Not to use your own device against you, but refusing to take a dip in the mainstream propoganda machine is part of what led Marxists into establishing their pseudo-science academia in the first place.
Genetic inclinations aside, one must be exposed to disease in order to become resistant to it.
I’ve found that the reason it’s “conspiratorial” is because the conspiracy is true. That’s all history is. One conspiracy after another. Westerners have a hard time believing that they themselves are living through a “conspiratorial” historical time-line because of all the counter-propaganda through the education system, politics, and media. America is the hardest hit country in this regard.
Exactly. A conspiracy is just a group of people getting together to do something bad in secret. Since people with power are nearly always corrupt, they always engage in conspiracies. And since powerful people determine the course of history, history is just a string of conspiracies. Rothbard’s historical analysis is so powerful because he uncovers the facts that explain the conspiracies, and names all the primary players.
It stops seeming “ridiculous” to see the conspiracy as soon as you stop drinking from the mainstream. We all know the water’s completely dirty.
Unfortunately, there is also a lot of misinformation outside the mainstream, also. You can’t just leave the mainstream - you have to find the right tributary, which is difficult.
Cog - Good point. It’s my opinion that one should examine every corner with an open-mind; open, but highly critical and discerning.
Lee - Indeed great points. It seems that so many traps are laid for you in todays contemporary world.
One must keep the 3rd eye open constantly in this war.
btw Simpleblendman, your resume comes up “cannot display” on my Firefox browser.
Just saying.
haha yeah I haven’t gotten around to putting it up yet.
Thanks pointing that out though.
Everyone learns different but when speaking of Murray Rothbard, Ronald Hamowy said:
“He had a vast library and unlike the books in my own library, all of Murray’s books had been read, and read with care.”
FINALLY, THIS TOPIC. I HAVE BEEN WAITING IN THE SHADOWS.
I know you’re asking specifically for learning habits, but for me, this is a run-on with problems in procrastination and productivity in general, so I hope you don’t mind if I stray a bit.
I remember starting this a while back, but not getting to the second page (https://forum.freecapitalists.org/t/personal-productivity/9080). (hint: I’m jealous)
First, a list of websites for increasing productivity and creating better study habits. Consider this my bibliography for this post:
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/50-personal-productivity-blogs-youve-never-heard-of-before-and-about-a-dozen-you-probably-have.html (here’s a huge list)
http://www.math.purdue.edu/~zylinski/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=protips (a collection of tips about combating procrastination with some friends of mine)
http://f.hyperboards.com/ (a forum that a friend of mine started about combating procrastination, being more productive, how do we learn, psychology, etc.)
http://www.amazon.com/Mind-Performance-Hacks-Tools-Overclocking/dp/0596101538/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276226905&sr=8-1 (I’m currently reading this book. It has a lot of good advice IMHO)
In sum, I have the following main tactics:
-Logging. Keeping track of what you do so you even know what habits need to be improved or how to improve yourself.
-Ubiquitous capture. This is to help with logging as well as making sure you keep track of any good ideas you have (free up your mental RAM http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/08/freeing-mental-ram/)
-To-do lists. Keep track of what you want to read, what you want to get done. Also, be specific about it: include priorities, kill-dates, and the main as well as a bare minimum goal.
(related to kill dates: http://inboxzero.com/inboxzero/)
-Egg-timer. Use an egg-timer or similar clock or program to help you just get started on a task. (http://www.43folders.com/node/47330/317763 http://lifehacker.com/5377906/the-pomodoro-technique-fights-deadline-anxiety-with-a-timer)
-Electronic motivator. Something that buzzes you to remind you of your task, or include pick-me-ups. (http://habitchange.com/)
-Something that helps you do the above. (http://www.43folders.com/2004/09/03/introducing-the-hipster-pda http://www.viewsonic.com.au/products/pocketpc/)
-Positive environment. Surround yourself with people who also want to learn what you’re trying to learn or do. Reduce things that distract you in your life (I don’t understand T.V.s. You don’t need them. No, you don’t need to watch the news on them). Reduce your internet habits (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4476/). Sell your games. Delete your games.
-Memory system. For a large amount of information you want to keep on a daily basis. Most systems work by some sort of association technique. For example, the tried and true roman rooms method http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_of_memory#Architectural_mnemonic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_of_memory)
-Try using ideas from a learning model. There are a lot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles, I have not had the time as of yet to wade through all this information to give some quick advice here.
Hope this is useful :U.
Amazing post Fephisto.
Thank you!
That shouldn’t happen. A project should never be abandoned - only not finished just jet.
Work on four or five projects at the same time, of different lengths and seriousness factors. Rotate between them as you get numbed or bored. If you get stuck don’t be afraid to drop one or more of them for an extended period of time - just as long as you are clear you intend to return to them at some point. Unless you’re dead there is no such thing as an unfinished project, only a work in progress.
If thinking of potential future pieces (not jet started) is distracting you from working on the current one(s) make a “to do list” and scribble down every idea that you may be motivated to expand into “a project”, this way it is compartmentalised. It is safe, jet its possible vile side-effects are contained. Place these ideas as you get them, and strike out the ones you finish.
Thank you for contributing everyone…
If you don’t mind me probing deeper, I really want to create a great system for learning and storing information. Let me throw out an application that seems to happen to me often. Let’s say that while reading a paragraph in Human Action a number of things happen.
Jeremiah -
I know exactly what you mean.
For myself, I’ll generally “go with” whatever I’m feeling at the momenet. If I have a great idea to do something, I’ll go with that. The main reason is that if I force myself to do something I really dont want to, I find that I don’t work nearly as efficient or as prolific.
If you’re reading Human Action and all of a sudden have a great idea for an article, write it down. Even go as far as to start writing the article on the spot.
That’s what helps me.
I fell into doing number 4 frequently while reading HA. With my newer method of limiting myself to one section a day, I’ve been pretty good at being able to remember all the terms and concepts. As for #3, I just write things down in a file in my Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/ and if that’s not available, I just jot it down on something. (I always have a pen, I feel awkwardly naked without one)
I’m finding more and more that the trick isn’t to read as much as possible, but to read as carefully as possible. That takes some restraint, but it’s worth it. Give the mind some time to soak things in and you’ll be glad you did. When I read something that’s heavy, I usually read it over twice. Simply because it’s dense on ideas and light on words, it’s easy to read quickly, but hard to absorb. More exposrues helps. If you burn yourself out, none of 1-4 will happen for you!
Aside: I never really bothered with “memory enhancing tricks” at any point in my life. Not to brag, but it seems like I have better than average memory. I’d do bad on tests that were mostly memorization, but that’s only because I wouldn’t study. I’ve had a pretty practical “I’ll look it up if I need it” attitude when it comes to memorizing things. I’d always do well on tests which were more geared towards testing my understanding of concepts.
I mostly read on computer screen which makes this easy. If there is a very cool paragraph or vital information I copy-paste it into a text file. If it is a physical book from the library I mark the page and after reading it whole scan all the marked pages, then keep the scanned files for future reference.
And since this New Year’s I started keeping a list of works I read in a text file. Mostly because of it, I probably read twice as much as I did last year.
“The best way to learn is to teach.” ~LeFevre
When I’m trying to learn myself; I try to ask as many questions as possible. (How did this or that start, who started it. Where did such a phrase or reference come from?)
I’m bad at writing things down, but you have inspired me to keep a notebook. That will help when reading away from the computer, how where writers so eloquent, and well researched hundreds of years ago?
I’m glad to hear that I’m not the only one who doesn’t like memorizing things, that has never been my longsuit. Giant_Joe, I like how you said you have a “I’ll look it up when I need it” attitude, that’s how I’ve always felt because memorization has never worked for me and barring the internet and my library exploding I can usually find out anything I need to know fairly quickly. In public schools they really do try to force feed parroting and memorization as the only ways to learn facts, which is why my general curiosity was deadened severely until I escaped the system around seventh grade.
Discussion is a great tool for me. Whatever I happen to be studying or reading I always reiterate what I’ve learned to my parents, sister, friends, just to voice it, refine it and hear what they think on the subject. Ever since discovering Mises.org I’ve been dying to start a reading group for my area specifically covering economics and philosophy and focusing on the Austrian school. Especially after reading the recent ‘Grassroots for Mises’ article, I loved the idea of reading a chapter of Human Action at a time and then meeting to discuss.
What I like doing is if there is an audiobook, listen to it while I read the book. It engages both sense, vision and hearing. It’s better for me, (tech is changing though) for a hard copy so you can easily bookmark and make annotations. More steps you have to make to do these actions deters from the process.
Also refining penmenship helps. If your handwriting sucks, it becomes a hasstle to read it over.
Ubiquitous capture. Write 1-3 on a to-do now, then continue reading.
Agreed. I find that memorization, as a first step in learning, does not encourage any deep thought or inquiry on a given topic, i.e. learning. It only encourages a rote repetition and no further. I do think memorization has its place, however, but this is only after you have wrestled with the topic for some time, so you do not forget what you have already learned. In other words in my opinion there is some cause and effect confusion in education, in that memory is something used after learning, not before. To use it before is, also in my opinion, quite harmful.