最好的作者尊重读者的时间The Best Authors Respect the Reader’s Time
Nivi：与叔本华不同，你是一位"工业哲学家"。就像工业设计师一样，你的哲学是为大众设计的。人们会建议你读那些伟大的著作——亚里士多德、维特根斯坦，以及所有那些被认为伟大的哲学家。
这些书我几乎全读过，从中收获甚微。我真正获得价值的地方，是像你这样的 Twitter 上的人的哲思。任何人要是想读哲学，我只会告诉他们：别读了，直接去读戴维·多伊奇吧。
Naval：你说得没错。你提到的那些哲学家，我一个都受不了。我也不喜欢柏拉图。
我拿起又放下的其他哲学著作都相当快，因为他们只是在细枝末节上做极其晦涩的论证，试图提出包罗万象的世界理论。连叔本华也落入了这个陷阱。当他试图与其他哲学家对话时，是他最糟糕的状态。
我喜欢的是他的短篇随笔。在那里，他几乎写得就像在 Twitter 上发帖一样。他本可以统治 Twitter。他的思想密度极高——思考得非常透彻；例子和类比精炼而巧妙。你可以随手翻开，读一段，接下来一小时都在思考。我认为多亏读了他，我才成了更好的写作者、更好的思考者，也更善于识人断性。
不过，他写作于 19 世纪初。每当他涉足科学、医学或政治话题时，显然就偏离了正轨——那些内容已经不再适用。但当他写人性的时候，那就是永恒的。
但凡涉及人性的内容，我说去读那些"林迪"之书吧——那些更古老的书，那些经受住了时间考验的书。但如果你想发展专长、靠它赚钱、做出有用的事，那你就要待在最前沿。那种知识时效性更强，也会更快过时。
这两者都说得通。而让我想不通的，是去读那些既非"林迪"、又不涉及人性、却年代久远的东西。我同样回避那些知识密度低的内容，比如历史书。
我喜欢威尔·杜兰特的《历史的教训》，因为它是《文明的故事》的浓缩版——那是他多达十二卷的鸿篇巨制。但我不会去读那十二卷。历史我读得够多了。我知道他指的是这类内容，所以对于他书中的高层次观点，我不是仅仅听信他的一面之词。
但与此同时，在我人生的这个阶段，我想读高密度的作品。你可以称之为"TikTok 病"或"Twitter 一代"，但这也只是对时间的尊重。我们已经有大量数据，也有一些知识。现在我们要的是智慧，是能够附着于我们脑海中已有的一切信息之上的普适原则。
我们确实想读高密度的作品，而我认为叔本华就是非常高密度的作品。
我所有最喜欢的作家都是高密度的。多伊奇密度极高，博尔赫斯密度很高，特德·姜密度很高，早期的尼尔·斯蒂芬森密度也很高（后来他变成高产量、高密度、什么都高了）。
但最优秀的作家尊重读者的时间，叔本华就非常符合这一点。
Nivi: Unlike Schopenhauer, you are an industrial philosopher. Like an industrial designer, your philosophy is designed for the masses. People suggest you read the great books—Aristotle and Wittgenstein and all the supposedly great philosophers.
I’ve read almost all that stuff, and I’ve gotten very little value from it. Where I have gotten value is the philosophizing of people on Twitter, like you. Anybody who wants to read philosophy, I would just tell them to skip it and go read David Deutsch.
Naval: You’re not wrong. I can’t stand any of the philosophers you talked about. I don’t like Plato either.
Every other piece of philosophy I’ve picked up and put down relatively quickly because they’re just making very obscure arguments over minutiae and trying to come up with all-encompassing theories of the world. Even Schopenhauer falls into that trap. When he tries to talk to other philosophers, he’s at his worst.
When I like him is in his shorter essays. That’s where he almost writes like he’s on Twitter. He would have dominated Twitter. He has high density of ideas—very well thought through; good, minimal examples and analogies. You can pick it up, read one paragraph, and you’re thinking for the next hour. I think I’m a better writer, a better thinker, and a better judge of people and character thanks to what I read from him.
Now, he’s writing from the early part of the 19th century. Whenever he wanders into topics that are scientific or medical or political, he’s obviously off base—that stuff doesn’t apply anymore. But when he’s writing about human nature, that is timeless.
When it comes to anything about human nature, I say go read the Lindy books—the older books, the ones that have survived the test of time. But if you want to develop specific knowledge, get paid for it, do something useful, then you want to stay on the bleeding edge. That knowledge is going to be more timely and obsolete more quickly.
Those two make sense. What doesn’t make sense to me is just reading stuff that’s not Lindy, or that’s not about human nature, but is old. I also shy away from stuff that’s low density in the learnings, like history books.
I like The Lessons of History by Will Durant because it’s a summarization of The Story of Civilization, which was his large 12-volume series. But I’m not going to go read the 12-volume series. I’ve read plenty of history. I know he’s referring to these kinds of things, so I’m not just taking his word for it on high-level concept.
But at the same time, at this point in my life, I want to read high-density works. You can call it the TikTok Disease or the Twitter generation, but it’s also just being respectful of our time. We already have a lot of data. We have some knowledge. Now we want wisdom. Now we want the generalized principles that we can attach to all of the other information we already have in our minds.
We do want to read high-density work, but I would argue that Schopenhauer is very high-density work.
All my favorite authors are very high density. Deutsch is extremely high density. Borges is very high density. Ted Chiang is very high density. The old Neal Stephenson was very high density (then he just got high volume, high density, high everything).
But the best authors respect the reader’s time, and Schopenhauer is very much in that vein.