I would love to have more audio and video content. I consume in that medium almost exclusively. I always prefer audiobooks over ebooks, podcasts over blogs, and videos over articles.
But the medium I love most of all is the combination of all of it together in a beautiful, complementary harmony. Give me the audio paired with the text transcript paired with the visual imagery and video elements š¤
Mmmm what a pairing! (If only I could taste the altruism and smell the effectiveness.)
Weāve evolved to listen to other people talk and to parse visual imagery. Our ears are remarkable listening tools honed by evolution over 2 million years at least (speculative assumptions here), and our eyes are tremendous observation tools for extracting meaningful images out of visual patterns (also developed by evolution since basically forever). We shouldnāt willfully neglect these things.
Bring the senses together, and youāve got a recipe for effectively encoding information that will not be easily forgotten and will be much more easily retrieved!
The main critiques from the comments here are:
Text is the only medium best suited for āserious discourseā (assuming serious discourse never happened elsewhere or before text was commonplace, like on a stoa in ancient Athens).
We arenāt casual here. This isnāt fun and games. Weāre serious. And again, the only serious medium is text. Donāt bother us with your funny stuff like audio or video. Those are for casual sites only. (Sorry, I like to poke fun with exaggeration.)
Text may be the cheapest medium. And we canāt afford much...? (Good point generally, but that doesnāt really mean you canāt allow for other more expensive mediums in addition to text. Right?)
Text only, or else...! [Insert some āslippery slopeā notions that things could maybe get bad probably, possibly, perhaps, somehow...?] (Not sure what to make of it.)
Please donāt mess with the front page. (Agreed.)
and, āoh god please no, donāt bring āengagementā up in here ever again please.ā (Understandable.)
(also, please just focus on cultivating good discussion.)
To be fair, thereās good concern there regarding the whole āengagementā thing, but that misses the point of this and focuses too much on a problem that isnāt really a problem on this forum.
(Also side note probably not worth mentioningā¦ If we looked at the stats on how many people read the average post on here [and for how long], then I donāt think any of us would be deeply concerned about āengagementā being a problem right now haha. [Not sure where those stats would be, but I kinda imagine that the average post on here gets rather few reads and most people donāt spend a whole lot of time on here in general.])
I think there are wonderful things to be learned from two great examples: TED and Kurzgesagt.
TED has figured out the power of a short talk (less than 18 minutes, usually) to effectively spread an important idea. As an organization theyāve given thorough thought to their process and structure, concluding that a ātalkā is the most effective means to communicate ideas worth spreading. They help people condense their incredible research and books into ~15 minutes of good discussion, usually paired with visual imagery accompaniment. But they also go way out of their way to get all their talks transcribed into every language they can. And on their website, you can watch the talk, listen to audio, and read along all at the same time, while the website automatically highlights the currently spoken sentence in the transcript. (You can even click on any portion of the transcript to jump straight to that point in the talk.) And the entire transcription is timestamped. Itās really fantastic but could still be even better!
Imagine written forum posts having the complementary accompaniment of (1) the author reading the post as a script and (2) helpful imagery to visualize the concepts and ideas in the discussion. At that point, youāre basically breaking down all the classic components of a video and letting them each provide benefit when needed. (Again, the more senses activated, the better the encoding and retention.)
Secondly, I mention Kurzgesagt because itās just incredibly successful at getting the public to care about science and education in a way that is rather surprising.
Consider the fact that this little YouTube channel, founded by brilliant information designers, now has 17.5M subscribers. Every video they release is immediately trending in the top 10 videos on YouTube for usually two days, getting easily 5M+ views within the first week. Each video they make is serious and spends upwards of 10-15 minutes explaining a concept in great detail. Theyāre packed with valuable information from rigorous research.
If this kind of communication can suddenly spark the interest of millions and millions of people to care about thinking through topics like energy, meat, disease, and existential risks (all with a scientific lens), then why wouldnāt it be possible to do the same with EA concepts?
These things captivate me.
I want to be captivated by EA content and writings in this same way. I want it. And despite this desire, I so rarely read text and text alone. Iām not the only person out there like this. If great ideas from EA folks only ever sit on the shelves of this forum in text alone, they may never reach a broader audience. And thatās a shame, because I relate to that audience and have the audacity to believe that they have some terrifically valuable contributions to offer.
Well written! Great points! 10ā10 am convinced.
I would love to have more audio and video content. I consume in that medium almost exclusively. I always prefer audiobooks over ebooks, podcasts over blogs, and videos over articles.
But the medium I love most of all is the combination of all of it together in a beautiful, complementary harmony. Give me the audio paired with the text transcript paired with the visual imagery and video elements š¤
Mmmm what a pairing! (If only I could taste the altruism and smell the effectiveness.)
Weāve evolved to listen to other people talk and to parse visual imagery. Our ears are remarkable listening tools honed by evolution over 2 million years at least (speculative assumptions here), and our eyes are tremendous observation tools for extracting meaningful images out of visual patterns (also developed by evolution since basically forever). We shouldnāt willfully neglect these things.
Bring the senses together, and youāve got a recipe for effectively encoding information that will not be easily forgotten and will be much more easily retrieved!
The main critiques from the comments here are:
Text is the only medium best suited for āserious discourseā (assuming serious discourse never happened elsewhere or before text was commonplace, like on a stoa in ancient Athens).
We arenāt casual here. This isnāt fun and games. Weāre serious. And again, the only serious medium is text. Donāt bother us with your funny stuff like audio or video. Those are for casual sites only. (Sorry, I like to poke fun with exaggeration.)
Text may be the cheapest medium. And we canāt afford much...? (Good point generally, but that doesnāt really mean you canāt allow for other more expensive mediums in addition to text. Right?)
Text only, or else...! [Insert some āslippery slopeā notions that things could maybe get bad probably, possibly, perhaps, somehow...?] (Not sure what to make of it.)
Please donāt mess with the front page. (Agreed.)
and, āoh god please no, donāt bring āengagementā up in here ever again please.ā (Understandable.)
(also, please just focus on cultivating good discussion.)
To be fair, thereās good concern there regarding the whole āengagementā thing, but that misses the point of this and focuses too much on a problem that isnāt really a problem on this forum.
(Also side note probably not worth mentioningā¦ If we looked at the stats on how many people read the average post on here [and for how long], then I donāt think any of us would be deeply concerned about āengagementā being a problem right now haha. [Not sure where those stats would be, but I kinda imagine that the average post on here gets rather few reads and most people donāt spend a whole lot of time on here in general.])
I think there are wonderful things to be learned from two great examples: TED and Kurzgesagt.
TED has figured out the power of a short talk (less than 18 minutes, usually) to effectively spread an important idea. As an organization theyāve given thorough thought to their process and structure, concluding that a ātalkā is the most effective means to communicate ideas worth spreading. They help people condense their incredible research and books into ~15 minutes of good discussion, usually paired with visual imagery accompaniment. But they also go way out of their way to get all their talks transcribed into every language they can. And on their website, you can watch the talk, listen to audio, and read along all at the same time, while the website automatically highlights the currently spoken sentence in the transcript. (You can even click on any portion of the transcript to jump straight to that point in the talk.) And the entire transcription is timestamped. Itās really fantastic but could still be even better!
Imagine written forum posts having the complementary accompaniment of (1) the author reading the post as a script and (2) helpful imagery to visualize the concepts and ideas in the discussion. At that point, youāre basically breaking down all the classic components of a video and letting them each provide benefit when needed. (Again, the more senses activated, the better the encoding and retention.)
Secondly, I mention Kurzgesagt because itās just incredibly successful at getting the public to care about science and education in a way that is rather surprising. Consider the fact that this little YouTube channel, founded by brilliant information designers, now has 17.5M subscribers. Every video they release is immediately trending in the top 10 videos on YouTube for usually two days, getting easily 5M+ views within the first week. Each video they make is serious and spends upwards of 10-15 minutes explaining a concept in great detail. Theyāre packed with valuable information from rigorous research.
If this kind of communication can suddenly spark the interest of millions and millions of people to care about thinking through topics like energy, meat, disease, and existential risks (all with a scientific lens), then why wouldnāt it be possible to do the same with EA concepts?
These things captivate me.
I want to be captivated by EA content and writings in this same way. I want it. And despite this desire, I so rarely read text and text alone. Iām not the only person out there like this. If great ideas from EA folks only ever sit on the shelves of this forum in text alone, they may never reach a broader audience. And thatās a shame, because I relate to that audience and have the audacity to believe that they have some terrifically valuable contributions to offer.