
Expertise in the Age of YouTube - zzaner
https://behavioralscientist.org/expertise-in-the-age-of-youtube/
======
jnellis
As a finish carpenter for a number of years and having to deal with fixing
homeowners attempts at doing their own remodel efforts based on them watching
youtube videos, I've come to general law regarding expertise or 'how to'
videos. There's an inverse relationship between quality of video and accuracy
of information (or maybe just usefulness of information.)

The majority of good polished videos have the least accurate or useful
information. These I've surmised are people that would rather be into video
production or youtube stardom than they would being actually good at the
subject they profess. Alternatively, some of the worst grainy, shaky cam
videos I've seen, usually on the jobsite, are some of the best practices,
tricks of the trade or just informational rich videos you can get. These are
people that are not into being youtube stars and are just part of the 'sharing
community' as it maybe was originally envisioned. But as Rumsfeld said,
there's known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns, and when you're a
homeowner watching how-to videos, its very difficult to know what you should
know.... so most of them go by, instinctively, the quality of video production
as their guide to what they should be doing.

Sure there are great craftsmen with great video quality and there are some
really poor craftsmen with poor video quality but these are not the bulk of
what's out there. What rises to the top of search offerings seems to be
equally what's been marketed (poor craftsmen, high quality, "please
like,share, and subscribe") or what's been organically liked (poor quality,
high craftsmanship).

For the tradesmen out there dealing with homeowners, its now sometimes a bit
of an uphill battle after homeowners have done their 'youtube' research and
have determined how hard the job they've asked you to bid is going to be.

~~~
ryandrake
As a die hard Jack Of All Trades handyman, I can't overstate how incredible a
resource YouTube has been for me. You need to come at it with at least a small
baseline of knowledge of what you're trying to attempt, good shop
hygiene/safety habits, patience, a "measure twice, cut once" attitude, and so
on. But once you get in the right mindset, there is just so much to learn
there. I credit online resources for helping me to learn:

Basic carpentry. I've built several pieces of furniture around my home
including a pretty nice poker table (so, upholstery too). I built a 12'x6'
shed in my back yard on a foundation that's not going to sink or slide over.
Drywall and ceiling repair. Re-did a bunch of baseboard trim and only me and
someone who knows what they're doing can find the mistakes. I know my limit
though. I'm probably not going to attempt kitchen cabinetry or replace my roof
for example.

Basic plumbing. Gutted and replaced bathrooms and kitchens on multiple houses.
Repaired a busted spa back to like new. Re-did sprinkler systems. Cautiously
working my way up to gas lines--don't want to blow up my home.

Basic car maintenance and repair. Everything from oil changes, brake pads up
to replacing intake/exhaust systems, replacing a power steering system, light
bodywork.

Metal and fiberglass work. I'm building a single engine kit plane in my
garage. Online resources have been vital, and there's no way I'd have gotten
anywhere on this project without them.

You need to have a good filter. You're right that the highly polished "Brought
To You By Tool Company!" productions with the generic 80s porn music
soundtracks are pretty bad, and the "Hey Guys! Like And Subscribe" bros are
always the worst. Find the videos without background music and with bad
lighting and sound quality where the person is actually grunting and doing the
work in real time along with you. They're usually the best.

~~~
pmh
Do you have a list of videos/channels you've found useful for these projects?
I would find it useful and I'm sure others would appreciate it as well.

~~~
ryandrake
No particular channel I follow. I just do searches for whatever task and look
for the lowest budget video I can find.

------
bambax
Skillful coaching is important, but a big part of it is simply accountability:
knowing that someone will check on your progress at regular intervals and that
you need to do some work in between interviews to not look like a fool.

That's the concept behind the "accountability partner": someone who is not an
expert into what you're trying to achieve, but who bugs you regularly to make
sure you're moving forward.

After searching for "accountability partner as a service" I couldn't find
anything other than weird marketing websites that looked more than a little
scammy, so I built a simple tool that sends me an email everyday for each task
defined in the system, and that lets me record progress by responding to those
emails.

The concept is akin to Jerry Seinfeld's productivity hack: "don't break the
chain", meaning you need to do something about your craft every day. If you
skip a day, the chain breaks and restarts at zero.

The effectiveness of this is surprising; the accountability system can't
assess the quality of the work in any way and isn't even a person that I could
disappoint, but having to respond to an automated email every day to log my
progress and store ideas, etc., pushes me in ways I would never have expected.

~~~
kfk
I do this with my team with github issues. They get a daily reminder of issues
older than 5 days. We are not getting more done, but we are more aware of what
needs to be done and close issues that are just a nice to have. Accountability
works well with people, unfortunately most companies just say accountability
is important but don't put any real process in place to make it happen.

------
JDiculous
I love that information is so freely and readily available, and it's one of
the reasons why I genuinely believe younger people these days are growing up
more intelligent than the older generation (except maybe when it comes to
social skills).

The downside is that this means keeping a steady job is becoming increasingly
more difficult. The moat that protected the job security of highly advanced
professionals is rapidly deteriorating due to this democratization of
information. Credentials mean less today than they ever have in history.
Specialists will have to be on top of the ever-expanding spigot of new
information in order to remain competitive and justify their fees in a time
when anybody can just search Google/Youtube for the answer.

None of those would be problems if workers weren't financially dependent on
their jobs, such as if we had a universal basic income. But since most of us
our financially dependent on our jobs, we're basically in an arms race against
each other to the bottom. Stay at the bleeding edge, or get replaced by a more
financially desperate harder working 20 year old from an Asian country who
learned everything you know from Youtube / the internet. Many will
instinctively deny this now, but just watch how this continues to play out
over the next 10-20 years.

~~~
jbob2000
I call what you’re describing “information asymmetry”; a small amount of
people holding all of the information. Much of our society’s modes of
productivity depend on many people not having access to information. How can
you repair your car if there is nobody to show you how? I guess you’ll have to
take it to a mechanic!

But the internet completely destroyed information asymmetry, many people have
access to lots of information now. I don’t need to take my car to a mechanic
or pay someone to teach me, I can watch a YouTube video on how to change my
oil.

The side effect of the destruction of information asymmetry is that a LOT of
people depended on it, and they are all going to have to figure out where they
stand in the new marketplace of information. I think we’re also seeing huge
social movements because people are reading stuff online and reflecting about
their city/state/government and saying “hold on, what you’re doing isn’t
right, I’ve read about why you’re wrong”. The Arab spring, occupy wall st, the
european refugee crisis, the Hong Kong protests, the Chilean protests,
basically any major social movement in the last 20 years could be argued to
have been triggered by the internet.

~~~
kd5bjo
> I don’t need to take my car to a mechanic or pay someone to teach me, I can
> watch a YouTube video on how to change my oil.

This is historically why reading comprehension has been such a big deal. This
information has _always_ been widely available, in a maintenance manual you
could borrow from your local library.

~~~
vturner
This point has stunned me recently. I purchased an air conditioner and furnace
recently and thought hey I wonder what is in the massive manual. It turns out
a lot! The same is true for most of the appliance and machine manuals I've
looked at. What scares me from using said manuals is my lack of the basics in
plumbing, electrical, etc.

------
CM30
I think it's especially interesting to look at how quickly people master a
brand new field too, since it seems the timespan between a new hobby getting
started and people making professional quality works in said area has gone
down significantly too.

For instance, my go to example are video game mods and ROM hacks. In the olden
days, these communities grew quite slowly, and it took a fair amount of time
for people to get to understand the workings of a new game's engine and how it
could be built upon.

And you can see this if you look at Super Mario 64. In it early days, mods
were really basic, and even the fanciest ones looked super primitive by
today's standards:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgLc0rPRs3U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgLc0rPRs3U)

It then took years to go from stuff like that to more advanced original game
mods like Super Mario 64 Star Road, and even longer before ASM coding became
something many people understood and used for custom enemies, bosses,
gimmicks, etc (like in Kaze Emanuar's current works).

Now contrast to Super Mario Odyssey. It took just months for mods to get made
for that game, and under a year for fancy looking ones like this:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss7unbD4yHg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss7unbD4yHg)

And even that's a slower example. Since then, we've gone from seeing modding
scenes take years to develop, to seeing them a week or two after release, to
in some cases seeing mods getting made BEFORE the game officially hit store
shelves altogether.

Seriously, Smash Bros Ultimate got mods before the game was available to buy,
all based on leaked copies posted online.

Outside of games, same thing happens in web development too. New framework
pops up, professional looking sites/apps/whatever get made in the first week.
It's gotten to the point that those jokes about looking for 'rockstar ninjas
in [new programming language here]' may not be jokes anymore.

But yeah, the quality baseline goes up significantly quicker now.

~~~
jjeaff
But those examples seem to be the result of more frameworks and tooling and
boilerplate code that is already available that people can just build upon
rather than delve into the inner workings and figure stuff out - rather than
people learning to become experts much faster.

~~~
Godel_unicode
0 to 1 is the hard part.

------
tempestn
This speaks to me. I do a bunch of DIY work on my cars and various maintenance
on my house, thanks to youtube videos, that I highly doubt I would have ever
had the skill or confidence to tackle in a time before the internet. Many of
these things are literally less work to do myself than the hassle of getting
someone else to do it, let alone the cost. But in an earlier time, absent
knowing someone who could teach you the skill, it just wouldn't have been an
option.

Despite the problems platforms like YouTube cause (or enable), I certainly
wouldn't want to do without it.

------
asdfasgasdgasdg
I have been starting the process of learning hand woodworking by watching the
likes of Paul Sellers. It is amazing how much knowledge there is available on
YouTube about craftsmanship. Combining YouTube with niche web forums
multiplies the learning power. I'm already able to dimension boards with
nothing but a hand plane, a combination square, a depth gauge, and winding
sticks. I'm just at the start of my journey but I'm so thankful YouTube and
all these creators are out there to introduce me to this new hobby!

~~~
weaksauce
paul sellers is great! such a gem. check out wood work web, johnathan katz
moses, pask makes, izzy swan and jackmanworks... as well as some of the older
videos from William Ng. they are all quality!

~~~
michelpp
Thanks for the pointers, I like Essential Craftsman too, a bit of philosophy
with some great technique and history thrown in.

------
nefitty
I'm interested to know how other developers on HN prefer to learn. I really
like just running into a problem and Googling my way to a solution. I read
snippets of docs, blog articles, SO answers, etc. and then try to piece
together an understanding. I have a hard time incorporating videos into my ad
hoc learning.

What is your preferred method of learning new tools, techniques, etc?

~~~
omosubi
I'm the same way. I find that choosing a project that inspires me takes me
much further than just saying "I want to learn X, let me follow a tutorial".

On a related note, I just read nassim taleb's anti fragile which has a section
arguing that most progress comes from people tinkering with things to get
something they can sell or to solve some problem they have rather than
academics trying to understand things from basic principles. I don't agree
with it entirely but that and my way of learning has led me to value
experiential learning much higher than society does currently

~~~
porknubbins
Tutorials on youtube are generally terrible for learning because they don’t
show you any of the design decisions, mistakes, thought process etc. As if
what stood between you and programming Tetris in Rust was not knowing the
order of keystrokes. Udemy has (a few) authors with much better motivated
examples I find.

------
fuzzybear3965
In college I met a friend who had a MacBook whose keyboard layout was
assembled using the Dvorak layout (this was in 2009). Roll forward a couple of
years and I had met another friend who used his OS to map QWERTY to Dvorak.
Inspired, I spent a few days during Christmas break learning a new keyboard
layout. It's still what I use today.

Roll forward a couple of more years and I'm working on my Ph.d. and have the
thought that someone must have done more optimization on keyboard layouts:
Meet [http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx](http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx). That
inspired me to learn QFMLWY, something I have yet to do.

Roll forward to a few months ago and I'm experiencing some slight wrist pain;
a coworker uses a Kinesis Advantage and recommends it. In true punk style (and
unhappy with the Kinesis' outdated appearence), I endeavor to find a superior
product. I stumble upon the Ergodox EZ, a fully-featured workhorse. I quickly
become frustrated at my reduced typing speed and seek out a better solution.
Cue Plover and the OpenStenography project. Learning stenographic typing is my
next life goal.

This is a niche path involving one skill set: Improving the human-keyboard
interface. And, it involved real-world interaction with people and the
resources that people on the internet have provided. I'm convinced that either
only in-real-life (IRL) or only online interactions would have inhibited my
growth in this domain.

I'm sure that this same concept applies to every web development framework or
conlang or beauty style or any human endeavor. As an aside: These ideas are
also related to why I'm confident that an artificial general intelligence
developed in the vacuum of the internet will not succeed relative to a
competing technology that is able to benefit from both offline, interactive
experiences and also online information trawling.

~~~
codetrotter
> I stumble upon the Ergodox EZ, a fully-featured workhorse. I quickly become
> frustrated at my reduced typing speed and seek out a better solution. Cue
> Plover and the OpenStenography project. Learning stenographic typing is my
> next life goal.

I've been using the Dvorak layout since 2009. First on a TypeMatrix 2030 USB
for a long time and currently with an ErgoDox EZ Shine that I bought like a
year ago or something (wow, time flies! I thought it was only a year ago that
I bought it but I looked it up in my e-mail archive and it was in fact
December 2017 that I bought it) and have been using since then. Right now I am
typing on the QWERTY keyboard of my MacBook Air, just because of where and how
I am sitting at the moment. But I love my ErgoDox and use it a lot.

Here is my custom Dvorak based layout for ErgoDox EZ that I created basically
recreating the position of most of the keys that I was used to with the
TypeMatrix 2030 USB that I had, and with a couple of minor but important
modifications.

[https://configure.ergodox-ez.com/ergodox-
ez/layouts/ENb6/lat...](https://configure.ergodox-ez.com/ergodox-
ez/layouts/ENb6/latest/0)

This layout has been working perfectly for me and I am very happy with it.
It's mostly looking the same now as when I first created it (that link is for
the most recent version, the one I am using now).

Some things to note about this configuration and about ErgoDox EZ in general
(for the benefit of others ITT):

\- In the typical position of caps lock I have Escape when I tap it, but
Control when I hold it. Awesome!

\- This whole layout resides on the keyboard itself. I have all my computers
set to US standard layout and am able to have my layout work always on all of
my computers across all operating systems with no configuration or anything.
This alone is worth like a couple of hundred bucks at least, seriously!

\- The previous keyboard that I had, you know, the TypeMatrix, had hardware
Dvorak support too, but I always had to press a button on it each time I
unplugged and replugged it, or woke my computer from sleep, or turned my
computer back on after having shut it down. It's actually _surprising_ how
annoying pressing that button each time where I needed to, which wasn't always
(because back them I was remapping the keys to Dvorak in software on most of
my personal computers), but often enough that it got annoying. None of that
B.S. with the ErgoDox! :D

Prior to purchasing the ErgoDox EZ those two years ago, I too had looked a bit
at stenography tools and projects. My conclusion back then was that it seemed
useful, and was interesting, but cost prohibitive and time consuming to learn,
with the added factor of uncertainty that I have no idea if writing code with
stenography methods would actually be faster or in other ways better than my
current means of writing software.

Anyway, if you do end up learning stenography and use it to write code I would
love to hear about it and I hope you post about it to HN then.

~~~
fuzzybear3965
I took a look at your configuration and there are definitely some things that
I'm going to steal. Where's your shift key, though?!

> This whole layout resides on the keyboard itself.

This was a game-changer for me. No toggling between DV and US, anymore.

Regarding stenography for coding, I will probably only use stenographic typing
for software documentation (prose). The main use for stenographic typing will
be blog posts, emails, HN comments, etc.

With the ability for the Ergodox EZ to emulate a serial port , I can use
Plover+Ergodox EZ as layer 1, say, and Dvorak as layer 0, without needing to
change anything at the OS or application level when I do this (Dvorak will be
seen as a USB HID which Plover won't see and steno-mode will be seen as a
serial connection, which gets processed by Plover and forwarded to the OS).

~~~
codetrotter
> I took a look at your configuration and there are definitely some things
> that I'm going to steal.

Glad to hear that :)

> Where's your shift key, though?!

The main shift key is on the left side, below the "Esc / Ctrl" button.
Additionally I have a secondary shift key on the opposite side that is
activated when holding it pressed, but I actually never use the secondary
shift key, only the main shift key. Same with right hand side ctrl, I never
use that one either, and layer 3 is empty so I don't use the activation key
for layer 3 either. Other than that I use all of the buttons on layer 0.

The other layers have quite a few keys that I don't use however, so I should
probably update my config to reflect that.

While I am at it I am going to rearrange the Fn keys a bit, because I always
struggle to remember where I put F12 exactly so I end up counting from the
known position of F1 up to key F12. And the situation where I need F12 of
course is when I am going to do something in BIOS/UEFI settings on some
computer and like you know you only have like 2 seconds to press the correct
key :P So I should make it so that I have F12 at the natural position that is
the very top right corner.

Actually, let me go ahead and do that now real quick.

Here: [https://configure.ergodox-ez.com/ergodox-
ez/layouts/PBKjJ/Zq...](https://configure.ergodox-ez.com/ergodox-
ez/layouts/PBKjJ/ZqWv6/0)

This one now has the unused keys removed, and layers 1 and 2 merged, as well
as the () and {} and [] quick-access keys repositioned because while I've been
using the [] and the {} quick-access keys a lot I've been a little bugged by
my choice of position for them. After making the modifications above I flashed
that config to the ErgoDox, meaning that what you see there is matches exactly
what I use which is now all that is on my ErgoDox and none of the keys that I
thought might be nice to have but which I never use :)

> Regarding stenography for coding, I will probably only use stenographic
> typing for software documentation (prose). The main use for stenographic
> typing will be blog posts, emails, HN comments, etc.

I see, makes sense.

> With the ability for the Ergodox EZ to emulate a serial port , I can use
> Plover+Ergodox EZ as layer 1, say, and Dvorak as layer 0, without needing to
> change anything at the OS or application level when I do this (Dvorak will
> be seen as a USB HID which Plover won't see and steno-mode will be seen as a
> serial connection, which gets processed by Plover and forwarded to the OS).

You have me convinced. I do type quite a lot of prose text too, and I knew
vaguely that someone was using the ErgoDox EZ for stenography, but I didn't
know how and I didn't know that Ergodox EZ could emulate a serial port. Do you
have any links about how to set this up for Plover with the ErgoDox EZ?
Otherwise I am sure I will figure it out eventually :)

Edit: Actually, tab is missing from the layout in the web UI for some reason.
Put it back in place and changed the link in this comment to point to the
version that has tab put back in place.

Edit 2: Made some small adjustments to the positions of some of the keys and
flashed the modified to my ErgoDox EZ. Updated link and some of the text in
this comment surrounding that link.

~~~
fuzzybear3965
Apologies for the delay. I rarely log in to HackerNews. Thanks so much for
getting back to me.

> Where's your shift key, though?!

 _palmface_ I had meant <kbd>Tab</kbd>. But, you addressed this in spite of my
mistake at the end of your response.

When I get Plover running with my keyboard and can toggle between modes
successfully I'll send you a link to my explanation to get it started. From
the looks of things I'll be cobbling together a few different sets of
instructions.

------
wilsmex
I’ve been working on my YouTube educational channel html/css/design
([https://youtube.com/FollowAndrew](https://youtube.com/FollowAndrew)) for a
bit now. Pickup is slow, but it’s been fun helping a greater audience learn
new skills!

~~~
folkhack
I mean this in the kindest way possible, but do you think it's appropriate to
teach such new CSS selectors? I just bounced around the slider on your
featured video and I'm seeing stuff that only hits 85-90% on caniuse.com which
is unacceptable for the apps I typically do. I still have a lot of IE11 that's
used in large corps, etc. I'd LOVE to use things like grid-template but I can
only imagine the fallout - I've only just been able to start utilizing basic
flexbox.

It may just be different audiences/userbases, idk.

~~~
wilsmex
That’s a pretty good question actually, and difficult to address. I try and
push new concepts/tech as a way of education on what’s coming.

For edu channels it seems it’s a balance of teaching core concepts and also
teaching what’s “popular” to keep folks interested.

You have to make a cutoff at some point with caniuse, as I suppose to get 100%
coverage we’d still be doing table-based layouts or float hacks. The old adage
of “know your audience” will eventually dictate the tech.

~~~
folkhack
> That’s a pretty good question actually, and difficult to address. I try and
> push new concepts/tech as a way of education on what’s coming.

Thanks =) ... I'm always disparaged with HN when you say something that can be
viewed as not supportive. (even -1 votes feels like "oh come on guys!")

I think the thing that scared me the most out of that video was using things
that are approx. 90% globally supported for layout.

Totally agree with "know your audience". Specifically, I teach the habit of
look it up on MDN, then caniuse, then have VMs/devices ready-to-go and test it
even further.

Simple rendering/functionality issues have turned into legal action against my
past employers. Ex: if you cause even a 5-10% drop in ecommerce conversions
due to what shoulda been a simple CSS fix, and that goes unnoticed for a
month, that's a potential lawsuit/termination with _very_ "black and white
provable damages". Unfortunately, I've lived this =(

It's worth noting that I work on conversion-based web solutions that are "mom
and pops" small, all the way up to "if it's down for 1 minute we just lost
thousands of dollars"... but really I've learned to be incredibly careful with
both. Every solution I build online at some point means $ even if it's non-
direct conversions (ie: purely informational, no sales online sales funnel,
etc).

------
Dowwie
One project that anyone reading Hacker News ought to not be afraid of taking
on is that which involves under-sink plumbing. There are so many valuable
instructional videos on YouTube that will show you how to do the work
correctly. If you mess up, the materials are inexpensive and easily
replaceable. The risk of doing the work incorrectly is relatively low. The
greatest cost is of personal time. You'll end up making several trips to a
supply store if you aren't prepared.

It's a valuable skill to have that will save you thousands of dollars over a
lifetime. Give it a try next time you need work done.

~~~
sgt101
pro tip: clear out under the sink and TAKE A PHOTOGRAPH OF THE PIPE WORK
_before_ taking it apart.

It is a fun and interesting puzzle project putting it back together blind.
It's not impossible. But it is tedious.

------
jmkd
A superb reflection on the accelerated potential technology affords learning.

I would add an additional note that the choice of topics to dive into is now
both more vast and accessible than it has ever been.

Not only can you learn what you want to, but you can stumble across that which
you'd never thought of or scarcely knew existed and discover more about
yourself along the way.

When you search for things to learn you're merely bolstering your
predisposition, but when other things emerge before you and stick, something
altogether more interesting is taking place.

~~~
agumonkey
I so often discard internet real educational value [0] but it might start to
have an impact.

Even if I'd think fablab/shop per city or neighborhood might be more
efficient, it's still great.

[0] to me the only good thing there was khan academy which was basically video
tutorial you can rewind.

------
djokkataja
> And it feels like a category error to ask which accountant, or political
> pundit, is the Greatest of All Time, but the answers surely matter more for
> the human project than the ones for Scrabble or League of Legends—where data
> and answers are readily available.

It feels like a category error because it _is_ a category error. Competitive
games have a finite set of explicitly defined rules and win conditions; jobs
do not.

> Even small changes along these lines would be a big deal. Imagine if each of
> us got as good at our jobs as the average teenager is at Fortnite.

I think the average person is already probably better at their job than the
average teenager is at Fortnite; it's just that the "win conditions" for an
average person at a job are significantly more complex and can vary quite a
bit between different people and situations.

For example, besides whatever people themselves consider to be a "win" at
their jobs, there's also things like this:
[https://dilbert.com/strip/2012-05-29](https://dilbert.com/strip/2012-05-29)

------
chewz
Me and my friend are fixing, renovating old bikes as a hobby. A rule of thumb
is that each repair requires watching 2-3 youtube videos first.

We are joking that people no longer are flying to the Moon because NASA have
lost all of the videos of how to assemble a rocket. ;-)

------
benterris
What "absurdly demanding online game" is the author referring to in the first
paragraph ? He mentions Overwatch later in the article but in another context
so I'm not sure that's the one he meant.

~~~
Wordball
Probably Fortnite, though all the players surely haven't "internalized its
mechanical nuances to Ph.D. level"

Mexico Population: ~128 million

Fortnite Peak monthly players: 78.3 million

LoL peak montly players: 111 million

Fortnite total accounts: 250 million

you can say whatever you want if it's a blog article

~~~
jammygit
> you can say whatever you want if it's a blog article

I just want to de-normalize that a bit: blogs should strive for high
standards, even though some don’t. They are a major form of information these
days!

------
ezconnect
I love imagining what Johnny5 would be if it had youtube.

