Comment by TheDong | Hacker News Reader

Comment by TheDong | Hacker News Reader

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> if you really think SR is the best thing ever, don't argue with people - prove us wrong.

Prove you wrong how? By learning things with it? Plenty of people already have used SR to pass tests, aid in learning a language, etc. There are scientific papers that show SR to be an effective learning tool.

I really don't get what you're asking for. It's not like SR learning is going to let you "unleash your strength on the quivering masses".

You also have to propose an alternative to it. In your comment, you seem to have critiqued it with "if you want to be an encyclopedia, maybe SR is a good approach. But if you want to understand the world .... SR can't help you".

The fact that you say "If you want to be an encyclopedia, maybe SR is a good approach" indicates to me that you think SR does actually work, and so there's nothing to prove here.

Yes, obviously if your strawman is "SR compared to moving to the culture to learn a language", then SR will fall short. But no one is saying that, everyone's saying "Instead of looking up a word in a dictionary each time you forget it, use SR, and instead of just doing immersion, do immersion + SR"

> Prove you wrong how? By learning things with it?

The author of the article is specifically struggling with his evangelism. He says he thinks the world would be a better place if everyone used spaced repetition. I don't know (can't imagine honestly) what sort of utopia he envisions, but he needs to show instead of tell. Just like I need to.

It's so insanely hard to lead people. I think the only thing that works is to lead by example. Any sort of talking is just fluff. You have to show people how to accomplish or attain something they care about.

As for SR itself... for decades we've had some of the smartest people (and perhaps even some of the best educators) like Richard Feynman decry rote memorization in the classroom. SR takes the worst 8th grade history class you ever had and doubles down on it. You can choose what to memorize, but it's still just memorization. Why not use a personal knowledge base (== your Anki deck) that you can refer to, and let your memory naturally cache the things you commonly use?

If you have a problem and you're considering SR as a way to solve it, my advice is to really drill down into what the problem is. Why do you think you need to fill your brain with snippets of data? (If you're just trying to pass a test, then sure, use Anki.)

Spaced repetition is the way your brain stores everything, even abstract ideas, mathematics,etc. You can only remember anything either by having repeated exposure to it, or having it really connected to some other memory of yours.

Also, you seem to underestimate the importance of having encyclopedic knowledge. I agree that it is not useful to have random facts in your mind, but passive knowledge is extremely important - like even on topics you are not well-informed about, having learnt something about it in the past will put you in a much more open-minded position on it. If people were to remember some really basic biology from high school, they would be much less open to bullshit like “alternative medicine”,anti-vaccines, etc.

> As for SR itself... for decades we've had some of the smartest people (and perhaps even some of the best educators) like Richard Feynman decry rote memorization in the classroom

At the same time, learning in most areas requires some memorization. Even if, in terms of knowledge skills, SR only helps directly with the memorization component, there's considerable empirical evidence that it does make that more time efficient. Using it to structure that part of learning allows you, all other things being equal, to reduce the proportion of learning time devoted to memorization.

> SR takes the worst 8th grade history class you ever had and doubles down on it.

Well, SRS maybe. Having first learned about SR in ballroom dance teacher training as a tool for structuring both curriculum for in-person instruction and personal practice, I disagree.

The common usage pattern for spaced repetition software may do that, but spaced repetition is more than just that.

Right. If you're gonna "lead" by talking, the disconnect is only going to widen. A leader doesn't need to know the details, but need to know enough to be relevant.

> Why do you think you need to fill your brain with snippets of data?

Because you can combine instantly different pieces of your knowledge to attain new insights.

If it's not in your brain you might not even think of Googling it.

The “Feynman technique” is all about writing your own notes, reviewing them to identify gaps in your knowledge, and organising them. That is basically how you are supposed to use spaced repetition software. In this context, Feynman’s criticism of rote memorisation just means “avoid downloading premade decks.”

Sadly Feynman technique presupposes you're taking good notes.

It is also extremely labour intensive compared to spaced repetition without noting - using direct material of similar or higher level, preferably different modality - passive, creative, vision, sound, kinesthetic.

How do you note a movement? Or sound?

You'll waste some time reading material you already know, but that is the essence of spaced repetition; the use of different modality makes it much more potent.

This is what the SR tools don't get, or where you need to put in huge amounts of time building decks. Most of them pose passive problems. Even the simplest learning books have exercises which are supposed to engage active modality, on top of testing.

> The author of the article is specifically struggling with his evangelism. He says he thinks the world would be a better place if everyone used spaced repetition. I don't know (can't imagine honestly) what sort of utopia he envisions, but he needs to show instead of tell. Just like I need to.

This standard isn't tenable for some things.

For example, I think the world would be a better place if we gave everyone free healthcare. What's that, the standard for this has to be me literally doing the thing I'm advocating for?

In a similar vein, all the author's really saying is "if people cared about learning, and implemented strategies to learn, we'd live in a better world" (a more informed, thoughtful society perhaps). Whether SR actually accomplishes any of that is questionable, but the idea that people continuing to practice to learn will improve the world does not seem like it merits a "show me and I'll believe you" answer.

Just like it's unreasonable to say "well, implement free healthcare, until then I won't believe that it's worth doing", it's unreasonable to say "convince everyone to use SR, until then I won't use it or be convinced". It's an impossible bar.

It's also impossible to lead by example for aggregate behaviors. If you think that a park would be better if everyone picked up dog poop, and you lead by example by picking up all your dog's poop, that doesn't mean you're wrong if other people still don't pick up their own dog's poop.

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