mf2 reviewed Ultralearning by Scott H. Young
None
3 stars
It is alright, but as others mentioned it reads like a very inflated blogpost. What annoyed me the most are the extremely repetitive examples. Young talked to about 5 people about their learning strategy and draws from these instances again and again, while ignoring any survivorship bias (as it is common for these types of books).
Nevertheless, it contains some useful takes. For me, the best advice was to research on how other people learned topic and to give this research lots of time, as it will save significant effort in the future.
Young should read Mortimer Adler's "How to read a book" - not only because Adler gives excellent advice on how to structure an expository book like this, but because he talks about what you can do if your learning is dependent on "absent teachers", i.e. you do not have access to a class or a 1:1 instructor …
It is alright, but as others mentioned it reads like a very inflated blogpost. What annoyed me the most are the extremely repetitive examples. Young talked to about 5 people about their learning strategy and draws from these instances again and again, while ignoring any survivorship bias (as it is common for these types of books).
Nevertheless, it contains some useful takes. For me, the best advice was to research on how other people learned topic and to give this research lots of time, as it will save significant effort in the future.
Young should read Mortimer Adler's "How to read a book" - not only because Adler gives excellent advice on how to structure an expository book like this, but because he talks about what you can do if your learning is dependent on "absent teachers", i.e. you do not have access to a class or a 1:1 instructor — which is the case for everyone today who tries to learn from youtube tutorials and books.
