We're not going to agree here, we're going to descend into stupid walls of texts. I'll give you one more, but I probably wont respond. It's not personal, it's just not valuable for either of us.
> There was no “destruction of knowledge”. It was a collection of notes which was never going to be looked at again and was causing stress to the author. Written knowledge which isn’t read is as useless at that which isn’t written in the first place. Would you also decry someone for not having written the note in the first place?
I disagree that there was no destruction of knowledge. Even if the author is just copy/pasting from random sources, the link and choice of putting those 2 copies in the same folder is a bit of knowledge, a link solidified with an action. We have different ideas of what constitutes knowledge, I think you know you're being ridiculous if you're sincerely trying to argue that 7 years worth of notes doesn't have a single new contribution of any value to anything or anyone at all.
I do decry people who don't take personal notes.
> It was not a library. I bet that for the author it felt closer a hoarder’s house with stacks of scattered newspapers.
I totally agree that's how the author felt - they let their own negative feelings towards what they've created destroy something which could be valuable to others.
> Absurd. Deleting written notes does not make you immediately forget everything that was written on them. The lessons they needed, they internalised. The ones they didn’t weren’t important anyway. Sure, there may have been some good notes in there, but not in enough quantity and quality to warrant wading though them all and justify the extra anxiety the existence of these lists caused.
What's even your point here? You start saying how notes aren't even needed and are pointless to be written down, then you argue that maybe there is some value in them written down, and then come back to support my argument that the author's own personal feelings have lead to the destruction of something valuable.
> No, they will not. Signed, someone who learned to delete relentlessly and is much happier for it.
> Maybe you would regret it. That says nothing about other people. If anything, I’d regret the years when I didn’t delete stuff.
Ignorance is bliss: you can't get upset about the things you don't know any more. Knowledge is hard.
Your position about not regretting throwing away potential personal knowledge and memories isn't a position I've heard from anyone over (*edited typo) the age of 50. You don't regret it just like the author doesn't, I think you have a future of denial or upset.
> Yes, there was. The author needed it for their mental well-being and development. Let them be. Everyone copes with life in different ways. We’re all going to die, all your notes will be meaningless in the end.
There's other ways to deal with information overload, like proper archiving. We're all going to die, and the only reason why have a culture or knowledge as a species is because everyone else hasn't done what this person is doing.
> No, everyone should do what makes sense for them personally.
> Having the thing “out of the way” is not the same as having it gone. It’s a very different feeling, like saving a memento from an unhealthy relationship VS throwing it away. There is freedom in deciding to let go without recourse.
Congratulations with the individualism, you made yourself feel free by burning books. If that makes you happy - you do you, I don't care - but don't act like it's benefit anyone else other than the person struggling with the feeling of information overload.
> I'll give you one more, but I probably wont respond. It's not personal, it's just not valuable for either of us.
Then why did you bother responding in the first place, and why should anyone bother reading beyond that point? If you’re not interested in discussing, don’t. Throwing a bunch of words at someone and then going closing your ears singing “la la la” is worse than not being valuable, it has negative value for the discussion.
Frankly, that made me only skim the rest of your post instead of engaging properly. It was still pretty obvious you lack real empathy for the author, their needs, and are unable to understand people who have a different view of the issue than you do.
Here‘s the thing: The author isn’t making a general commentary or recommendation, they are recounting their own personal experience. Pretending you know what makes sense for them is arrogant and misguided. That you are unable to understand other people have different needs and ways of approaching life is a you problem.
I really don't like the HN have deleted a bunch of both of our posts here, I have them saved.
I stand by my point, this has been a wasted discussion that I shouldn't have engaged with. In some of the deleted posts, I apologised for time wasted. But also, I think you should acknowledge too that neither of us got anything out of the walls of now deleted text.
This is exactly why I tried to shut the conversation down from the start - it was clear to me from the familiarity of your style that it would end this way, and so I was trying to do us both a favour. I understand why you took issue, because of how I did it, but the fact that so much has been deleted here shows that I was correct in my initial response to you: we couldn't and didn't interact productively. I was able to interact fine with the other responses, that's not to say this is your fault at all, but more the combination of our 2 personality types.
Anyway, I guess we're both done here. Apologies again for my role, but you should also perhaps be more open to ending a conversation cordially when someone says they're trying to make the effort to end it, rather than assuming fingers-in-ears bad intent.
> Then why did you bother responding in the first place, and why should anyone bother reading beyond that point? If you’re not interested in discussing, don’t. Throwing a bunch of words at someone and then going closing your ears singing “la la la” is worse than not being valuable, it has negative value for the discussion.
I didn't mean to imply I wasn't going to read, it's just that disagreeing so vehemently on a sentence by sentence basis - like we're both clearly prone to do - isn't always fun or productive. Neither of us is going to change our mind with the depth and detail at which we're disagreeing. You're completely fair to see it as me sticking my fingers in my ears, sorry, because that's disrespectful of me.
My intent was to give you the respect of responding in a similar level of detail to address your points, since you gave the time for me, but prevent the need for either of us to have to keep doing it...
> Here‘s the thing: The author isn’t making a general commentary or recommendation, they are recounting their own personal experience. Pretending you know what makes sense for them is arrogant and misguided. That you are unable to understand other people have different needs and ways of approaching life is a you problem.
I never claimed to know what's best for them, I would even go as far as saying I don't care what's best for them, I was speaking from a position of what I think's best for human knowledge. Fundamentally, if you agree burning books - metaphorically - is a bad thing, then you agree deleting second brains instead of just archiving is a bad thing.
Here's the thing: I'm not making a general commentary or recommendation, I'm recounting my own _personal_ view of what's best for human knowledge and what I think of the authors article. Pretending that me having a different view is "absurd", is arrogant and misguided. That you are unable to understand that I have different needs and ways of approaching life is - apparently - a problem...:P
> I never claimed to know what's best for them, I would even go as far as saying I don't care what's best for them, I was speaking from a position of what I think's best for human knowledge. Fundamentally, if you agree burning books - metaphorically - is a bad thing, then you agree deleting second brains instead of just archiving is a bad thing.
This is the clarity needed for the discussion, kudos for providing it.
The position implied in your comments is that "what's best for human knowledge" trumps what an individual feels is good for themselves. Even when all we're talking about here is some personal notes.
If a person has a bunch of personal data that they feel is exerting a negative influence on their lives, I don't think that is trumped by the potential interest of strangers and abstract humanity in that data. I would rather the person find their path to being a flourishing, alive person than yoke them to some junk that they feel holds them back.
> I didn't mean to imply (…) but prevent the need for either of us to have to keep doing it...
Alright, fair! Thank you for clarifying.
> I never claimed to know what's best for them (…) I was speaking from a position of what I think's best for human knowledge
Even rereading your original post, it still feels like some parts are a direct prescription for the author. But I believe you if you say that wasn’t your intention. I guess my argument would then be that I still support the author in their deletion, for several reasons, including but not limited to:
* We don’t actually know what was “lost”. Let’s be real: most of what any of us writes is irrelevant and inconsequential and wouldn’t truly contribute to human knowledge as a whole.
* I don’t think it’s fair for the author to suffer in any way, even if it’s “just” anxiety, for the dubious benefit of human knowledge. Even if they did have valuable insights in their texts, they are still their texts and they should have the final say regarding what happens to them. If they want to burn them and doing so will help them get their life back on track, they should. I would argue that without that purge, they could actually be doing more harm to human knowledge in the long run, by not letting them “get back on their feet” and be free for all the new and more valuable insights they’ll have but wouldn’t otherwise.
> Fundamentally, if you agree burning books - metaphorically - is a bad thing, then you agree deleting second brains instead of just archiving is a bad thing.
I agree burning books is bad on principle, but disagree that what the author did was comparable. They didn’t take away from human knowledge, like book burning does. They deleted personal notes no one else was ever probably going to read anyway. The difference is massive.
> Pretending that me having a different view is "absurd"
To be perfectly clear, the only thing I found absurd what that specific quote in relation to what the author did. I.e. I found it to be hyperbolic beyond the realm of reasonable argument. Everything else I found reasonable as a personal opinion as long as it’s not prescribed as the solution for everyone.
> That you are unable to understand that I have different needs and ways of approaching life is - apparently - a problem
Again, that is perfectly fine and valid. But in your original posts you explicitly asked for everyone to act a certain way and my primary goal as to point out that no, I don’t think that should apply to everyone. Many people, sure, but there is definitely a large section of the population for whom I don’t think it would be the right approach. For their own sake, which in this situation trumps “human knowledge”.
> I agree burning books is bad on principle, but disagree that what the author did was comparable. They didn’t take away from human knowledge, like book burning does. They deleted personal notes no one else was ever probably going to read anyway. The difference is massive.
There's so much we know about the world from personal notes the author never knew or intended to be read. There's no way of knowing if your personal notes will be valuable to inconceivable futures. We all have to endure a little struggle to maintain society's knowledge. I respect and understand that you disagree with me in various nuanced ways. We're not going to agree, not for any reasons other than we just have fundamentally different views on the world, or one of us is disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing, possibly without realising.
I'm sorry, to anyone who's read this far. Instead of my "... I'll give you one more, but I probably wont respond...." I should have just said "let's just agree to disagree" and stopped there. I don't think either of us have added much valuable at all since.
Sincerely, apologies for any offence caused or time wasted in frustration.
> There was no “destruction of knowledge”. It was a collection of notes which was never going to be looked at again and was causing stress to the author. Written knowledge which isn’t read is as useless at that which isn’t written in the first place. Would you also decry someone for not having written the note in the first place?
I disagree that there was no destruction of knowledge. Even if the author is just copy/pasting from random sources, the link and choice of putting those 2 copies in the same folder is a bit of knowledge, a link solidified with an action. We have different ideas of what constitutes knowledge, I think you know you're being ridiculous if you're sincerely trying to argue that 7 years worth of notes doesn't have a single new contribution of any value to anything or anyone at all.
I do decry people who don't take personal notes.
> It was not a library. I bet that for the author it felt closer a hoarder’s house with stacks of scattered newspapers.
I totally agree that's how the author felt - they let their own negative feelings towards what they've created destroy something which could be valuable to others.
> Absurd. Deleting written notes does not make you immediately forget everything that was written on them. The lessons they needed, they internalised. The ones they didn’t weren’t important anyway. Sure, there may have been some good notes in there, but not in enough quantity and quality to warrant wading though them all and justify the extra anxiety the existence of these lists caused.
What's even your point here? You start saying how notes aren't even needed and are pointless to be written down, then you argue that maybe there is some value in them written down, and then come back to support my argument that the author's own personal feelings have lead to the destruction of something valuable.
> No, they will not. Signed, someone who learned to delete relentlessly and is much happier for it.
> Maybe you would regret it. That says nothing about other people. If anything, I’d regret the years when I didn’t delete stuff.
Ignorance is bliss: you can't get upset about the things you don't know any more. Knowledge is hard.
Your position about not regretting throwing away potential personal knowledge and memories isn't a position I've heard from anyone over (*edited typo) the age of 50. You don't regret it just like the author doesn't, I think you have a future of denial or upset.
> Yes, there was. The author needed it for their mental well-being and development. Let them be. Everyone copes with life in different ways. We’re all going to die, all your notes will be meaningless in the end.
There's other ways to deal with information overload, like proper archiving. We're all going to die, and the only reason why have a culture or knowledge as a species is because everyone else hasn't done what this person is doing.
> No, everyone should do what makes sense for them personally.
> Having the thing “out of the way” is not the same as having it gone. It’s a very different feeling, like saving a memento from an unhealthy relationship VS throwing it away. There is freedom in deciding to let go without recourse.
Congratulations with the individualism, you made yourself feel free by burning books. If that makes you happy - you do you, I don't care - but don't act like it's benefit anyone else other than the person struggling with the feeling of information overload.