Comment by jogjayr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jogjayr | Hacker News Reader

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> The moment you finally meet someone interested in discussing one of these things, its going to be immediately apparent the basis of your knowledge is a brief article/book or a weekend watching videos on youtube.

Depends on what you're hoping to get out of the the learning and the conversation. For most people, even being able to carry on a conversation at a dinner party with an expert in the field is sufficient reason to read one of these books.

"Oh your dissertation work is on Ancient Egypt?! That's so fascinating! I read about <pharoah-name> and he's buried at <pyramid-name>. Have you done any field work there?" And so on and so forth. If you can ask relevant questions (which an introductory book will create plenty of in your mind) you'll keep the expert engaged and they'll be gratified that you took a genuine interest in their work.

And if you're conversing with another layperson? "I read the most fascinating thing about mummies the other day! Mummies <say fascinating thing, see if other person is engaged, continue conversation>."

Realistically those are the only outcomes people can expect from reading introductory books. And I'd regard them as being very worthy outcomes.

Yeah I guess that's fair. I guess my point is that when you meet that expert, your contribution to the conversation is typically going to be blurting out <pharoah-name> and <pyramid-name> because thats all you remember from that one read, then more or less passive listening until you change the subject. But probably that's more or less enough depending on your goals. What happens when your expert responds, "No I didn't work on that, I did <x>"? Yeah you can try to engage them, but at that point you may have no more context than before you read the executive-summary.

I would argue that having a more bottom-up learning would help you get more from that next conversation by having a lot more context and opinion then the handful of key-phrases you've managed to recall months/years after. That way, the next time you have access to an expert, you can are building on that knowledge, rather than growing a list relevant of words. To be blunt, its the difference between being a student and a tourist.

The point is that there are not topics you intend to be an expert in, so you can cover more topics. you can take a rigorous study for topics that you are passionate about, but there can only be so many of those. Otherwise, the alternative is simply to not know anything, even a little bit, about said topic. Now, if you know that you only have interest in topics you are very passionate about obviously you don't see this as a problem.

> then more or less passive listening until you change the subject.

The goal of a conversation is not to get to a subject on which you can pontificate. Quite the opposite! And there are options other than passive listening and oration. What about that famous other kind of listening, active listening?

The vast majority of conversation has either pedestrian ends, or no productive end at all. Whether you have something novel to say on a subject is one of the least important variables of all in a dialogue. The ability to ask questions, to seek a novel angle, to subtly flatter, are all far more important.

For example, that's why Terry Gross is a genius. Not because she is deeply knowledge about physics, or oil painting, or acting. But because she knows how to talk to people about things she's less familiar with.

It's funny you bring up Terry Gross as an example. I've found, especially if you have trouble making small talk at parties, it helps to pretend to be an interviewer on a talk show. It puts you into a different mindset altogether. Obviously you shouldn't overdo it and spam the other person with questions; take care to chip in with a relevant personal detail about yourself.

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