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Comment by xmcp123 | Hacker News Reader

Even as the author points out people are reading more, he continues to conflate books with reading - and not just that but reading specifically physical books (referring to his stats around book ownership).

The reality is that before, you needed to read huge swaths of information to find/know the relevant information. Now you don’t.

The density of useful information I gather from places like Wikipedia, even long form articles is substantially higher than I got reading non-fiction.

I still read books sometimes. It’s a different experience. But it’s only a dumbing down of society, if the things you’re reading are dumb.

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> The reality is that before, you needed to read huge swaths of information to find/know the relevant information. Now you don’t.

> The density of useful information I gather from places like Wikipedia, even long form articles is substantially higher than I got reading non-fiction.

You're in good company. Sam Bankman-Freid:

  I would never read a book. I’m very skeptical of books. I don’t want to say no book is ever worth reading, but I actually do believe something pretty close to that. I think, if you wrote a book, you fucked up, and it should have been a six-paragraph blog post.

You do actually need to read huge swaths of information to understand the relevant information. A good nonfiction book isn't long because of low information density: it's because the ideas are so complicated that it takes an entire book to explain it. Your approach is emblematic of a modern trend where people know a bunch of smart factoids but have no broader wisdom or understanding.

Not reading books because of "information denisty" is a lazy rationalization for dumbing yourself down. Wikipedia is good as a quick reference if you already understand something, but a disaster for learning.

I've read plenty of scientific articles that read like the author is trying to fulfill a word count. There's definitely something to be said for brevity.

I do read huge swaths of information, just directly relevant to the questions that I have, and the things required to understand that information.

Don’t have to read a book on every US president to understand what happened during the Reagan administration. And if I’m primarily interested in the Cold War, I can focus on that subject and skip out on when Reagan was governor of California, or how he met his wife.

More than that I can get information from a variety of sources, including ones that disagree with each other and have different perspectives. That has absolutely enormous value when trying to comprehend something new…and isn’t often available in a single book.

You still can’t be lazy. Laziness is antithetical to truly acquiring knowledge. But it definitely can’t only come from a book.

Your example is an interesting one, as the Reagan administration is a broad topic with many books covering just a small slice. If you are solely interested in the foreign policy of Reagan, you could find books on Iran-Contra, SDI, Grenada, the American response to the Soviet-Afghan war, the Reykjavik Summit etc.

Wikipedia is a great resource and I use it a lot, but it is far from a complete solution for topics with any depth. If I read an article on a president, I'll get a brief overview of their administration as well as a few interesting facts and could probably answer a jeopardy question about them, but I would not claim a strong understanding.

I will agree that not every bit of information can be found in a book, but the ability to comprehend book-level arguments and ideas is critical. They are a necessary, but not sufficient component of learning.

There are very few non-fiction books that actually need their space to communicate their idea, instead of doing it in a chapter and filling the rest of it to reach some word-count target.

> he continues to conflate books with reading - and not just that but reading specifically physical books (referring to his stats around book ownership). [emphasis added]

She and her, the author is a woman.

Good catch. My apologies. I won’t edit, but just to preserve the accuracy of your correction.

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