“People don’t have perfect insight into how their minds work unless I want to criticize education policy” - yudkowsky, I guess
(https://i.redd.it/ywrt5zhtbz7a1.jpg)
posted on December 25, 2022 12:23 AM by
u/textlossarcade
106
u/Rochereau-dEnfer111 pointsat 1671929080.000000
You left out Aella’s replies about how she was an incredible writer
of a million words as a homeschooler, and then when an evil, real
teacher actually graded her writing, she got a D.
My high school English teacher was formative in being able to
organize my thoughts in writing. But I’m a better-than-decent essayist.
And they both write like people who think they’re too smart for
editors.
> You left out Aella's replies about how she was an incredible writer of a million words as a homeschooler, and then when an evil, real teacher actually graded her writing, she got a D.
lol the fuck
there's also her content, which well
She strikes me as one of those people who thinks that more and fancier words is automatically better writing. Which certainly explains why a real teacher would give her a D.
“You technically accomplished the task, so I can’t fail you, but this is really bad”.
I typically only skim this sub when reddit suggests it to me, but the content about Aella is always really funny (in a disappointing way) so I had to check.
> “i wove words beautifully.
but alas, i did not follow the required essay structure (opening, etc.) i didnt know existed, and I got a D”
Am I wrong for just assuming this essay was an aimless, purple screed? I already consider Aella a pretty bad writer, but that’s usually overshadowed by the baffling shit she has to say.
Yeah, was thinking of posting this.
"I was the *best* writer, but got bad grades because I could not add basic structure to my writing." - "Not really the best writer, then, no?"
The fact that she didn't capitalize any of her many uses of 'I' in that post made it a lot funnier. Somebody should trick her into reposting this essay online.
I don’t have any particular reason to think assigning essays is
great, or that they need to be due Monday, but there is no way he thinks
“accept people’s own professed explanations of what worked at face
value” is a good approach other than when it aligns with his
confirmation bias
No defense of Monday deadlines here, but I think it's great to teach everyone to master a few basic forms of writing! The most valuable parts for me were learning how to critically assess my own writing for clear and well-supported arguments. I can see why he'd balk at that. Anyway, I was a writing tutor in college (hired by the university, not my own ego), and I was shocked by peers in the sciences who were smart and good students but were totally overwhelmed by writing a paper about that science. Developing that skill isn't being forced into a mold!
Science and engineering students are well served indeed by being taught to write clearly and expressing ideas persuasively. Often, they have to be dragged feet first into it so the Monday deadlines can be of use.
My ability to write has been my career superpower. Not everyone reads enough to just “pick up” good writing ability.
Honestly, I suspect most of what I got out of high school was valuable stuff I've internalized so deeply I can't think of it, but the bit I *know* helped me was AP history, because you had to write, IIRC, three essays in two hours, and being able to gulp down some raw information and write it out neatly and readibly has helped me so much in my career in computers. ("You wrote two pages of documentation in a morning?" "Yeah? It's... two pages?")
Technical writing classes (I.e., writing for comp sci majors) in college are an absolute joke because so many of the students can barely write. Even stuff that should be up their alley -- "write a recipe" -- is....bad. One time, I had the prof ask me if I thought one was plagiarized because it was too good.
In my high school's AP US History class, we had evening sessions where we drilled essay writing. The pressure from teachers to rack up the numbers on national exams so they and our school looked good... well, it was what it was. But the essay writing itself was, in the moment, rather satisfying — a chance to think about history, which I liked, and the... [*logistical thrill* of a 5-paragraph glitchless speedrun](https://youtu.be/I5auJOBC828?t=573).
I’ve had some great essay-assignment classes that gave young me vital
insights into literature and composition. Stuff like absorbing articles,
developing organized statements, evaluating sources, etc. It’s possible
to do a poor job of instruction in that area, but competent instruction
is very useful. Yud comes off here like one of those naturally
intelligent kids who can’t fathom why anyone else would need assistance
to develop something automatic to them.
I mean also, honestly, yeah? I’m pretty good at essays, not
incredible but definitely decent, and I credit that entirely to having
to turn in two 2000 word essays every week of term at university. Good
opportunity to practice.
my own writing was stupendously sharpened by writing to deadline for an editor I *knew* would fuck up anything I put in that was not dumbass-stupid
also a lot of it was written drunk at 2am so i could drop it in by 8am deadline
it's a useful skill
it pains me to realise even now how much my writing benefits from having an editor
One of the biggest things I learned w/having an editor is that if they don't get something, the general readership will not either. When I think "you idiot, I explained that!" it doesn't mean my editor sucks, it means my writing didn't explain it effectively. I learned to write a response, compare it to what I previously wrote, and usually see the issue. I don't conclude that my editor is worthless and my experience ducking around on the internet is better. (Well, I did, but then I turned 23.)
ETA: the other thing it helps with is simplifying sentences and eliminating extra words. I think some folks might benefit from that lesson...
I found getting a good editor to be a confidence-building experience. Among other useful things, they articulated what I couldn't about ways in which I found my own writing unsatisfying, and so I was able to improve upon what I had done before.
So much of his posturing seems to come from the fact that he doesn’t
want to recognize how many children of average intelligence attending
public school simply need to learn how to write English properly. I’m
out here reminding them to put periods at the ends of sentences and
trying to explain why we capitalize Is in 7th grade. Public school is
not meant to craft great essayists, but great essayists probably come
through and take a few pointers anyway.
Eliezer Yudkowsky had no formal education past the 8th grade. To me he comes off as having a chip on his shoulder about it, and his opposition to "credentialism" has become a big part of the culture of lesswrong.
he was homeschooled after that and did well on the SAT
like, someone who can't fucking stand the school system has all my sympathy
but i'm not sure if they then start pontificating on how it should work
I don’t know any physicist who attributes their passion for the
subject to weekly exercises on pulleys and inclined planes, nor do I
know any musician who took up the vocation in order to practice chords.
Rather, these are drills one does so that one’s fingers know what to do
in the middle of more complicated and more captivating challenges.
This kind of stuff always drives me nuts. It’s making completely
incorrect assumptions about what primary education is supposed to do,
then declaring it a failure based on erroneous beliefs about what it
should be accomplishing.
The point of high school and essays is neither to turn you into a
brilliant essayist, nor to make you an expert in the subject you’re
writing about, which it obviously doesn’t do. The entire point is to
teach you how to study and manage your time. That’s precisely why it’s
due next Monday with a set page limit: to force you to begin working on
it before Sunday. The time range and work load are slowly increased
throughout the schooling process specifically so you’ll experience some
failure if you don’t begin working ahead, to teach you how to do that
and manage your time. These are skills that are critical for when you
enter a phase of your education when you really do learn skills critical
to your career, or push the bounds of human knowledge forward.
This is glaringly obvious if you’ve ever seen a “gifted” kid flame
out in high school. Often these kids skip the process of learning how to
learn, instead counting on being “gifted” to muscle through assignments
and quizzes without any preparation, a strategy that stops working
sometime in high school for most of them.
Of course, we absolutely can have a spirited discussion about how
well or poorly our education system even accomplishes the goals I listed
out above. But at least start with the actual goals of the system first,
otherwise the discussion gets extremely silly.
>That’s precisely why it’s due next Monday with a set page limit: to force you to begin working on it before Sunday.
If that's the goal I would hazard a guess that the activity fails to fulfill intended requirements in a fairly large slice of students who will write the essay on Sunday or, worse, on Monday.
To me the time management goal is more to get them used to working towards a deadline in whatever way works for them than prescribing a specific correct way to manage time, and this goal is secondary to the goal of teaching essay writing and broader written communication skills.
Time management is an important skill for sure, but it cannot be a standalone justification for assignments. You may as well learn time management while also learning other useful skills. Writing essays seems like a useful skill to me, though. My writing ability probably improved when doing homework essays.
I feel pissed when people talk as if gifted kids failure to learn effective studying skills is their fault due to their laziness or something. When I was a smart kid, I constantly begged teachers to give me harder problems and teach me something I don't already know. I also did lots of extracurriculars and stayed busy. Still I sometimes fail to e.g. ask for help when I need it or communicate that a deadline is unrealistic, because I feel like I'm supposed to figure everything out on my own and meet any expectations whatsoever. If a kid never a encounters a difficult challenge in life and doesn't learn how to handle them and study at the limit of his abilities, it's not his fault. It's schools' failure to provide children with assignments of sufficient difficulty. We gotta stop this discourse about lazy "gifted" children and talk about how schools fail some children, mess them up psychologically, bore them out of their minds and waste their time by teaching material that is too easy.
Man who thinks Fate/Stay Night is superior to Shakespeare thinks he
can offer an opinion on writing. That should really be the end of him
offering his opinion on… things. It unfortunately isn’t.
He arrived at that opinion from reading mirror moon's translation, and someone who prefers a bad translation that utterly mangled the source material and is full of very clunky English over Shakespeare is someone who's taste you can disregard.
I’m not an essayist but I have very good writing and reading
comprehension skills. Much of which I learned in school from average
teachers. Because they are very simple and only require some practice
after they are stated to you.
Eh I dunno this tweet’s not terrible. I mean I know the Yud is the
one saying it so he’s coming from a place of being the Yud but like.
lol. I could tweet this tweet just without the word “average” in it.
You left out Aella’s replies about how she was an incredible writer of a million words as a homeschooler, and then when an evil, real teacher actually graded her writing, she got a D.
My high school English teacher was formative in being able to organize my thoughts in writing. But I’m a better-than-decent essayist. And they both write like people who think they’re too smart for editors.
I don’t have any particular reason to think assigning essays is great, or that they need to be due Monday, but there is no way he thinks “accept people’s own professed explanations of what worked at face value” is a good approach other than when it aligns with his confirmation bias
Yud knows a decent essayist?
Has anyone actually ever gained a great insight from reading Go Dog Go at the age of four? No? They just learned to read?
Lol, that’s what I thought morons.
I’ve had some great essay-assignment classes that gave young me vital insights into literature and composition. Stuff like absorbing articles, developing organized statements, evaluating sources, etc. It’s possible to do a poor job of instruction in that area, but competent instruction is very useful. Yud comes off here like one of those naturally intelligent kids who can’t fathom why anyone else would need assistance to develop something automatic to them.
I mean also, honestly, yeah? I’m pretty good at essays, not incredible but definitely decent, and I credit that entirely to having to turn in two 2000 word essays every week of term at university. Good opportunity to practice.
So much of his posturing seems to come from the fact that he doesn’t want to recognize how many children of average intelligence attending public school simply need to learn how to write English properly. I’m out here reminding them to put periods at the ends of sentences and trying to explain why we capitalize Is in 7th grade. Public school is not meant to craft great essayists, but great essayists probably come through and take a few pointers anyway.
Every single LWer I ever met has given off a “too cool for school” vibe. This strengthens this vibe.
the tweet
I don’t know any physicist who attributes their passion for the subject to weekly exercises on pulleys and inclined planes, nor do I know any musician who took up the vocation in order to practice chords. Rather, these are drills one does so that one’s fingers know what to do in the middle of more complicated and more captivating challenges.
This kind of stuff always drives me nuts. It’s making completely incorrect assumptions about what primary education is supposed to do, then declaring it a failure based on erroneous beliefs about what it should be accomplishing.
The point of high school and essays is neither to turn you into a brilliant essayist, nor to make you an expert in the subject you’re writing about, which it obviously doesn’t do. The entire point is to teach you how to study and manage your time. That’s precisely why it’s due next Monday with a set page limit: to force you to begin working on it before Sunday. The time range and work load are slowly increased throughout the schooling process specifically so you’ll experience some failure if you don’t begin working ahead, to teach you how to do that and manage your time. These are skills that are critical for when you enter a phase of your education when you really do learn skills critical to your career, or push the bounds of human knowledge forward.
This is glaringly obvious if you’ve ever seen a “gifted” kid flame out in high school. Often these kids skip the process of learning how to learn, instead counting on being “gifted” to muscle through assignments and quizzes without any preparation, a strategy that stops working sometime in high school for most of them.
Of course, we absolutely can have a spirited discussion about how well or poorly our education system even accomplishes the goals I listed out above. But at least start with the actual goals of the system first, otherwise the discussion gets extremely silly.
homework sucks!
Man who thinks Fate/Stay Night is superior to Shakespeare thinks he can offer an opinion on writing. That should really be the end of him offering his opinion on… things. It unfortunately isn’t.
Unrelated, but I am also repelled by his beard.
I’m not an essayist but I have very good writing and reading comprehension skills. Much of which I learned in school from average teachers. Because they are very simple and only require some practice after they are stated to you.
Yes. Ricky Gervais: https://youtu.be/zTJyDe7a2bo
Eh I dunno this tweet’s not terrible. I mean I know the Yud is the one saying it so he’s coming from a place of being the Yud but like. lol. I could tweet this tweet just without the word “average” in it.
Notice how in order to to answer “yes” to this question, any essayist would have to:
What a way to confirmation bias yourself by discouraging people from giving you information that contradicts your beliefs. Much wow, very rational.