Hacker News Reader

> I don't really get why some people seem to think that it's somehow better to have their bullet point prompt as a huge text

Probably people who have never wanted to put the required thinking effort in a simple, structured response to a question, and now think that "a lot of words" magically solves that skill issue.

View on HN

I would have written a shorter letter, but I didn't have the time...

While Blaise Pascal, he of triangle and foundations of evil, may have indeed written something like that--though probably in 1600s French--it is almost certain that he did have the time. he just so not want to use it to edit his letter to be shorter.

The question before is now is now is whether the letter contains any quotable quotes that have survived 400 years other than his critique of style.

We intuitively think large documents show significant thought.

I don't just mean the readers.

The generators of slop often think this is useful.

Things have changed.

Our intuition has not.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com