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User1  2yr ago (text post)   3514 thread views

Why Read?

I have never read a book in my life. I might as well be illiterate, and most people around me might as well be too. Most libraries are vacant, and bookstores are gone. But all these people are doing fine - we put anything down on paper, and despite its incoherence it seems fine by standards that have stooped for reasons I do not know. I can turn in something that makes absolutely no sense, and an instructor from a decent school will tell me that he enjoyed it. Or an instructor won’t enjoy it, but since most people don’t write anything comprehensible anymore I’ll still be fine. I can cruise through my education and get a job while barely having read much at all. Everyone frequents some variant of flimsy entertainment - cable news, cartoons, social media - so why bother trying to read anything worthwhile anyways if nobody else is? Does reading actually make you more curious, more intelligent, more human?

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You came to a website full of belligerent nerds who read and write thousands of words every day about everything and asked if reading is worth it. The trolling suspicion is nothing to do with the rules and everything to do with that. Would you be perplexed if you were called a troll after asking a football forum about the economic value of kicking a ball?

Please don't tell the troll why he's a troll. He already knows. Telling him only makes sense from a mistake theory point of view. Trolls are not mistake theory.

For every troll there's also someone who would do the same thing but be completely genuine. I don't think it's obvious that this is a troll, in fact I'd lean hevily towards it not being at the moment.

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