I'm ambivalent; on the one hand this could be a long-form article but on the other I prefer a ten tweet summary to a new Yorker article where they'll start by discussing a neuroscientist's dog walk for 500 words before getting to the topic.

Foone (the author) finds it impossible to write blog posts. So, they write Twitter threads instead in order to get something written. They’ve explained this in more detail here: https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1066547670477488128

This comes up any time @foone’s content gets posted.

TLDR; that’s authors choice both for stylistic reasons and personal. When the choice is between “don’t blog at all” and “post on twitter” because that’s what fits his mind process, I would rather read about it on twitter than not at all.

Judging by the amount of discussion here, it seems like this was thought provoking for a number of people despite the format.

I find twitter threads frustrating to follow also, but you could always... skip clicking the link if you feel so strongly about it.

As an aside, criticizing the form of content rather than the substance is not of particular interest in general, to be honest. It comes off as “I didn’t really have anything to say about the subject, but at least I can comment on perceived flaws in the style of presentation”.

The critique is actually that this stupid YouTuber attention-desperate style leads to Reddit level discussion. Especially because he just frames the whole process as being dumb rather than... interesting. So no it’s not just a style critique, he’s just making wild unfounded claims while trying to frame them as obvious truths.

If you like that style, then fine, why don’t you just not reply to this valid sub-thread? I don’t see you adding any to the discussion. But the discussion of the degradation of our ability to communicate due to social media incentivizing stupid clickbait is super important.

Apropos of nothing, thanks for your work on Recoil, it’s awesome :)

I don’t think the discussion on this post here is reddit-level - for example, I found the top level comment on the role of dreams, and the link to the commenter’s paper on psyarxiv super interesting. As I said in my comment, I too find the twitter thread format a bit frustrating to read.

What I was trying to say is that the author (Foone) has previously posted about this - for them, the choice really is between “blog this way or not at all” due to the way their mind works.

Of course the fact that this topic comes up every time is indicative, but I think what it indicates is that Twitter UX is terrible, not that the author is a bad person for choosing to share in this format.

Thanks! I haven’t done much at all, not sure if you’re involved with it but if so thanks right back, I do love Recoil and its potential.

I definitely should aim my criticism at the incentives more than the people, that’s a good point. I specifically like HN because it seems to have figured out pretty nice incentives (of course the lack of scale is the key).

I'd take a twitter thread over medium any day anyway.

I didn't say anything even remotely like they should not blog at all. Someone posted their opinion, some people disagreed with it - and escaped your criticism of "I don't have anything to say about the subject" - and I agreed with it.

If this happens any time this author is posted there's obviously something to the criticism of the style.

As for your aside, "if you don't like it, don't read" is also not a particularly interesting contribution, to be honest.

I didn’t mean to imply that you said they should not blog at all. I should have been clearer - this is something the author themself said in the past (linked in a sibling reply). For them, due to the way their mind works, that is the choice - they have tried long-form blogging and found themselves incapable of ever completing a post. I can relate to that experience in some ways.

I am not saying Twitter is a great platform for this type of thing - clearly it’s not.

Fair enough, and thanks. If I'd known the criticism was old news I wouldn't have added to it, or at worst done so ironically. I just saw someone posting similar thoughts to my own and basically let them know they weren't alone.

I now know what to expect if I do read more in future, but regardless of my opinion of the style, I definitely rather people post/publish in any form rather than not post at all. Anything that can inform people about something they weren't previously aware of is a good thing.