Since this article is on the front page after I just achieved a major personal breakthrough concerning my father through writing I'll share it.
I've been in a protracted battle with my father my entire life and we reached a breaking point where I thought I wouldn't speak to him for a year or more. I sat down and started writing random thoughts down in an agitated state. Once I started calming down the picture started becoming clear: My father assumes I am like him. He thinks I should be like him and is confused when I am not. I always assumed that I am like him because he thinks that, but when I really think about it, he and are nothing alike. I mean, nothing alike. This conflict between what we think we should be like and what we are actually like is the root of the problem.
I'll keep writing as a thinking tool. I'll use an AI for the boilerplate stuff.
> This conflict between what we think we should be like and what we are actually like is the root of the problem.
I've seen this conflict a lot in my life and appreciate how you described it. I've found I've often been annoyed when I ask someone how they're doing and they say "fine" and I know they're not feeling fine. I realized maybe they're really saying "I want to feel fine." Something about splitting their desired state from their present state helped me.
It's interesting because I have had a similar breakthroughs by using Bing to help organize and simplify my thoughts.
I have Pure-O - a mental variant of obsessive compulsive disorder where I ruminate compulsively about things that concern me. But often I can't converge on a solution.
Writing has often helped in the past, but sometimes it can't help. In those times, I just write and write and write and never reach a solution - in the ruminant state I seem to struggle to extract larger insights from the ruminations.
That's where AI can help - not just in boilerplate production, but in editorial input, and in looking up and brainstorming potential solutions.
When I put my writings together with the help of AI, I can do a number of useful things:
1. Bing can extract and merge key ideas that come up frequently in my rumination
2. Bing can help me identify and describe the values my ideas represent
3. Bing can summarize and help me understand the nature of the conflict
4. Bing can help me brainstorm and organize resolutions
5. Bing can even look up methods for understanding and solving the problem
Once I have the simplified, abstracted, and actionized version of my ruminations, I notice two things:
1. The pressure to ruminate about the conflict evaporates
2. My thoughts on the issue become clear, calm, and reflective
3. The reflection moves to my values and options
4. There is no more hesitation and splitting of hairs
5. I can finally pick a resolution to the conflict
I encourage you to experiment with AI as more than a boilerplate generator.
I encourage you to see whether it can help you:
1. write out complex and painful thoughts
2. engage them in ways you're currently struggling to do
3. refine and simplify them into clear and powerful values and facts
4. brainstorm nuanced solutions to conflicting emotions
I consider this similar to writing with a skilled and caring helper or counselor. Moreover, there is evidence (both scientific and personal) that the AI guidance teaches and renews the skills I need to perform the writing process on my own.
I see it as a powerful extension of the writing technique, not a replacement.
Auto scrolling the page up to some full screen overlay requesting my email address is an automatic “hit the back button and leave” for me. Haven’t even had a chance to read one word, I’m not even going to waste time generating a throwaway forwarding address for your marketing.
Farnam Street blog is very high quality. All content is free and I ended up paying premium to support the project.
I'm saying this because I agree with you - IT IS A TRAVESTY - that seemingly Internet rot spares no corner. Ads, overlays, popups, cookie prompts, it's mind numbingly ridiculous. I wanted to see what you were talking about and yes on page load, the entire screen scrolls up to take over his own content with (his own) ad. WTF
I'm just sad about the Internet. And I'm naively hopeful that in its rot, we're gonna reach a "post SEO" world where the next thing will (have to) subvert this garbage. keyword: naively =(
P.S. I really liked this short article. High quality like I said!
Should I pay you for what you wrote? No. You wrote it to benefit me, and yet I should not pay you. Curious, right? How would you explain that? I would consider your message a gift, designed to help me correct what you see as a mistaken view.
Am I /truly/ not entitled to free gifts of information from sources that, like you yourself, want to benefit me at no cost to me?
When so much free information exists, why should I be deluged with marketing driven pieces - like this - that I would filter from my view, if I only could? I never want to read pieces that are compromised by marketing and paywalls. And I should not have to, because there are plenty of free things to read.
I could read a scientific article in that time, for instance - totally free, and 10-100x more valuable information. I could chat with a friend, or read an open source code project. Again, free information.
The true issue is not some angel-counting argument about whether this amoral leech of an author needs to deluge people with marketing to eat - that's entirely debatable, and we won't get to the bottom of that debate.
No. The real issue, in my humble if somewhat outraged opinion, is that these ux/seo patterns obscure the words of authors who desperately want to share knowledge for free. And I suspect that's a topic we can find common ground on.
These patterns exist because it's the only way to get rewarded for writing. This might not be important to a humble blogger, but it does to someone investing a lot of time into a corpus of useful information.
The alternative is to pay for what you read, but people won't do that. They won't even donate. Not even after they email you with extra questions, and you offer them personalised advice.
The way I see it, you get a free beer, but there's an ad on the glass and the coaster. If you don't like that deal, you can buy the beer your consume.
You can accept your free beer or you can leave. Just don't get your free beer then complain about the pour. You're not entitled to free beer.
3. bars the entry to vendors that serve beer I love
Then I think you'll find I can do much better than simply being silent about the apparent conflict:
1. I can protest your bar.
2. I can promote the belief that your bar is an intolerable eyesore.
3. I can campaign to have the bar removed from the town square.
In that way, I work to restore access to vendors I love.
That is why I believe it is necessary to picket and complain about this mechanism, reduce the reputation of any author who seeks to profit from it, and foreground the damage it causes: to highlight the fact that it makes it harder to find writings that are genuinely for the public good.
A writer can arrange for their public writings to be fully free. Many writers do that. It's not a privilege. It's a choice based on the writer's values. It is choice based on the value of not extracting profit from the Public Good.
There is simply no excuse for marketing and SEO spam in writing. Writers who choose that route have no more valid reason to expect an income than writers who eschew it. Indeed, writers who do it have reason to expect a loss of reputation.
Again, when writers choose that route, they make it harder for honest writers to have their writings seen. Therefore, writers who choose that route have reason abandon that route and seek a more honest monetization route. Finally, writers who refuse to do that have reason to expect my boycott.
If you loved authors who work towards the Public Good more than you loved authors who are complicit in predatory UX/SEO, then you would not blame me for this problem. Any writing or code I put out into the public is under a copyleft of creative commons license.
You would blame the authors who choose to profitize the Public Good, rather than arranging fair and equitable methods of earning a living. You might blame the systems that make it seem like there is other no choice. But you would acknowledge that there is a choice, and many authors choose it.
Can someone recommend a good adblocker for iOS/Safari? I have Firefox Focus, Hush and KaBlock installed but still get a lot of these popover style "ads".
Also a shout-out for Kiwi browser that allows you to install most Chrome plugins on Android. Most importantly uBlock, and while the UI is a bit clunky on mobile you can define your own blocking rules. I don't think any other mobile browser allows that.
Great writing requires you to position your idea in a way that will resonate with the reader. Average writers start with what they want to say without considering how it will land with the reader. Great writers understand the journey starts with what the reader desires. Think of the difference as starting at the beginning or the end of a maze. When you start at the beginning, you have to convince people the path is the right one. When you start at the end, they already know you’re taking them where they want to go.
Isn't this just being a hack or predictable? I think another part of writing is taking risks. It's hard to know what will work or not, and you just got to hope for the best. My rule of thumb is to assume most things will not work. Low expectations are easier to beat.
I don't know if starting with what the reader desires makes for great writing, though hackery definitely starts with what the writer expects or guesses the reader desires. Those are two different things.
It reminds me of David Chang starting Momofuku and putting dumplings on the menu because he thought people wanted them. It turns out he guessed wrong—they didn't—and neither did he, so the dumplings didn't make anyone happy. More here: https://archive.md/twtqo#selection-1433.165-1433.384
> My reader is me, as a reader, probably. I can be reading a book and thinking, “Oh, my god, will this guy just get on with it?” If you're reading a book and thinking, “You know what? This guy is not even living up to what he's writing and saying that he's doing. He's a total hypocrite.” – Whatever I'm thinking when I'm reading. So, my reader is just me the way I would read a book critically.
Average writers stop after typing what they want to say, and they don't consider what they, as a reader, would think (or even bother to read it themselves).
No, not at all. It's just good writing. As with literally any skill, good writing is writing that achieves its purpose, and a good writer foresees what would make their writing work and does it.
But how do you know what will resonate ahead of time? Isn't risk taking also a part of writing? Sometimes it's hard to know what the reader will like despite the best efforts by the writer. It's hard to foresee anything with a medium as unpredictable and imprecise writing. Predicting the success of writing is not at all like Marvel predicting how a blockbuster will do.
Measuring and understanding that risk is the craft. This is like asking how musicians know that their music will move someone when they write the notes down on paper.
Yes, in which no musician will say they know before hand that their music will move people. They are operating off the assumption that if the music moves them, it will move others
> When done poorly, compression removes insights. When done well, compression keeps the insights and removes the rest. Compression requires both thinking and understanding, which is one reason writing is so important.
Great writing requires you to position your idea in a way that will resonate with the reader.
This is the meat and potatoes of this post to me.
I’ve been praised a bit for the usefulness and clarity in my documentation over the last few years. When people ask for my advice on improving their writing I really only give three tips.
1. Use proper grammar - proofread your doc at least 2-3 times
2. Write as if you’re writing to someone that knows absolutely nothing about the subject matter
3. Go back and compress the crap out of your document. Simplify everything, remove all fluff and simplify complex sentences. People have short attention spans, documents need to be as easy to process as possible.
I really wish more blogs would follow your systems light/dark setting. Laying in bed, lights out, fiancé asleep next to me, read HN in dark mode... Tap this link and holy hell the flood light is on.
This post claims that the answer to "why white" is because of the beneficial effects it has on the disposition of the writer. But that's hardly a reason to write, that's just a helpful side effect. The reason to write is that you have something to say, and you want others to hear it.
The claim is that writing causes you not to be disposed more positively - it doesn't really do that now does it? Writing is miserable work. No. The claim is that writing causes you to think more clearly and powerfully than not writing.
The issue with this argument is that co-writing with an AI might have that same benefit. If writers have some sort of elitism going on about the process of bashing their own heads against a text editor until gold issues forth, that's fine.
But that may have more to do with masochism than with refining one's thoughts. One can think and write deeply with the help of AI - in many cases more deeply than one can do on their own. Furthermore, co-writing with an AI helps bad writers improve [1]. These emerging facts are surprising, valuable, and should not be dismissed.
I've been in a protracted battle with my father my entire life and we reached a breaking point where I thought I wouldn't speak to him for a year or more. I sat down and started writing random thoughts down in an agitated state. Once I started calming down the picture started becoming clear: My father assumes I am like him. He thinks I should be like him and is confused when I am not. I always assumed that I am like him because he thinks that, but when I really think about it, he and are nothing alike. I mean, nothing alike. This conflict between what we think we should be like and what we are actually like is the root of the problem.
I'll keep writing as a thinking tool. I'll use an AI for the boilerplate stuff.