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tmoertel 3 hours ago [-]
One of the best ways to clarify your thoughts about a subject is to write about it, and one of the best ways to prove to yourself that you understand it is to be able to write about it clearly. Indeed, my primary motivation to write is to order my thoughts and better understand the universe I live in.
It is surprisingly difficult work, but so is lifting weights. That is precisely why I insist on doing it myself. If I let an AI write for me, it would be the same as letting a robot lift weights for me. Yeah, it would be easier, but I would not get stronger, nor would I gain the confidence and self discipline that comes from doing hard things.
altmanaltman 1 hours ago [-]
I think a better way to understand is talk and discuss it rather than just write about it. AI can be useful for this, like instead of it lifting for you, it is holding the punching bag instead in your metaphor.
Yes, writing clearly makes you understand your thoughts etc. But it is one of the methods and we shouldn't extraploate how much a person understands things based on whether they write or not.
Arguments and discussions are still superior form of learning to me than just purely writing and thinking.
tmoertel 37 minutes ago [-]
You raise an interesting point. I agree that discussing a subject with a knowledgeable mentor, AI or otherwise, is a great way to learn. But I think back-and-forth discussions are limited as a means of testing your mastery of a subject. Especially with complex and nuanced subjects, being able to organize them in your mind is an essential part of mastery. You will not know if you have mastered them unless you can generate a clear and coherent description of them entirely on your own. With a mentor prompting you, step by step, you are relying in part on the mentor’s understanding of the subject to guide your thinking.
It is like the difference between multiple-choice and essay exams. In the former, the questions you are asked reveal much about the structure of the subject to be explored and of the relative importance of its facets and the many nuances within. In the latter, you are on your own: you must conceive of a coherent map, render its form onto a blank sheet, and populate it with what is important, with everything being sensibly connected.
MarkSweep 19 minutes ago [-]
The author states:
> every single one of my blog posts argues a point. I never publish a post that just gives some scattered thoughts on a topic, or a post that only says “yes, I agree with this other article”.
What’s wrong with posting about something interesting about the world you have discovered without arguing any point? The author seems to argue that polemics are the only valid form of writing. Even for a polemicist that seems a bit self aggrandizing.
demibabs 4 hours ago [-]
I was more excited before I realized the title was imperative rather than descriptive.
Please, no. Don't blog about things you don't understand yet. We have far too many people and LLMs doing that. After you really understand it, then consider blogging.
tmoertel 2 minutes ago [-]
> Please, no. Don't blog about things you don't understand yet.
Do you really mean this? Or do you mean "When you blog, be honest. Don't pretend to understand things you don't."?
Blogging about things you are learning about, especially if you invite feedback, is a great way to learn and to build a shared understanding within a larger community.
But I agree 100% on the fake-it-till-you-make-it posts on blogs and LinkedIn. That stuff is a blight on the web.
apparent 1 hours ago [-]
Seeing the title, I expected this to be a blog post trying to convince me what to blog about, written by a person who does not yet understand if his perspective is correct.
charcircuit 6 minutes ago [-]
This could lower the quality of LLM training data, so I don't think it's a good idea at this point.
stackghost 56 minutes ago [-]
I used to do exactly this, but 99% of my blog's traffic was bots, so I shut it down.
The web is on its last legs. Why bother publishing if nobody will read it? Nowadays I just write explorative/study notes in a notebook. I retain that better than typed writing anyways.
beej71 42 minutes ago [-]
If I may, one reason to write about it is to understand it more clearly. Even if nobody reads something I wrote, at least I got better at it.
ahmadtbk 35 minutes ago [-]
WOAH ITS HIM
krapp 32 minutes ago [-]
>Why bother publishing if nobody will read it?
The vast majority of blogs go unread, even back on the old web. I used to blog almost every day, for years, back in the early 2000s, and probably no one noticed.
But the fun was in the activity and the self-expression, both in blogging and discovering blogs. And if someone happened to come along and say hi it was a bonus. I'm trying to recapture some of that fun but it's difficult.
It is surprisingly difficult work, but so is lifting weights. That is precisely why I insist on doing it myself. If I let an AI write for me, it would be the same as letting a robot lift weights for me. Yeah, it would be easier, but I would not get stronger, nor would I gain the confidence and self discipline that comes from doing hard things.
Yes, writing clearly makes you understand your thoughts etc. But it is one of the methods and we shouldn't extraploate how much a person understands things based on whether they write or not.
Arguments and discussions are still superior form of learning to me than just purely writing and thinking.
It is like the difference between multiple-choice and essay exams. In the former, the questions you are asked reveal much about the structure of the subject to be explored and of the relative importance of its facets and the many nuances within. In the latter, you are on your own: you must conceive of a coherent map, render its form onto a blank sheet, and populate it with what is important, with everything being sensibly connected.
> every single one of my blog posts argues a point. I never publish a post that just gives some scattered thoughts on a topic, or a post that only says “yes, I agree with this other article”.
What’s wrong with posting about something interesting about the world you have discovered without arguing any point? The author seems to argue that polemics are the only valid form of writing. Even for a polemicist that seems a bit self aggrandizing.
Do you really mean this? Or do you mean "When you blog, be honest. Don't pretend to understand things you don't."?
Blogging about things you are learning about, especially if you invite feedback, is a great way to learn and to build a shared understanding within a larger community.
But I agree 100% on the fake-it-till-you-make-it posts on blogs and LinkedIn. That stuff is a blight on the web.
The web is on its last legs. Why bother publishing if nobody will read it? Nowadays I just write explorative/study notes in a notebook. I retain that better than typed writing anyways.
The vast majority of blogs go unread, even back on the old web. I used to blog almost every day, for years, back in the early 2000s, and probably no one noticed.
But the fun was in the activity and the self-expression, both in blogging and discovering blogs. And if someone happened to come along and say hi it was a bonus. I'm trying to recapture some of that fun but it's difficult.