Golden email #5: What is good knowledge?

General advice is better than specific advice. If you're smart you'll build specific advice for your situation out of the general advice, instead of having to learn new specific stuff every month because the last thing you learned got outdated.

If it's too specific it's specific to the author's situation, and what's the chance they have the same life and goals as you? If anything, listen to people who do what you want to do and are better at it than you.

Using industry-specific words will make the knowledge age. Using only the 100 most common words of a language will make everyone at all times understand it. If you can't understand a text you're not dumb, the author is dumb (or you may be dumb also).

You won't get smarter by reading more books if it's the wrong books. Most books are filled with anti-knowledge that not only stops you from learning things but also teaches you the wrong things. I have no idea how to spot good/bad books except gut feeling. School doesn't teach you this, maybe because they're the ones making you read all these bad books.

Quotes straight from the source are 10x better than someone else trying to summarize the quotes. If you aren't Einstein you won't ever describe Einstein's knowledge as well as Einstein did.

Beware of the words "should" and "must", people who use them have decided their standpoint and by doing that they'll stop developing and learning which means they won't ever become smart enough to actually be able to find good standpoints...

Summarized: Listen to people smarter than you, go straight to the source, read simple stuff instead of super-specific nerd stuff, say no to most knowledge because most knowledge is wrong, ignore people who are stuck in their belief and always question everything to keep moving. Knowledge is never done, it's a journey. The journey is the goal, and you'll never get there.

/kbrecordzz, 2023-03-07