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Comment by colin_jack | Hacker News Reader

> Aristotle, Leibniz, Einstein or whatever brilliant person you can think of didn't become who they are using cue-cards.

Indeed, but I think that being relevant assumes that people using these techniques believe it will somehow make them brilliant/geniuses.

> Spaced repetition always seemed like those schemes to get you fit or slim in 30 days that never work.

I'm not arguing for spaced repetition, but the whole point is you do some amount every day (or as needed) for the rest of your life (within reason). So it's not equivalent to get fit/slim quick at all, it's more about disciplined improvement of yourself. If that isn't effective for you don't do it, but based on your comment it seems like you're coming at it from the wrong angle.

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> I'm not arguing for spaced repetition, but the whole point is you do some amount every day (or as needed) for the rest of your life (within reason). So it's not equivalent to get fit/slim quick at all, it's more about disciplined improvement of yourself. If that isn't effective for you don't do it, but based on your comment it seems like you're coming at it from the wrong angle.

Fair enough, I haven't looked into spaced repetition deeply.

I just always got this weird vibe from people talking about it, like they think memorizing all the world capitals was a way to improve your intelligence. It's not.

Same thing with, like, "memory palace" stuff: being able to memorize a deck of cards is probably fun, and it's a nice parlor trick, but it will not help you solve real-world problems, analyze situations, make discoveries or be a better engineer. The way to do that is to just read books, study, work hard in your chosen field and keep up with the latest developments. That is the only way anyone has ever gotten good at anything.

Ahh got you. Yeah agreed on a lof of that. What I do is when I learning something that I think will be useful, but that I'll forget, I stick it in Anki.

Otherwise I know the fact will be written in the sand, it won't be there for me to use at the time when it would be useful. That's terminology from a book on memory I read a while back, which ironically I've now forgotten name of because I never put it in Anki.

Also should say I used to be much more scatter gun with what I put in Anki, but these days I combine it with Obsidian which I think is more managable.

Anyway not trying to sell Anki to anyone, if you don't need it don't use it for sure. I just know (think?) it's working for me, at least compared to the alternatives.

> they think memorizing all the world capitals was a way to improve your intelligence. It's not.

It definitely is. I don't understand the disdain for facts. If, when talking about a city, I know that it's a capital city, I am smarter than I would be if I did not know, and I have a better ability to participate in the conversation. If I know a bunch of constants (in whatever trade I work in) offhand, I can quickly do calculations in my head. Does knowing how many centimeters are in an inch make me smarter? Yes, it does. There was a reason why you memorized every letter in the alphabet.

> The way to do that is to just read books, study, work hard in your chosen field

Spaced repetition is literally just a way to study. You make the cards as you read books.

> Same thing with, like, "memory palace" stuff: being able to memorize a deck of cards is probably fun, and it's a nice parlor trick, but it will not help you solve real-world problems, analyze situations, make discoveries or be a better engineer.

> The way to do that is to just read books, study, work hard in your chosen field and keep up with the latest developments.

These are the same things, just a different form.

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