Learning
30 notes, 7 favorites. Often alongside thinking, agency and career.
Start here · 10 min
- There’s no speed limit★(favorite)Derek Sivers · 3 min
How teacher Kimo Williams pushed a teenage Sivers through two years of music theory in a few lessons, showing you can learn far faster than the standard pace.
- Being Bad★(favorite)Michael Kaminsky · 3 min
How fear of looking stupid held Kaminsky back from new things, and how learning Spanish in Mexico taught him to be bad at something in public.
- Paying Attention★(favorite)Morgan Housel · 4 min
Housel argues that choosing what to ignore is the key attention skill: favor permanent knowledge over expiring news, remember stories, and listen to admired people who disagree.
All 30 notes
Coursey argues good writers use the same words far better than the rest of us, comparing Aaron Swartz's gripping first line about Carol Dweck with the dull school-style opening he'd have written.
Related
- You Are NOT Dumb, You Just Lack the PrerequisitesLelouch
- How I ReadRob Henderson
- mathAlisa Wuffles
- Paying AttentionMorgan Housel
Hall argues that fear of looking bad while learning keeps people from richer lives, and that the only way across is to accept the embarrassment and do it anyway, as she did playing poker on television.
Related
- There’s no speed limitDerek Sivers
- Being BadMichael Kaminsky
- Being Generally Capable
- the worst thing that can happen is that you’ll learnjanelle☆
Housel argues that the best way to learn how the world works is to see how connected every field is, since the big lessons from one domain often explain another.
Related
- Paying AttentionMorgan Housel
- The Dumber Side of Smart PeopleMorgan Housel
- Different Kinds of SmartMorgan Housel
- How to Read: Lots of Inputs and a Strong FilterMorgan Housel
Housel argues that choosing what to ignore is the key attention skill: favor permanent knowledge over expiring news, remember stories, and listen to admired people who disagree.
Related
- One Big Web: A Few Ways the World WorksMorgan Housel
- The Dumber Side of Smart PeopleMorgan Housel
- Different Kinds of SmartMorgan Housel
- How to Read: Lots of Inputs and a Strong FilterMorgan Housel
- NewRead Old BooksTed Lamade 10 min
Lamade argues old books reveal lessons that stay true because people don't change, using Silicon Valley Bank's collapse and quotes from 1980s investors like Peter Lynch to show how the same mistakes repeat.
Related
- Paying AttentionMorgan Housel
- Reality has a surprising amount of detailJohn Salvatier
- One Big Web: A Few Ways the World WorksMorgan Housel
- The Dumber Side of Smart PeopleMorgan Housel
Housel argues that high intelligence can backfire, since smart people build elaborate stories to explain randomness, dismiss less-credentialed voices, and cling to outdated ideas to protect their reputations.
Related
- Paying AttentionMorgan Housel
- One Big Web: A Few Ways the World WorksMorgan Housel
- Different Kinds of SmartMorgan Housel
- How to Read: Lots of Inputs and a Strong FilterMorgan Housel
Using the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management, Housel argues academic intelligence is only one kind of smart, and that reading across fields, paranoia about survival, storytelling, and humility matter as much.
Related
- Paying AttentionMorgan Housel
- One Big Web: A Few Ways the World WorksMorgan Housel
- The Dumber Side of Smart PeopleMorgan Housel
- How to Read: Lots of Inputs and a Strong FilterMorgan Housel
Housel draws five broad lessons from history, including that hardship makes unthinkable views popular, unsustainable things last longer than expected, and progress moves too slowly to notice while setbacks hit fast.
Related
- Paying AttentionMorgan Housel
- The Seduction of PessimismMorgan Housel
- One Big Web: A Few Ways the World WorksMorgan Housel
- The Dumber Side of Smart PeopleMorgan Housel
Taking a cue from Munger, Housel argues you should start any book that interests you but quit ruthlessly once it stops working, since most books aren't worth finishing and a few can change your life.
Related
- Paying AttentionMorgan Housel
- One Big Web: A Few Ways the World WorksMorgan Housel
- The Dumber Side of Smart PeopleMorgan Housel
- Different Kinds of SmartMorgan Housel
How to give feedback people want and feedback they don't: move from a concrete example of their work to how you'd do it, why it matters, and a reusable framework.
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- Braindump on what made Stripe greatSlava Akhmechet
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- How To Send Progress UpdatesSlava Akhmechet
Housel's handful of ideas that shaped his thinking, including how tribes bend beliefs, why history repeats in behavior, why room for error is aggressive, and how personal experience skews your view.
Related
- Paying AttentionMorgan Housel
- A Message From the Past (Thoughts on Nostalgia)Morgan Housel
- One Big Web: A Few Ways the World WorksMorgan Housel
- The Dumber Side of Smart PeopleMorgan Housel
Smart ideas get copied fast, so lasting advantage comes from doing what others won't, starting with the ability to learn faster than the competition.
Related
- Paying AttentionMorgan Housel
- One Big Web: A Few Ways the World WorksMorgan Housel
- The Dumber Side of Smart PeopleMorgan Housel
- Different Kinds of SmartMorgan Housel
Paul Graham argues nerds are unpopular in school because they care more about being smart than popular, and because schools are artificial places with no real work to do.
Related
- Sometimes the reason you can’t find people you resonate with is because you misread the ones you meetHenrik Karlsson
- Letter to JackChris Oakman
- How to Do What You LovePaul Graham
- Life is ShortPaul Graham
Sivers's talk to incoming Berklee students: six lessons on focus, ignoring distraction, and treating school as an intense training period.
Related
- There’s no speed limitDerek Sivers
- Andrej's advice for successAndrej Karpathy
- Being BadMichael Kaminsky
- Being Generally Capable
Yudkowsky argues school trains students to recite answers like "light is waves" that earn gold stars but predict nothing, and that real understanding means a belief that controls what you expect to see.
Related
- Paying AttentionMorgan Housel
- Reality has a surprising amount of detailJohn Salvatier
- Fake ExplanationsEliezer Yudkowsky
- Think Like RealityEliezer Yudkowsky
Henderson argues there's no secret to reading a lot: read slowly with notes, cycle through several books, fill spare minutes with a Kindle instead of scrolling, and treat a daily reading habit as non-negotiable.
Related
- You Are NOT Dumb, You Just Lack the PrerequisitesLelouch
- mathAlisa Wuffles
- Paying AttentionMorgan Housel
- Reality has a surprising amount of detailJohn Salvatier
Bensusan argues writers' ideas mostly flow from their personalities, as he learns every time he meets an author, so knowing the person, through podcasts or biography, changes how much authority their arguments deserve.
Related
- Paying AttentionMorgan Housel
- Reality has a surprising amount of detailJohn Salvatier
- One Big Web: A Few Ways the World WorksMorgan Housel
- Read Old BooksTed Lamade
Sivers spent years learning to sing, produce, and program himself when shortcuts existed, because the point was to become those things, not just to have the results.
Related
- There’s no speed limitDerek Sivers
- Create.Derek Sivers
- If you’re not feeling “hell yeah!” then say noDerek Sivers
- Ideas That Changed My LifeMorgan Housel
Greenfeld argues junk content compounds like junk food, pointing to Alex Hormozi's finding that viewers of short entertaining videos almost never move on to his deeper long-form content.
Related
- Paying AttentionMorgan Housel
- Reality has a surprising amount of detailJohn Salvatier
- One Big Web: A Few Ways the World WorksMorgan Housel
- Read Old BooksTed Lamade
Building stairs and fences taught Salvatier that every real task hides countless details, which is why experts miss what they don't know to look for and get stuck.
Related
- Paying AttentionMorgan Housel
- One Big Web: A Few Ways the World WorksMorgan Housel
- Read Old BooksTed Lamade
- The Dumber Side of Smart PeopleMorgan Housel
- NewQuestionsPatrick Collison 15 min
Patrick Collison's running list of big open questions he finds interesting, such as why some things like healthcare and education keep getting more expensive.
Related
- Paying AttentionMorgan Housel
- Reality has a surprising amount of detailJohn Salvatier
- One Big Web: A Few Ways the World WorksMorgan Housel
- Read Old BooksTed Lamade
A compilation of 194 eponymous laws, pithy rules of thumb like Murphy's Law that capture truths about human behavior, work, and systems.
Related
- Paying AttentionMorgan Housel
- Reality has a surprising amount of detailJohn Salvatier
- One Big Web: A Few Ways the World WorksMorgan Housel
- Read Old BooksTed Lamade
How teacher Kimo Williams pushed a teenage Sivers through two years of music theory in a few lessons, showing you can learn far faster than the standard pace.
Related
- 6 things I wish I knew the day I started BerkleeDerek Sivers
- Being BadMichael Kaminsky
- Being Generally Capable
- Learn to love the Moat of Low StatusCate Hall
- NewmathAlisa Wuffles 17 min
Alisa Wuffles's probability study notes: a map from problem types to the right concept, plus common distributions, expectations, and Bayes rule with proofs.
Related
- You Are NOT Dumb, You Just Lack the PrerequisitesLelouch
- How I ReadRob Henderson
- Paying AttentionMorgan Housel
- Reality has a surprising amount of detailJohn Salvatier
After spending her first 25 years avoiding failure by not trying anything, janelle argues that the worst outcome of trying is learning, and starts experimenting with floristry, writing, and photography anyway.
Related
- There’s no speed limitDerek Sivers
- Being BadMichael Kaminsky
- Being Generally Capable
- Learn to love the Moat of Low StatusCate Hall
Andrej Karpathy's rules of thumb for doing well in undergrad courses, from skipping all-nighters and starting early to studying actively before exams.
Related
- 6 things I wish I knew the day I started BerkleeDerek Sivers
- There’s no speed limitDerek Sivers
- Being BadMichael Kaminsky
- Being Generally Capable
How fear of looking stupid held Kaminsky back from new things, and how learning Spanish in Mexico taught him to be bad at something in public.
Related
- There’s no speed limitDerek Sivers
- Being Generally Capable
- Learn to love the Moat of Low StatusCate Hall
- the worst thing that can happen is that you’ll learnjanelle☆
H.T. Kung's 1987 talk to new Carnegie Mellon Ph.D. students on what research is, what a thesis should accomplish, and how to pick and attack problems.
Related
- 6 things I wish I knew the day I started BerkleeDerek Sivers
- Andrej's advice for successAndrej Karpathy
- You Are NOT Dumb, You Just Lack the PrerequisitesLelouch
- How I ReadRob Henderson
Lelouch argues that struggling with hard subjects like math usually means missing prerequisites rather than ability, which he found after 150 days of rebuilding from the basics.
Related
- How I ReadRob Henderson
- mathAlisa Wuffles
- Paying AttentionMorgan Housel
- Reality has a surprising amount of detailJohn Salvatier
Slide-style notes making the case for becoming generally capable and comfortable with failure, before a stalled life forces you to rethink your model of the world.
Related
- There’s no speed limitDerek Sivers
- Being BadMichael Kaminsky
- Learn to love the Moat of Low StatusCate Hall
- the worst thing that can happen is that you’ll learnjanelle☆