Comment by Shamanmuni | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Shamanmuni | Hacker News Reader

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>Mr. Gates didn't say that non-fiction is always better for learning about the world.

Of course he didn't, he said something worse. The literal quote from Bill Gates is: "But I read mostly nonfiction because I always want to learn more about how the world works".

The immediate conclusion that you can take from that is "if you want to learn more about how the world works, then don't read fiction". It's the assumption that fiction has value only as entertainment.

I'll give you just one example of the opposite. If you want to learn how people in the past thought and viewed the world, then an excellent way is reading the popular fiction of that time. Bonus points if you get to know how they read it.

>Sorry, but it does. Easily testable hypothesis; go to the NY Times Bestsellers lists and compare, book-for-book, what can be "learned" from each (as most of us understand "learning").

Sorry, but if you get to redefine things in order to suit your argument (the word learn), then you are right by default and there can't be any discussion. I won't follow you there.

I know there are excellent non-fiction books that teach you lots of things. But the reverse is true, there are garbage non-fiction books that teach you nothing.

For example: read "Confessions of a Heiress" by Paris Hilton. It's non-fiction, so by your logic, you will surely learn more about the world reading that than something like "1984" by George Orwell, right? Give me a break.

>The immediate conclusion that you can take from that is...

Your problem is assuming there's an immediate conclusion to be drawn.

Maybe you can take a step back and understand that this is a guy writing an article about some good books he read this year, rather than a treatise on the uselessness of fiction. Look at the context. Because I certainly didn't come to "the" immediate conclusion that you did.

A big component of reading comprehension is understanding context. Do you really think the purpose of what he wrote was what you imply? Maybe, but I doubt it. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

>I'll give you just one example of the opposite

Coming up with a single counter example doesn't dismiss the general. No one is arguing anywhere (including Mr. Gates) that all fiction is useless to learn from. Does me presenting one useless fiction book and one beneficial non-fiction book prove my point? Because I guarantee I have more examples.

>Sorry, but if you get to redefine things in order to suit your argument

Huh? My definition? I explicitly stated "as most of us understand it". Because, you know, most of us do understand the word a specific way. I stated it as such because I foresaw someone like you jumping in with some pseudo-intellectual argument that "learning is this, learning isthat", when 90% of us agree on what is implied by the phrase "to learn".

>For example: read "Confessions of a Heiress"

Wait a minute: on one hand you're telling me to read popular fiction of days past to gain insight into the views of others, then on the other you dismiss the non-fiction writings of a twentieth century pop-culture icon for its lack of similar insight? Brilliant. If you don't think the writings of someone like Paris Hilton can teach us anything about society and culture, on various levels, I don't know what to tell you.

>by your logic, you will surely learn more about the world reading that than something like "1984" by George Orwell, right? Give me a break.

Yes, that's my logic precisely. All non-fiction is better than fiction </s>.

I'll do the same: Twilight vs. A Brief History of Time. Which can you learn more from? Apparently by your twisted logic and cherry-picking, Twilight. Have fun with that.

Are you trying to argue for the sake of arguing? Not shocking, for the same reason that it wasn't surprising to see the top comment on a "best books I've read list" attacking the nuances of a single, throwaway line in the text, irrelevant to the actual content of the article. This community loves that. I guess it makes people feel smart.

This discussion is turning useless, you are arguing with an imaginary strawman that isn't me. You are assuming and stating things about me and this community and it's becoming tedious.

Reread this thread, I didn't claim fiction as a whole is better than non-fiction in any way, but you did claim non-fiction as a whole gives you more information about the world by default, irrespective of individual examples. I'd be thankful if you stopped denying that you said what you said, or at least admit that you were mistaken.

You can't make blanket statements about categories like that, it's a futile exercise because you are putting great books and garbage books in the same box. They aren't all the same, neither in fiction nor in non-fiction. That's the critique we made to Bill Gates' blanket statement.

Instead of arguing for argument's sake, read what I wrote calmly and analyse it, none of your previous answers apply and I don't have the time to answer to each part of your comment. I'll just answer the only one in which you could have a point.

About Paris Hilton's book, it's true that there's some value in it, but you can't compare it to the value that you can take from 1984 and the insights it can give you about society and the human condition. And that was my point, a counterexample to the blanket statement "non-fiction gives you more information about the world than fiction by default". It simply isn't true. Literature is much more complex than that.

And by literature I talk both about fiction and non-fiction, I don't redefine things or refer to an imaginary "most of us".

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