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I think it'd be good to flag April Fools posts when it's not April 1 anymore, no?

Not that I don't appreciate the intellectual challenge of figuring out that it's a joke, I'm just concerned about non-LWers misinterpreting it.

Hmm. About 50% of my note pile can be browsed on https://edstrom.dev/. I have some notes on the method under https://edstrom.dev/zvjjm/slipbox-workflow.

How large did your note pile get before it felt overwhelming?

It's true that sometimes I see things I wrote that are clearly outdated or mistaken, but that's sort of fun because I see that I leveled up!

It's also embarrassing to have published mistakes online, so I've learned to make fewer unqualified claims and instead just document the path by which I arrived to my current conclusion. Such documentations are essentially timeless, as johnswentworth explains at How To Write Quickly While Maintaining Epistemic Rigor.

Still, I'm keeping more and more notes private over time, because of my increasing quality standards. But ignoring the matter of private/public, then I don't perceive updating as a problem yet, no. I don't mind having very outdated notes lying around, especially if they're private anyway. When I rediscover them, they will be effortless to update.

I can understand that, since you keep the handwritings as they are.

Just sharing my own process, but I like the notepad because it's ephemeral... I scribble what I learn, almost illegibly, and later type it up more nicely in my org-roam knowledge base, driven by sheer motivation to liberate myself from that stack of loose scribblings.

That way I get the upside of writing on paper (you learn better), but skip the downside that they're hard to look up.

There is much bikeshedding about eyestrain. I've seen convincing arguments, especially from older hackers, that a white background is actually less strainful for the eyes. I forgot what the arguments were---will write them down next time---but I don't think it's as simple as the amount of light hitting the eye. Currently I'd advise just trusting in personal experience.

And maybe experiment with increasing ambient light rather than reduce light from the screen.

One problem with the Kindle Scribe is that I couldn’t switch from the note-taking application to the book I was reading very quickly. It would take about 5 to 10 seconds in total to press all the menu buttons

Ah, yes! With the reMarkable (another e-reader), I have a trick: I installed an app switcher so I could merely use a gesture to switch between a writing app and reading app.

I quite appreciated having a single slate to read and write on, in environments like the bus and the beach. Anyway, the software was somewhat buggy... and then I lost my stylus pen and then the replacement stylus pen. So now I just use a paper notepad, which I find works nicely.

I have a question. Would a paper notepad have worked for you instead of a second device? What's better with the device?

Just a thought: I experience discomfort with only being able to sign up via a Google account. I can get over it personally, but we should observe I'm probably not the only one, so there are people out there for whom this is an insurmountable hump that stops them from getting started. I dunno how many in actuality, but there are definitely bubbles where it's normal not to have used a Google service for years.

Alas, I dunno what alternative sign-up would be quickest and easiest to implement.

What is the goal? Why do you need to do more than what has already been sufficient to create high-trust societies?

I'm no historian, but I cannot fit your exiling/killing theory to any recent society I know of.

I know the most about Sweden, so I'll discuss that society. Thinking about Sweden made several things obvious:

  1. First, an alternative mechanism with similar effect as exiling/killing: simply making the next generation better, and watching the stats improve over time.
  2. It's not just a question of good norms or correct education, as if these could develop in any direction independent of the government and system in general. Sweden underwent a transformation over many decades of social democracy (1930-1980), and it seems widely accepted now that crime rates went way down because society provided for every last member. Crime is habit-forming, and if no one ever needs to get into the habit, then you get your high-trust society. In fact, I'll add the hypothesis that you don't even need high education nor attempt to directly influence culture.
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