On Learning

As technology progresses at a rate faster than Moore’s Law, we, as a species, are trying to keep up. Those passionate about learning new technologies will be tempted to cut corners, and that’s what I’d like to address.

In the late 1940s Percy Spencer accidentally invented the first microwave oven. This was one of the first technologies to forever warp our idea of time needed until consumption. It’s true the wheel, the automobile, the airplane, et cetera are all inventions that help us get what we want faster, but the microwave is something that most of us can relate to. It’s a device that gets food from the shelf to our mouths in the shortest amount of time. I say this has warped the idea of time needed until consumption because the same meal that used to take about thirty minutes can now be ready in about three.

There are numerous health concerns associated with microwavable meals. They’re usually saturated in sodium, partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, and food additives that wreak havoc on our bodies.

Preparing a warm, healthy meal the old-fashioned way—with a conventional oven and range—can take thirty minutes or more. We have to plan the meal, pick out the ingredients, think about each spice and its effect on the taste, and orchestrate it all by dinner time. Odds are you won’t get this right on the first try. Cooking the old-fashioned way takes practice. It takes patience. It requires a few subpar meals before getting it just right. But the benefits of a home-cooked meal are priceless. You have the satisfaction of knowing what you’re eating, the therapeutic side effects from creating something, and all the joys associated with a healthy diet.

The principle of least effort, herein referred to as PLE, postulates that animals, people, even well designed machines will naturally choose the path of least resistance or effort. PLE perfectly annunciates the zeitgeist in which we live. We’re a microwave society dependent on quick fixes, fast information, and doing things the easy way. Much like the microwave, this fast path to consumption isn’t always healthy.

I’m not arguing that the PLE is bad or wrong. I think it’s utterly dependent for the evolution of our species. I’m arguing that there is a time and a place for adhering to the principle and a time and place for using a conventional oven, so to speak.

I like real world examples, so here’s such an example of the PLE. Say you need to know what a ligature in typography is because you overheard someone talking about ligatures the night before at dinner and it piqued your curiosity. So, you ask a friend who’s really into typography. Your friend tells you it’s just the combination of two or more graphemes into one glyph. You smile, nod, and walk away. You’re now equipped with the basic definition of a typographic ligature. You may still have no clue what a grapheme or glyph is, but you’re okay with that limited understanding. You’ve successfully applied the principle of least effort. This is neither bad nor wrong. Alternatively, you could have purchased a book on typography and read in detail about the history of ligatures, why they’re used, etc. This would have, possibly, been the path of greatest effort, and you’d be fully equipped with not only the definition of a typographic ligature but the understanding of why they’re used, when they were first used, and what graphemes and glyphs are. Do you really need to know everything about ligatures? Probably not. So you may be asking, “What’s the benefit of having that information, and more importantly, what’s your point?”

I’m arguing that the principle of least effort is causing for a society in which knowing the bare minimum is acceptable and truly understanding a topic is going the way of the buffalo. There’s nothing wrong with knowing the bare minimum about a certain topic, but knowing more than enough has positive side effects, namely, it leads to understanding and clarity. Do you need to know assembly language in order program a for loop? Not at all. Can knowing assembly language clarify what is happening in your for loop? Definitely.

Taking the path of greatest effort is not for the impatient. It takes time, planning, and a lot of reading and even more time practicing. It’s the conventional oven method for learning in a microwave oven society.

Keep this in mind when you start learning a new topic. Don’t feed the temptation to cut corners by reading quick tutorials on the internet. Rather, plan your time wisely: read a lot of books and spend twice that amount of time practicing what you read.