In days of old, America was ruled by a wise man, a scholar, himself the son of a scholar. The world was at peace. It rained Skittles in the morning and marshmallows at night. All was well. To the west, rose a philosopher-warrior-prince, Eliezer of the House of Yudkowsky, and he taught us thusly: “let…
Mental Tools
The Art of War (Sort Of) Applied to Learning A Language: Logistics, Supply Lines and Force Concentration
by khatzumoto
This entry is part 3 of 17 in the series The Art of War of LearningFor starters, let me put this out there, just so we’re clear: I am a pacifist. I think armed conflict is almost always some combination of immoral, unnecessary and/or stupid. True, literal self-defense would be the only exception, which is…
Cargo Cult Learning vs. Guerrilla Learning
by khatzumoto
“David’s victory over Goliath, in the Biblical account, is held to be an anomaly. It was not. Davids win all the time. The political scientist Ivan Arreguín-Toft recently looked at every war fought in the past two hundred years between strong and weak combatants. The Goliaths, he found, won in 71.5 per cent of the…
Why America Doesn’t Win Wars Any More and What (Ironically) That Can Teach You About Learning Languages
by khatzumoto
This entry is part 14 of 17 in the series The Art of War of LearningThis entry is part 25 of 26 in the series Timeboxing TrilogyYou like that lame, Buzzfeedy title? Yeah. You know you do. Based on that title, you may be thinking that you’re about to read an answer to the question…
Why You Don’t Actually Have A “Native” Language (Nobody Does. There’s No Such Thing.)
by khatzumoto
There is no such thing as a native language or a native dialect or accent. You don’t have one. I don’t have one. No one does. Let’s unpack this. The word “native” comes from the Old French natif, which comes from the Latin nātīvus, which itself comes from nātus (also Latin), the past participle of…
Skills Resulting From Work Applied Consistently Over time Look Like Genius
by khatzumoto
This entry is part 9 of 10 in the series What It Takes to Be Great “Skills resulting from work applied consistently over time look…like genius to others who haven’t done the work. Genius these days is universally taken as genetic genius. People will go through considerable contortions to believe this is responsible for things…