This is a special post for quick takes by Biff Wiff. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.
Over the past however many months, I've noticed myself posting a lot more quick takes and a lot less posts. I wonder whether the quick takes feature is a net positive for me.
I posted this quick take a few minutes ago. If quick takes weren't available, maybe I would have taken more time to develop the idea further and turn it into a higher quality post. Then again, I also very well may have just not written anything at all.
Sometimes I start to write a quick take, and when it becomes too long I convert it to a post and continue writing. This helps me overcome a part of writer's block, because starting the quick take does not feel like a serious decision: I am not committing to write a long coherent text.
I am not sure I remember correctly which of my posts started this way, but it seems like most of the recent ones:
* Evaporation of improvements
* Some comments on intelligence
* An anti-inductive sequence
* Trying to be rational for the wrong reasons
* The first AI war will be in your computer
* Learned helplessness about "teaching to the test"
This has effectively doubled my posting frequency. (And, guessing by positive karma, that is a good thing?)
2Biff Wiff
Interesting! That seems like it makes a lot of sense. Now I'm wondering why that hasn't happened with me.
First I assumed that the answer would be something like "my average comment is longer than yours, so my average quick take is more likely to be post-sized", but from a brief look at our comment histories it doesn't seem to be the case; I'd say our comments are comparable in length.
When I write comments, I am in a "reactive mode" -- the text I have just read has triggered an emotion, and the emotion is driving my writing. I think as I write; when I am starting a comment I often have no idea how it would end. Sometimes the last paragraph ... (read more)