yaoxx151's comments

While I like the strategy in general, I want to challenge the first point "Have a clear WHY I’m reading this book". I think reading books is like exercise, it doesn't matter which part of muscle it trains, as long as you keep doing it, it'll improve your health overall. I find that the best part of reading books for me comes mostly from the unconscious influence--often after I read a book, I can't tell you what I remember specifically and how it would improve my life. But if I'm lucky, one day the idea will come to my mind at the right time. I find myself dislike the mindset of having a purpose on reading. For me, the meaty part of reading is the process of searching, not the results. And you can guess that I dislike reading self-help books. I don't think we can change our behaviors by reading a book. knowing something is easy, practice is hard.

Interestingly, the author mentions he's reading Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow. In a talk[1], Daniel says "This is not really a self-help book. And of course it's very easy for me to say because I've been studying it. Not only I've read the book, I wrote it. Didn't improve my thinking at all."

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgQutgSwY88&feature=youtu.be...

It might not be FAccT. The deadline was a month ago but it seems she submitted the paper recently.

It's amazing to see how little is focused on training young kids to think independently in early education. In my own experience, even science is taught in a doctrinal way, i.e. we were told to believe what scientists thought and discovered. It seems to me that it's no different from religion--just replace God with Newton. Most students worship scientists but don't study them in details.

It's bad that when those students grow up, they believe science is the absolute truth and they're hostile to people who doubt about it. They become the new priests. And probably today's biggest "scientific doctrine" is big data-people unquestionably believe whatever data tells them without caring about nuance or bothering to think what it implies. Interestingly, it seems most of those people don't have a strong background in science while most trained scientists rarely hold the same view that science is superior and we know everything.