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Comment by patcon | Hacker News Reader

I feel for you, but I would humbly suggest trying to get to the root of this. In all sincerity, therapy is good for this sort of thing. I have similar desires, but I have come to understand them as quite dysfunctional, and not something that should be catered to by the system around me.

Because the real/natural world doesn't work that way. it's very ill-adapted to real life learning. Only in a constructed and false environment can anyone give us the answer to help us learn. The point of learning is not just the acquisition of information, but also to learn how to acquire future information. Leaning into your current tactics (and advocating ppl be supported to learn this way) will leave the learner very ill-equipped to learn in the real world and real jobs, where no one has the answer to give. Learning to thrive (or at least cope) in that situation, that's important

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> I would try to get to the root of this.

I guess you could amend the old adage to “on the internet everyone thinks you’re a dog”.

I am decades removed from advanced university degrees.

I am saying how I, as in me, learn best, and acknowledging that it’s different.

My point was why restrict a “generalist engine” to only teach one specific way.

All the old restrictions that pander to: this is how the text book is written, there is only one teacher and 30 students; are baggage and should be discarded in their absence.

I made my educational intentions clear:

> That quote should have read ~“the agent has been designed to work tirelessly to do anything to ensure the student understands the material well enough to wield it”

But I do like and agree with one point you made:

> but also to learn how to acquire future information.

What’s the student learning in regard to acquire future information? To hope some megacorp will steal all of humanity’s creative output to build an llm to teach it to them?

Hm. Y'know what... I regret my comment. It felt ungenerous and obnoxious to write, and I tried to change the tone in edits, but it still feels gross.

Maybe just consider my comment self-talk. I guess your comment hit a nerve with familiarity, and I ended up talking to myself more than speaking to you. I apologize for that. And thanks for the original sincere comment. I'm sure others have seen it and at least some of them felt a little less alone in the weird world of our own brains <3

>> Because the real/natural world doesn't work that way. it's very ill-adapted to real life learning.

Actually, the real/natural world is perfectly adapted to real life learning.

Which is why science was formed shortly after people become intelligent...

> but I understand them as quite dysfunctional, and not something that should be catered to

I'd be happier to accept this if you'd explain why it's dysfunctional.

Maybe my rationale was just unconvincing to you (and I respect that), but I said it in the next paragraph. If you felt inclined to offer what's unconvincing about that, I'm open-minded about changing my perspective, or maybe I can better articulate beyond those words

EDIT: I realize maybe I prematurely submitted and it was just the first paragraph for a minute. It was all one thought, so apologies if that's what happened

Thank you, but I did see the whole answer (the second paragraph) when I responded. I sort of know what you're saying about not spoon feeding people, but learning happens best for a person according to that person, and working backwards from an answer can be as illuminating for me as it was for the other guy (and it can be illuminating for the wrong reason – revealing that it was a poor question in the first place).

I don't think you can be prescriptive about how people should learn. In the end we'll have to be able to operate without someone giving us the answers, but in the beginning however we get the learning process we need, that's all that counts.

This is a nonsensical statement produced by a chat bot. There are no invalid ways of learning.

There are 100% at least some ways of learning that ill prepare us for the world we're eventually going to be thrown into

I mean, we're talking "learning". Even negative reinforcement and beatings are a way that was a "learning style" at one point, that ppl defended as "worked for me". "Every way of learning is fine" is not a sensible way to enter the conversation about education

umm, "Even negative reinforcement and beatings are a way that was a "learning style" at one point" is a teaching style, not a learning style.

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