading. The more individual the learning process is, the fewer opportunities there are for discussion. This is why I get into silly arguments on HN in the first place, gotta supplement that reading ;)
Reading makes knowledge acquisition easier, but it also decreases the fraction of knowledge that comes bundled with expert 1-on-1. This has both advantages and disadvantages.
Exactly!
Talking about a subject helps organize it.
> This is why I get into silly arguments on HN in the first place, gotta supplement that reading ;)
Ah, the good old Feynman criterion. You don't understand something until you can explain it to a 6th grader or a HNer ^^
> Reading makes knowledge acquisition easier, but it also decreases the fraction of knowledge that comes bundled with expert 1-on-1.
Experts are scarce, books are cheap.
Also if a bunch of people read a book, it has the same content for everybody. So if people recommend a book and you read it you can be fairly sure that you all read the same thing. But if a bunch of people talk to someone, and they say oh that someone is great, but then they don't like you, or they are in a bad mood, or ... or, you won't really know what's up. (Recently happened to me with a recommendation to a doctor. I'm still fed up with how useless it was to spend money on that doc and how high praise he got.)
> you can be fairly sure that you all read the same thing
I don't think this is a given. The bible has been around for a long time, but for whatever reason there have been disputes over what information exactly is encoded in it that have been going on for centuries. It's definitely a little more consistent the spoken word though!