Why books don't work (2019)
The very premise of this article shows how demented Western culture has become. The attitude of,
“I invested 15-20 hours reading this book and, boohoo, I’m not a subject matter expert on the book’s topic” is absolutely insane. It takes a decade of serious work to really get a strong handle on a topic. Books aren’t supposed to teach you something to know, they’re meant to teach you how much you don’t know. Hopefully from that impetus one can go into the world and gain skill.<p>I have been a Software Engineer for over a decade now and I do seriously difficult network and kernel work right now. There has never been another point in my career where I have been so incredibly aware of how much I don’t know about what I work on. If you’re doing your career right you should feel your ignorance more and more. Books offer us something incredibly valuable, the feeling of ignorance. I can’t think of anything our culture could use more of right now than humility.