Review of Quirky

I

I grabbed Melissa A. Schilling's book Quirky from the a display shelf at the library.  The through-line of the year appears to be a study of weirdos and eccentrics, going back to the Beats, the Surrealists, and various internet searches.  (I had not planned on formalizing this as a research topic for the year -- 2020: the year of eccentricity -- but it looks like that is what it has been so far).

First, a review of the book.

Quirky pulls together a close study of the following "breakthrough" serial innovators:

Albert Einstein, Elon Musk, Nikola Telsa, Thomas Edison, Marie Currie, Steve Jobs, Dean Kamen, and Benjamin Franklin

I leave it to someone interested enough in the topic to read the book to find the author's discussion of why these individuals were selected [1].  Each chapter is organized by a trait most of innovators share, and the biography of one individual from the list is used to anchor the discussion.

I think Quirky does an excellent job of showing where there are similarities and differences. For example, all the serial innovators in the sample were workaholics.  Also, all of them worked toward idealistic goals, except for Thomas Edison, and because he is the notable exception, extra attention is given to his motivations throughout his career [2].  The majority of the group showed heavily shortened sleep schedules, with Einstein's sleep patterns being the biggest outlier, sleeping 10 hours a night.  Franklin slept seven, and apparently Elon Musk's sleep is an ongoing discussion online because we live in a very loud time (search it out for yourself).

After reading a few pages, I grew afraid that this book would become a business book, stopping near constantly to hype its own vision, and giving tips how we can all be serial innovators. I jumped to reading the back flap, and grew yet more concerned when I saw Schilling was "a published expert in the field of innovation", and associated with a string of business schools.  I am happy to say that my fears did not come to pass.  The traits and biographies are well-researched and discussed with rigor, and the discussions of implications are sparse and even-handed, leaving a lot for the readers to think about and draw their own conclusions upon. The book is honest: you might not be able to become a serial innovator of this level.

II

Here's one of the most interesting passages from the book:

In my [Schiller's] work modeling cognitive insight as a network process, I showed that individuals who are more likely or more able to search longer paths through the network of associations in their mind can arrive at a connection between two ideas or facts that seems unexpected or strange to others.  What appears to be random may not be random at all -- it is just difficult for other people to see the association because they are not following as long a chain of associations (109-110). 

Many things spin off from this concept.  For one, it really hard to follow the thoughts of the truly creative.  They are usually seeing wider than other people to come up with their ideas. For this reason, Schiller recommends not pre-censoring the ideas of entrepreneurs and researchers.

Also, I think this means creative people are prone to find shorter, easier connections to be boring.  To them, the repeated cliché can easily grow tedious.   This brings up a possible reversal of causation -- perhaps boredom with easy connections is what drives these people to seek out longer chains.  How much this chain seeking overlaps with or is subsumed by the Big Five Trait of Openess to Experience I leave as an open question (pun accepted).

My intuition was that seeking longer associative chains was separate from IQ, but something that could stack well upon it -- probably safer to say I thought they were mildly correlated, at best.  Some research, visible at [3] indicates that might be the case.  My intuition was based on interactions with people who at least self-identify as being high IQ.  They often misunderstand what others say, and try to twist difficult questions into trivially stupid ones and then give a trivially stupid, uncreative answers [4], often expecting to be praised for their quickness.  This could be a simple case of my maxim "contempt brain is stupid brain," but Paul Graham shows there are people who maintain this intellectual peevishness even towards people who are trying to help them get rich.  Graham:

. . .  I noticed a pattern in the least successful startups we'd funded: they all seemed hard to talk to. It felt as if there was some kind of wall between us. I could never quite tell if they understood what I was saying.

[. . .]

Like real world resourcefulness, conversational resourcefulness often means doing things you don't want to. Chasing down all the implications of what's said to you can sometimes lead to uncomfortable conclusions. The best word to describe the failure to do so is probably "denial," though that seems a bit too narrow. A better way to describe the situation would be to say that the unsuccessful founders had the sort of conservatism that comes from weakness. They traversed idea space as gingerly as a very old person traverses the physical world

I see it working this way:

1) There are high IQ people.
2) There are people with high desire for long network paths who seek more knowledge (the IQ cheerleaders will point out that this requires an IQ threshold. Neat.  Look at footnote [3] again).
3) Only when you have both do you load into you mind as much as you can, forging connections, seeing more, and being able to make mental manipulations in the larger space.

This is what it takes to be the best of the best in innovation.

As an aside, though some research indicates a mild correlation between IQ and Openess, I am highly interested in high IQ and Closed to New Experience because I want to understand internet assholes better.  I may report on that some other time.

<end of my musings on the quote>

After the quote above, Schiller goes on to talk about Musk and Nikola Telsa's ability to do lightening calculations, store them in their head and keep flying, but I think that is too narrow of an instance of the point being made.

After all,  Ian Stewart in the book Significant Figures states

Most lighting calculators are hopeless at anything more advanced than arithmetic; Gauss, as ever, was an exception (279).

Multiple talents can overlap on top of one another.  When they do in exceptional ways, you can get some exceptional innovators.


==

[1] Two individuals I think could be easily added to the list are Buckminster Fuller and Thomas Jefferson.  Doing so, however, wouldn't add much to the content of the book.  Instead, think of them as independent tests to assess Schilling's conclusions.  Interestingly, both are noted for odd sleep schedules, something else that seems common enough among serial innovators.  Jefferson often stayed up several days in a row and then crashing up to 24 hours straight.  And Fuller promoted his dymaxion sleep as just another item in his suite of weirdo ideas.

[2] Though Edison came out and told people he wasn't idealistic and just invented for money, his biographical sketch showed how curious he was and how willing to throw money at ventures based on how interesting they were for him to explore, rather than working as a profit center.  He was actually a pretty bad businessman.

[3] From the abstract of this paper 

When investigating a liberal criterion of ideational originality (i.e., two original ideas), a threshold was detected at around 100 IQ points. In contrast, a threshold of 120 IQ points emerged when the criterion was more demanding (i.e., many original ideas). . . In addition, we obtained evidence that once the intelligence threshold is met, personality factors become more predictive for creativity.

[4] Only my first year of teaching did I find this evasiveness amusing. (Not to say everyone who does it is high IQ -- which should tell you something about how much intelligence is really being used when someone does this). I thought the students doing this were being "sharp but not bright."  (No, not something I ever said aloud).  However, it also wears pretty thin pretty fast.

Ultimate Money Quote about Being Around Liberals

From the piece Grass Roots:

She needed solutions. She needed to be part of a Better World. She asked me why I was even at this event if I didn’t think we were going to change anything. I said I enjoy being around all the smart, kind, thoughtful, and competent people. I like showing up with a bottle of wine and a tray of food and spending time in a beautiful space. And the subject matter is genuinely interesting. I need to know how things really work so I can step out of the way when shit goes south. We’re due for a market crash. We’re due for an earthquake. The nature of the conversation will change completely on the other side of these events and I want to be ahead of the curve. She politely stepped away from my negative energy.

It is always good to have a kindred spirit out there, and Johnny S brings up something I've been wanting to get off my chest.

I don't hang around liberals because I think my actions will lead to change for the better.  I hang out with them because they are usually more enjoyable than my alternatives. With the conservatives I know the conversation follows the structure of one of two sandwiches:

Sandwich 1 -- the more common one.

I'm great.  Hierarchy is great.  I'm great.  

Sandwich 2

Hierarchy is great.  I'm great.  Hierarchy is great.  

Conservatism isn't a philosophy.  It's a mindset.  I once saw a Ran Prieur quote that applies:

 in practice, conservatism is an emotional state, and people in that state don't care what's traditional or radical for humans in general -- they only care what's traditional or radical for them personally. So you can make the most untested and wildly maladapted society in history, and after a couple generations, all the traditionalists will angrily defend it and attack the ways of the previous hundred thousand generations.

To be conservative about this society, the one that did its darndest to destroy all values, is an absurdity.  Not that that stops them from trying.

Don't get me wrong; liberals who have nice stuff believe in hierarchy, too.  They just don't talk about it as much. There can be other stories, other facts, and conversation doesn't have to go back to some very narrow grooves.  My kind of eclectic explorations are allowed to be a fun side-show, and sometimes, when my wit is flowing, I can even be the life of a liberal party.

The center-left would like to keep their power and wealth hidden behind bougie norms such as politeness and proceduralism.  They know it is vulgar to tell, and much more proper to show.  When you go past that to speak plainly about unpleasant realities, the fangs certainly can come out.  NIMBY indeed.   Heck, not in my house.  Do not question progress.  Do not question the vital equation

destruction - carbon = sustainability.  

Absolutely do not question whether the good guys are always the good guys.  And don't go over the real history.

Eh, that's easy enough.  Like Johhny S above, I'm here for the wine, snacks, and good conversation -- at least I was before the time of quarantines.   I like the smiling faces, and I need to do better at not being the person who makes them stop.

Round Up #26 (Extra Doomy)

Aphorisms/Shorts
==

Hate to break it to you, but you can't syllogism your way to a better society.  Especially if you're not willing to start with some ethical premises against narcissism or being self-centered.

The doomosphere does not lack in information, intelligence or perspectives. So I don't try to contribute in that way.  I feel like my niche is to try to provide some social skills.

The whole Democratic primary process has been a demonstration of how to turn educated voters into lower information voters.

When the political class has shown a complete, stark, sociopathic disregard for 80 percent of the population -- what is another 19 (or 19.9) percent?

Sorry, friends, the Left is a Granfallon.  My real Karass is those who get to the root of things (radical, I know).  Prep and survive, but not like a Prepper or Survivalist.

A t-shirt only I would like: I had to live through the deconstruction of simple, unhurried, sacred beauty and all I got were these lousy interesting times.





Articles Read
==

Realizing how crucial Sarah Perry's work was to my explorations of happiness I decided to try to read more of her stuff.  It's an ongoing project, but it started with reading what she left up on The View from Hell.  There is very little left indeed, so I also read through the comments and thus was directed to

Razib Khan, filtered by the tag "liberalism." Here is a good quote for y'all:

 I’ve been writing and discussing with people on the internet, and in private, for many years now, and have come to the conclusion most people are decent, but they’re also craven and intellectually unserious outside of their domain specificity when they are intellectual. Many of our institutions are quite corrupt, and those which are supposedly the torchbearers of the Enlightenment, such as science, are filled with people who are also blind to their own biases or dominated by those who will plainly lie to advance their professional prospects or retain esteem from colleagues.

Yup, I'm am very bearish on the survival of democracy . . . and further scientific progress.   But I do like my own ongoing happiness project, so I probably won't be going much deeper down this path.  I recommend the whole piece, however; it tries to put a hopeful frame on it all.

Back to Perry.  I did not realize before that she had some great Dao writing, drawing from Christopher Alexander.  One, two, three.

I started another piece, Fluid Rigor, avoiding most of the branchings to other pieces, but not being able to stop myself to read Weaponized Sacredness before returning to FR.  It's a truly remarkable piece, giving an independent explanation of why coordination is so difficult, why middle management and Moloch reigns, and a justification of a Sabbath, even from the system's point of view.

I think I am going to stop the exploration there for now.  I have to show my respect for Perry as a much greater essayist, but this is exactly the kind of insight that can get you into trouble (meaning make you very unhappy).

On another note, Franco's regime shows that power (probably) doesn't work the way you think it does.

Reddit
==

A piece on the effects (and affects) of advertising. Money quote (pun accepted):

Healthy identity formation comes from shared values and personal experiences, which create the foundation of the identity. But advertisers have invaded our lives and pushed to redefine our identities not by these things, but by products.

A piece on poverty, whose last section that reminds of the value of the drop out lifestyle.

How many rich people can afford to lay down all their work and go sit outside at 2 PM on a regular workday, simply because they notice the sun is shining? They can't!

And it finishes with this gem of a quote

I'll leave you with a quote of Don Colacho: The rich man is not disconcerted by anyone except by someone who does not envy him. [Link added by me.]

Youtube
===

Youtube thinks I need sovietwave music.  A Reddit discussion of what that is.

I think Youtube did a better job in recommending this to me.  Eh, let's make a mini-tv for it:


I don't imagine many people will have the patience to watch all of it, but feel free to watch a bit and then skip around.  Any dose of this will do you good.

Bird Wave

I had written the first draft of this months ago, before the long quarantine had begun.

==


It's a work day, by which I mean it is a job day for the majority -- whether that majority is Silent, living lives of quiet desperation, or even happy, I cannot say.  Only that they are at a job and I am not.  I am at a library, on the third floor.

My frugal phone has a radio function enabled, something nearly all phones had available for years, but only recently turned on; folly and greed can outrun technological progress.  I listen to a classical station and a piece I've never heard before uplifts me.  The outer walls of the library are just glass -- window after window, what I thought was absurd modernism now shown to be very useful.  I can see the flights of birds, most of it below my level.  I see groupings swell up in light and come back down in waves, close enough to the movements of the music to be exhilarated further.

A perfect hour, the bloom of the moment [1], but I had errands to run, and so I was to leave very soon after that, but not before the next song was over.

==
[1] My second reference to Walden in this quite short piece.

Pride and Prejudice and Collapse (Without Zombies)

Cross-posted here.  Lightly edited.

===

Quoting Ran Prieur from 4/8/2020

when the head looks to the world, it can either look for surprise, for stuff that challenges its internal models, or it can look for recognition, for confirmation of its own models. I have a new theory of collapse: that a culture, or an individual, is in danger of psychological collapse, when inside-the-head thinking and confirmation thinking start echoing back and forth, not anchored by enough model-testing thinking.

 I think is a great refactoring of collapse theory. I also like that it works on both macro and micro scales.

A nation is born stoic, and dies epicurean.

Will Durant.

In the stoic growth phase, individuals, organizations, and nations are vigilantly testing. Even if they are working from a static set of principles, they are testing whether the various people who claim they are living up to said principles in fact are.

I'm on a re-read of Pride and Prejudice and in this reading I am stuck with how much of what separates Darcy and Elizabeth from the rest is their how much they seek (and, oops!, sometimes pride themselves too much upon) accuracy.

but I will venture to say that my investigations and decisions are not usually influenced by my hopes or fears

Austen via Mr. Darcy

This quote is in the letter Darcy gives to Elizabeth the day after she rejects his first proposal. It is a long letter, and in the chapter afterward we are treated to a character who changes her mind based on information, working it through the turns of cognition and meta-cognition to get to the truth. Here, moral truths about the characters in a smallish social circle, but still and act of testing. Truth has consequences, and Darcy and Elizabeth make sacrifices to get to it. They are characters in a growth phase.

The same book shows the other side the coin, how the accumulation of wealth allows people to control their environment, basically make pocket realities, with the strongest manifestation being the yes-man.

Miss De Bourgh . .. is unfortunately of a sickly constitution, which has prevented her making that progress in many accomplishments, which she could not otherwise have failed of. . .

Austen via Mr. Collins.

And, straight from the aristocrat's mouth

There are few people in England I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient. And so would Anne, if her health would have allowed her to apply. I am confident that she would have performed delightfully. [emphasis added]

Austen via Lady De Bourgh

Saying how great you are is easier than working to be great, And if you can get enough people to agree (or tacitly agree through silence) then you can get ego trips for the cost of opening you mouth (or, in our time, posting orthodoxy to right place of group-think). Once you use your pocket dimension to stop getting back to reality, you grow decadent and are vulnerable to outside reality.

It just now occurs to me how much of this is woven into Infinite Jest: map-versus territory, in-your- head, Eschaton. But even that illustrates part of the strength of Ran's refactoring: on the individual level, you can turn back and experience growth (barring some super entertainment that leaves you wire-headed).

A Vote for a Third-Party Candidate is . . .

I just want to jot down my responses to idea that "a vote for the Green Party is a vote for Trump." (All of the arguments can apply to any discussion of third parties as a "wasted vote.")

Either a) a vote is symbolic expression and one I have a right to interpret as I please,
 OR
b) its value is only derived from whether or not it leads to a win.

If b, then

* Every vote for Biden in Oklahoma is a vote for Trump.  With 0.00% of the votes counted, I am calling Oklahoma's 7 electoral votes for Donald Trump.  There is no way for people in red states to avoid this moral censure.

* We can actually go further -- if you fully believe b, then last election a vote for Hilary was a vote for Trump. Simply look at the result!

Oh, you want to get out of that somehow, perhaps talking about probability?  (You can't talk about intent; otherwise I get to simply vote how I want -- willing that my one vote would be the maxim that other voters would follow, as it were, not the kind of pathetic, bungled attempts at compromise we kept getting) [1].  Once you start thinking about probability, however, you have a very complicated terrain, not simple slogans for simple moral intuitions.

For one, thanks to the electoral college, in at least 80% of states, people can vote Green with total impunity. If the Party got 5% of the national vote, it would lead to greater ballot access, federal funding for the party, and a structural force to make Democrats have to move left if they want to keep voters.  If that's valuable to someone who lives in a non-swing state, which ground do you want to use to say they shouldn't?

Secondly, people who live in swing states who like the Green Party could involve themselves in a kind of vote swap with someone in non-swing state.  Even better, the Green Party voter in a swing state should seek to leverage several votes for their one vote.

Also, this world of probabilism with a mandate of maximizing the chance of winning means every vote in the primary for a candidate who has high unfavorables with marginal voting groups in the primary (like Biden's problem with young people) is a partial vote for Trump [2]. This is conditional on your ability to convert them into voters, and in this instance doing so in spite of not offering them anything.

So, why not just lie and say Biden will offer things? A lot of this has to do with the mental habits of his online supporters. Remember, the mandate of middle management is to try to extract loyal behavior from people to organizations that will not give loyalty [3].  When you are at work, you cannot explicitly offer people benefits you don't get them for fear of legal action. Staying in that habit of mind leads management class Democrats to try other tricks. Since Biden is such a bad candidate, they are left with shaming and deflection.



===

[1] In reality, what happens for candidates like Kerry, Romney, Biden is a kind of cascade effect. Kerry looked invincible in the primaries.  Turned out, he had only convinced Democratic primary voters in a few early states that he was electable and then his winning elections in Democratic primaries was taken as proof of concept.

[2] The correct answer was probably Warren -- she offered populist policies filtered in a way bougie people can listen to.  This would lead to grumbling on both sides, sure, but the marginalized would get what they care about, policy proposals, and the bougie would get what they want, style. She misplayed her hand very badly, but was punished for it in ways far above the causes.  I mean, look at Biden. . . Some of you can't right now, but I take great comfort in knowing the day is soon when people will see him for who he is, either after defeat or after his one term.  For now, there are those who are trying to construct a God-Emperor and cannot see the lack of clothes. Deflection is a hell of a drug.

[3] This is a big reason the "vote swap" idea really doesn't work.  They want your vote for free.  The people the highest up want to destroy your capacity for political imagination, and middle management is used to doing what they are told and then getting extremely irked at people punching up.

Review of Mark Boyle's A Way Home

i) Place in a Tradition.

In many ways Mark Boyle's The Way Home is an updated, or perhaps refactored, take on Thoreau's classic Walden. I mean this in the most favorable way; Walden is a book that can use both  Though it is infused with wonderful quotes and ideas, Walden is a bit difficult to read, and so it is widely misread.  I must admit I had a hard time getting into Walden, and wrote as much all those years ago.  In fact, if someone is interested in reading Walden for the first time, I suggest they read The Way Home first.

I had respected Mark Boyle for his experiment with moneylessness and his write-up in The Moneyless Man, but with The Way Home Mark Boyle takes it to the next level.  I found the book so lovely and readable that I dedicated the better part of a day to it, appropriately not getting on my computer that day.

Like Walden, The Way Home begins with a statement of purpose and then unfolds by following the seasons.  Thoreau had taken artistic license to make a composite out of his two years he spent at his tiny house he made by hand near Walden Pond.  In Boyle's case, at the time of the book's publication, he had spent ten years living more directly with his environment, first with three years of moneylessness and the rest living "without technology."  Boyle addresses how this second project is more nebulous; after-all, spending money is a perfectly clear "bright line" -- either you spend money or you don't -- whereas there are many grey areas for technology, including the fact that language itself is a technology.  Boyle concludes that he is less interested in black and white thinking, which I admit is a good way out of the problem, leaving the responsibility of a good faith reading where it belongs: with the reader.

For the most part my definition of neo-luddite applies to Boyle

pursuing older technologies, but (usually) with-in the constraints of hat is still easily available; a preference for hand tools.

But of course Boyle is more hard-core in his execution than I will ever be (circumstances out of my control notwithstanding).

ii)  Philosophy of Drudgery.

It doesn't take very much reading between the lines to figure out how much tough, physical work Boyle has to do to maintain his lifestyle -- wood chopping, water gathering, humanure composting, dressing carcasses for nearly all of the complete protein he eats.    I have personally had many life-style experiments derailed by far less discomfort.  While I am open to the possibility that there are variables I could tweak, such as seeing more people, it is hard for me to avoid feelings of depression when every option I have in some way hurts.  I can't imagine going to the lengths Boyle goes.

Boyle himself discusses how he doesn't find washing his clothes by hand to be pleasant:

      . . . I have seen a washing machine, I know exactly how quick and efficient they are.  And I was brought up by a generation who were only too keen to swap the hardship of hand washing for the flick of a switch.  So I accept that I'm probably never going to enjoy it, especially as lang as it remains a lonely, isolated process far removed from any social ritual (pg 141).

He contrasts this with a report he'd heard of women in Pakistan going to the river to do laundry together, chatting and enjoying themselves.  This seems to support the idea that the reason I have never been able to lean into that much labor for long is that it has never been a social experience.

Also, to embrace the practices, one would have to build a body for it.  One reason I allowed myself a day to read the book was because I felt so sore from the amount of air squats I had done the day before.  Perhaps if you are fit enough, this much work can be looked at as a type of play.  Perhaps.  But if the average person is like me, they are months, maybe years away from being able to do Boyle's level of work, even if they wanted to.

 Boyle is a philosopher in the truest sense of the word. His concept of meditation is a type of living-in-the-moment focus that comes from doing tasks that hurt if down inattentively.  Boyle mentions three at various times in the book: picking stinging nettles, carving a wooden spoon, and sharpening a scythe.  I remain skeptical how much preferable this type of meditation is, but it is an idea Boyle clearly both believes in and embodies.

 iii) With Misanthropes Like This . . .

 I am glad Boyle will probably never see the online reviews of his book. I, however, did, trying to see how much of my work in commenting on the book was already done for me, and thinking, very humanly but mistakenly, that it would be good to get a "feel" for peoples' opinions in this manner. (When will I ever fully learn)?  Let me pick out a very bad criticism: that Boyle is a misanthrope.  Seeing this, I replied:

Boyle is apparently the type of deep-seated misanthrope who talks to his neighbors everyday and drops whatever he is doing to help [them]. The kind of misanthrope that travels for several hours to go to events at pubs. The kind that runs a free hostel on his property. . .

I think the children of Modernity, particularly Americans, are very inclined to mis-read books like Walden or The Way Home.  The reader activates a mental stereotype of "the rugged individual," and then assumes the author is consciously trying to perform to that stereotype.  This as a general rule is false -- you get to such an alternative lifestyle by perceiving and thinking for yourself.  Furthermore, the only way 99% of people can sustain any lifestyle is to have an adequate amount of human contact.  To learn about Thoreau's contact with people see the book The Thoreau You Don't Know, this article, or just read Walden closer and notice all the scenes he is interacting with people.  In Boyle's case, he is even more explicit about how many people he is connected to.

Boyle and Thoreau are more rugged than most people would think, but far less individual.

What My Wife Learned about E-Reading

Below is an excerpt from a paper written by Beth Huddleston (yes, there is a relation) on technology and reading.

What fascinated me the most, and thus what I am excerpting from, is the that the very act of scrolling through a text lowers reading comprehension.

===

If one looks strictly at just the strategies a student uses when reading on a screen versus reading on paper, the study “On-Screen Versus On-Paper Reading: Students’ Strategy Usage and Preferences” examines the reading fundamentals students use. In a questionnaire to 237 undergraduates studying at an Eastern mid-size university in reading intensive classes, it determined that students use beginning reading strategies “slightly more on paper than on screen” (Hamer & McGrath, 2011). When studying for an exam, students reread notes taken while reading or even their entire assignment more frequently when it is on paper. For anything longer than five pages, the participants indicated that 71.7% preferred to read on paper than on screens. Similarly, 71.3% were more easily distracted while on a screen. Seniors, in particular, noted in open-ended questions that they recognized the ability to “highlight, circle, or take notes on the text” aided with their reading comprehension.

Whereas it is not be more difficult to read from a screen be it an e-reader or a tablet as compared to a printed page in terms of reading speed, brain activity, or eye movement (Kretzschmar et al, 2013), students who read off a paper in print as compared to a PDF on a computer screen score significantly higher than those who read texts digitally as shown in the Norwegian study “Reading Linear Texts on Paper Versus Computer Screen: Effects on Reading Comprehension” (Mangen, Walgermo, & Bronnick, 2013). Even with time pressured reading, readers who read on the printed page generally get better results than those who read off of a screen (Ackerman & Lauterman, 2012).

This deficit in reading comprehension from a screen may be affected by scrolling through a text. In “To Scroll or Not to Scroll: Scrolling, Working Memory Capacity, and Comprehending Complex Texts,” Sanchez and Wiley (2009) discovered through two experiments that scrolling on a screen negatively affected learning from a text, especially for those who have they had identified with lower working memory. The ability to remember subheadings and to think about where the information would be on a page, whether it was on paper or on a paginated screen, increased the participants understanding of the text as compared to all the information on a single scrollable screen. Scrolling through text affected the participants’ understanding of what they had read.

===
Below is her bibliography. 

===

Ackerman, R. & Lauterman, T. (2012). Taking reading comprehension exams on screen or on paper? A metacognitive analysis of learning texts under time pressure. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(5): 1816–1828, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.04.023 

Babayiğit, O. (2019). Examination the metacognitive reading strategies of secondary school sixth grade students. International journal of progressive education, 15(3).

Baker, W., Lusk, E., & Neuhauser, K. (2012, Sep/Oct). On the use of cell phones and other electronic devices in the classroom: Evidence from a survey of faculty and student. Journal of Education for Business, 87(5), 275-289. doi: 10.1080/09932323.2011.622814

Bouygues, H.L. (2019, June). Does educational technology help students learn?: An analysis of the connection between digital devices and learning. reboot elevating critical thinking. Retrieved from https://reboot-foundation.org/wp-content/uploads/_docs/ED_TECH_ANALYSIS.pdf

End, C., Worthman, S., Mathews, M. B., & Wetterau, K. (2010). Costly cell phones: The impact of cell phone rings on academic performance. Teaching of Psychology, 37(1), 55-57. doi: 10.1080/009862809003425912

Eriksson, M., Vugjarvi, H., & Ruokamo, H. (2009). Laptop computers and wireless university campus networks: Is flexibility and effectiveness improved? Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 25(3), 322-335.

Hamer, A. B, & McGrath, J. L. (2011, Fall). On-screen versus on-paper reading: Students' strategy usage and preferences. NADE Digest, 5 (3). Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=EJ1097588

Jacobs, T. (2019, June). Computers in the classroom may do more harm than good – If they’re overused. Pacific Standard. 

Kretzschmar, F, Pleimling, D, Hosemann, J, Füssel, S, Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I and Schlesewsky, M (2013). Subjective impressions do not mirror online reading effort: Concurrent EEG-eyetracking evidence from the reading of books and digital media. PLOS ONE 8(2). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0056178

Kulesza, J., DeHondt, G., & Nezlek, G., (2011, December). More technology, less learning? Information Systems Education Journal, 9(7), 4-13.

Lopez-Perez, V.A., Ramierez-Correa, P.E., & Grandon, E.E. (2019). Innovativeness and factors that affect the information technology adoption in the classroom by primary teachers in Chile. Informatics in Education, 18(1), 165-181. doi:10.15388/infedu.2019.08

Mangen, A., Walgermo, B.R., & Bronnick, K. (2013). Reading linear texts on paper versus computer screen: Effects on reading comprehension. International Journal of Educational Research, 58, 61-68. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2012.12.002

Myrberg, C., & Wiberg, N., (2015). Screen vs. paper: What is the difference for reading and learning? Insights: The UKSG Journal, 28(2), 49-54. DOI: http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.236

Neiterman, E. & Zaza, C. (2019). A mixed blessing? Students' and instructors' perspectives about off-task technology use in the academic classroom. The Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 10(1). Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.5206/cjsotl-rcacea.2019.1.8002

Nworie, J. & Haughton, N. (2008, September/October). Good intentions and unanticipated effects: The unintended consequences of the application of technology in teaching and learning environments. TechTrends, 52(5), 52-58.

Sanchez, C. A., & Wiley, J., (2009, October). To scroll or not to scroll: scrolling, working memory capacity, and comprehending complex texts. Human Factors, 51(5), 730-738.

What if This is It?

My wife and I have followed the self-quarantine requests to the best of our ability, but it seems likely that I will be infected with Covid 19 at some point in my life, and if that happens  I don't have supreme confidence in my blood-pressure, my kidneys, or my lungs. With every person who died in my life, I gained about 20 pounds.  There were even times when I saw certain eating pattern as a form of slow suicide -- and for a very brief time drinking serving that role.  I even figured I'd rather die at 50 or 60, pulling up a bit short, rather than go through what 80 looks like with my genes -- none of my grandparents lived to 84, and my father and uncle died before they were 60.  I've had a very good life, but I didn't win the longevity lottery, and so I figured I'd eat, drink, and be merry. So it's hard to get too angry about the prospect of my health coming to bite me now.  Also, I get that I will probably survive, but I would never want to roll a dice with 10% chance of me dying for any amount of money, let alone for no reason at all.

So let's say this is the last month of my life.  What do I want out of the time? I've come up with two things: 1) live perfect, unhurried moments and 2) to read good books.  And I suppose even #2 is subsumed in #1.  So how are those two things going?  Pretty swell.

No TV or noise-making screens until 4:00 PM really does the trick.  I'm finally not alone on a sabbatical, but I'm still able to let my mind roam, or let my mind focus, as I wish.  Either way, it is a great time. I love walking into a room and seeing cats cuddled by my wife, either as she works or they all nap.  I need to stop saying it to my wife, but if that's the last thing I see, that's fine.  I remember an acting piece at Nationals where the character said something along the lines of "I don't know if I believe in God, but I believe in cute."

In quarantine there have been days so nice I can open a window and scratch at my writing or math problems while gentle gusts of wind comes in and the bird song is perfect.  Some of those moments it is right to stop all work of "head and hand" and to paraphrase Thoreau give myself fully to the bloom of the present moment.  I have seen cats sniffing.  I have seen cats basking (we have four cats, so there is plenty of cat activity to see).  I have seen sunsets, one particularly marvelous.  Perfect moments.  No hurry.  I feel alive.

I made an effort to finish Steven Strogatz's book Infinite Powers, which serves as a great conceptual primer (or deepener) to Calculus and then Ian Stewart's Significant Figures, which gives short biographies of some mathematicians and a quick gloss of their work.  I had checked them out from the library a week or so before everything shut down, and had gotten far enough that the pull to finish them was a dominate consideration.  After that, however, I decided it was a time to re-read books that had spoken to me the most.  The expression here is "Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."  But if I may die soon, then I think I can tweek my learning budget to what I already know I will like.  Besides, the books below were all already in my house.

So, when I'm not harmonizing with wife, cats, or surroundings, what will I be reading?

This can also be called a reading list for the end of the world.

For Sure Read Again (Time Permitting.)
==

Godel, Escher, Bach. Hofstadter
I am a Strange Loop. Hofstadter
Pride and Prejudice.  Austen
Emma.  Austen (Do great books come in twos?)
Romeo and Juliet (Taught it so many times.  Can't live without it one more time.)
Midsummer Night's Dream (Oh, this guy is going to have more than two, huh?)
Richard II  (All three of the lyrical period)
Richard III (not lyrical, but good, evil fun)
Taming of the Shrew (had shown film versions for an elective class)
The Winter's Tale (It might move me the most)
Metaphors We Live By. Lakoff.
The Lathe of Heaven.  Le Guin
The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Kundera
White Noise.  DeLillo
Siddhartha.  Hesse


Maybe
==

The Examined Life. Nozick
Walden.  Thoreau
A Pattern Language.  Alexander et al.
War and Peace.  Tolstoy
The Tragedy of Julius Caeser
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Pirsig
Being There.  Kosiński,
Second Nature. Pollan.
Time Enough For Love.  Heinlein
Mindhacker Hale-Evans.  (short on prose, but long on curiosity and play).


Notably Not Making the Cut
==

Infinite Jest
Look, I've read it twice.  It's good, but not last thing I read good.

Any history.

If I'm a goner then my role in history is done.  Also, since we're in social isolation, will have few free-willing conversations where erudition can bedazzle and impress.  These reading experiences are for pure pleasure.

==
And no, I don't want to give the impression that I am going to read all the books, even the "for sure" list in a month or two. These are just books that I have loved greatly.

Quick Guide to American Politics

In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.

Dan Hodges 

This was posted on Twitter, and the replies help to answer the question of how Americans can find even the most horrible of things bearable.  The whole discussion of "gun rights" is a template for how Americans are capable of ignoring just about anything that happens . . . to other people.

Basically, Americans have been trained to come up with an argument instead of seek a solution.  Most people, especially on the internet, seem to think they work in Public Relations.  Once they have "scored points," their job is done.  No need for any of the tools of the competent, such as focus on an issue, building models by making predictions and experiments, or follow-up.

The tactics most used in the replies to the Hodges tweet are deflection and ad hominem.  Also, to the former citizen, now turned PR worker, words are either warm and fuzzy or cold and prickly (credit JMG for the concept).  If we can associate our brand with enough warm fuzzies and throw enough cold pricklies at the other brand we can expand market share.  This is the real game.  Principles, on the other hand, are just another consumer good, to be used when and how the buyer wishes.

Our politics make for a team-sport, allowing for a group-level reworking of a Narcissist's Prayer

That didn't happen.
And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
And if it was, that's not a big deal.
And if it is, that's not [our] fault.
And if it was, [we] didn't mean it.
And if [we] did...
You deserved it.

And this is the toolbox that makes America the wealthiest failed state in history, a point made in this article by Umair Haque in 2018.  There is no social problem that can embarrass the average American voter; instead, they will just consume a scapegoat narrative and deflect the issue entirely).   The real  pain they try to avoid is that of political loss.  As someone once said, "Narcissists don't feel guilt, only shame." [1]  Because of this, I go back to the Haque article:

American[s] appear to be quite happy simply watching one another die, in all the ways above. They just don’t appear to be too disturbed, moved, or even affected by the four pathologies above: their kids killing each other, their social bonds collapsing, being powerless to live with dignity,or having to numb the pain of it all away.

You want to think the Democrats are better than this?  1) Their politicians aren't and 2) not even a working majority of their primary voters are.  All sorts of Americans are comfortable with the notion that bad things can happen to others as long as "I've got mine."

We'll see if a politics of problem solving develops over the next decade or two. I have my doubts, but would love to be surprised.

===

[1] Read this better TLP piece on what I call Standard American Narcissism  (STan).

===

Postscript: I see this as an instance of the broader pattern described here.