The Potential Side Effects of Progressive Summarization

Metadata

• Author: 닉 마일로
• Full Title: The Potential Side Effects of Progressive Summarization
• Category: #articles #Readwise
• URL: https://medium.com/@nickmilo22/why-progressive-summarization-must-die-c2635d1f79f1
• Document Note: This article explores the potential side effects of progressive summarization, a method that involves strategically deferring how one processes digital information over time. The method is said to reduce wasted time on articles by focusing only on what is needed. However, overuse of the method can lead to over-collecting, over-summarizing, and under-thinking, resulting in a digital library filled with many barely summarized articles and snippets. Additionally, the method can lead to reduced unique output, under-learning, confusion with summarization, a false sense of learning, and a lack of fresh, insightful thinking. The article proposes an alternative method called active ideation, which prioritizes developing one's own nuanced thoughts on the material.

Highlights

• The goal of this article is to get you to consider how you spend your time thinking, what habits you are unconsciously forming, and quality of long-term value you are creating. (View Highlight)
  • Note: 생각에 시간을 쏟고, 장기적 가치의 관점을 고려하는 것
• “Progressive Summarization” is a method for collecting digital information — like an article — and then strategically deferring how you process it into incremental steps over time. (View Highlight)
• • If overused, “Progressive Summarization” indirectly develops habits of over-collecting, over-summarizing, and under-thinking. (View Highlight)
• Potential Side Effects of “Progressive Summarization” (View Highlight)
• Over-collecting: It encourages the habit of “collecting without processing”. (View Highlight)
  • Note: 정리나 처리하는(processing) 과정 없이 정보를 수집하는 습관에 빠질 수 있다.
• Apparently this is because all note taking systems have to balance “Discoverability” — which comes from you processing information — and “Understanding” — which comes from you referring to original content. (View Highlight)
• I’d argue a higher goal should be your personal understanding of the concepts, what it relates to, and what it means to you.) (View Highlight)
  • Note: 보다 높은 목표는 개념을 이해하고, 어떻게 연결되고, 어떤 의미를 가지는지 이해하는 것이 보다 중요하다.
• this means saving many articles, while fully processing few. (View Highlight)
  • Note: 많이 저장하고 적게 보는 걸 의미한다.
• I’d argue that less valuable information shouldn’t have made it in your digital library in the first place! (View Highlight)
  • Note: 덜 중요한 정보 자체가 디지털 라이브러리에 들어가면 안되는 것이다.
• Reduced Unique Output: A full process of “Progressive Summarization” looks like this: read, wait, bold, wait, highlight, wait, summarize the highlights, wait, and finally, remix the summary into your own words. (This is a full example. Not all steps have to be followed. Be natural here.) (View Highlight)
• Your best thinking is when you are engaged in the material you encounter, relating it to other things, and finding your unique perspective amongst it all. (View Highlight)
  • Note: 최고의 생각은 처음 만났을 때 연결하고 생각하는 데서 온다.
• Progressive Summarization” could more accurately be called “Just in Time” Summarization (View Highlight)
• The long-term effect is that your digital library might cause you more anxiety over time — discouraging you from even using it. (View Highlight)
  • Note: 에버노트와 비슷하게 수집만 해두고 안 볼 가능성도 생기게 됨
• Active Ideation is:
  1. Highlight/Comment/Relate
  2. Create/Connect/Create (View Highlight)
  • Note: 2단계만 하면 된다! 사실 뭔 차이인지 잘 모르겠다.
• Active Ideation Creates Real Value (View Highlight)
• Notes aren’t just static records of our thinking. Rather, we think with our notes.
  — Richard Feynman (View Highlight)
  • Note: Reader Test

New highlights added May 31, 2023 at 7:13 PM

• The overuse of “Progressive Summarization” encourages the same thing as the industrial factory-based education system: the production of people more skilled in repeating knowledge instead of connecting and developing it. (View Highlight)
  • Note: 산업 시대의 공장 기반의 교육 시스템과 비슷한 단계별 요약, 연결하고 발전시키는 대신 지식을 반복하는 데 익숙한 사람을 만든다.
• Summarizing is an OG superpower. (View Highlight)
  • Note: 요약은 구시대의 슈퍼파워다.
• summarizing takes time. (View Highlight)
  • Note: 공감한다. 시간이 너무 많이 걸린다.

New highlights added May 31, 2023 at 10:02 PM

• Let’s call this…Active Ideation (former coined “Progressive Ideation”). The name matters less than the practice, which is basically just “relating ideas as you encounter them and developing them further over time”. (View Highlight)
  • Note: 단계별 요약을 대체할 만한 뭔가를 만들고 싶은 닉 마일로의 욕심이 보인다. 어떤 부분은 공감이 가는데 이렇게 길게 비판할 시간에 자신의 방법을 가다듬는 게 나을 수도 있다.
• The Collector’s Fallacy — coined by Christian Tietze — argues that the act of “collecting” is easy. It feels like progress but it’s not. (View Highlight)
  • Note: 수집은 쉬운 행동이고 발전하는 기분이 들지만 실제로 그렇지 않다.
• On your first reading of something, you extract a lot of understanding. But when you do the second reading, you read with a sense of “I know this, I know this.”…and it’s insidious, because this gives you the illusion that you know the material very well, when in fact there are gaps. — Mark McDaniel, coauthor of Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning¹ (View Highlight)
  • Note: 단계별 요약은 내가 이 내용을 잘 안다는 착각을 줄 수도 있다. (친숙함과 이해는 다른 것인데도 불구하고)
• Rereading and re-highlighting are only worth doing when the material is dense and you need to reread just to understand it. Otherwise not only is it time wasted, it can actually get in the way of making leaps of insight: (View Highlight)
  • Note: 꽉찬 아티클이나 문헌을 읽을 때 필요한 것이 단계별 요약이다. 그렇지 않으면 시간 낭비이고, 우리의 통찰이 도약하는 걸 방해한다.
• (View Highlight)
• And that’s fine. The world needs that too. But is that who you want to be? A parrot? Is that how you want to pay tribute to the wondrous act of thinking?⁴ (View Highlight)
  • Note: 앵무새가 되는 걸 원하는가?
• A chaotic digital library filled with the highlights of everyone else’s words?? (View Highlight)
  • Note: 단계별 요약을 하고 나서 제텔카스텐 방식으로 메모를 저장하면 앵무새를 벗어날 수 있으나 시간이 너무 많이 걸림
• Active Ideation is:
  1. Highlight/Comment/Relate
  2. Create/Connect/Create (View Highlight)
  • Note: ACE 프레임워크와 비슷하다. 하이라이트하고 코멘트하고 연결해서, 만들고 연결하고 표현해야(글을 적어야) 마무리 된다.
• • As you read, you’re actively engaged. You make highlights and comments as you go — and you’re not afraid to think in the back of your mind: “How does this relate*?”* (View Highlight)
  • Note: 연결하는 게 핵심이다.
• • Later, with an equally engaged mind, you create new notes from the highlights and comments, or you connect an idea with an already existing note — and you continue to create all sorts of dynamically related and growing ideas. (View Highlight)
• From these “thought intersections” in your dynamically growing digital library, you naturally start to create stuff. An article. A product. A business. Or simply a well-connected, super dependable, digital conversation partner. One that knows all the same jokes you do! One that often says, “Hey, remember when…” (View Highlight)
  • Note: 연결만 하면 창조로 이어지는가? 나와 가장 닮은 멘탈 모델을 만들어 나가는 것과 같다.
• When you read something new, what if you added comments as you went? (View Highlight)
  • Note: 내가 항상 읽으면서 하는 일
• What if you converted some of that information into new notes, each representing a new idea, each written in your own words? (View Highlight)
  • Note: 내가 한 메모는 모두 고유의 생각을 나타내고, 나의 언어로 적힌 것이기 때문에 영구노트 자격을 가지는가? 닉 마일로 입장에서 보면 단계별 요약과 마찬가지로 제텔카스텐의 임시메모, 영구메모도 필요 없는 것일지 모른다. 그런데 가공하는 시간은 갖는다고 봤음 (state/seed, boat 등)
• “Just in Time” “Progressive Summarization” is a low-value activity that encourages the bad habits of over-collecting, over-summarizing, and under-thinking. It’s a short-term means to an end. (View Highlight)
  • Note: 단계별 요약에 대한 분석맨의 새로운 생각이 있는지 블로그 한 번 살펴봐야겠다. 단계별 요약이 진짜 정수만 남기는 과정인가?
• Active Ideation says: be an active, engaged participant in the conversation, extract ideas into your own words as early in the process as you can, and start developing your own take on them, while linking them to others — and over the years your compounded value will explode. (View Highlight)
• Active Ideation Encourages Connective Thinking (View Highlight)
• You’ll be in a position to naturally make leaps of insights between unrelated concepts across domains. (View Highlight)
• Imagine coming across the the idea of “Mirror Neurons.” You think: “That’s a cool concept.” (View Highlight)
• Simultaneously, naturally, organically, you’re thinking: “What does this relate to?” “Ah yes”, you say, then you connect it to a similar concept, “Like begets like”. (View Highlight)
• But then you hear that Mirror Neurons are actually a debatable phenomenon currently. Here’s why Active Ideation is so valuable: You don’t delete the note, you just add the counter-example to the note. (View Highlight)
  • Note: 이후에 반대 사례를 듣게 되면 기존 노트에 연결시키면 된다. 노트를 바꾸거나 삭제할 필요가 없다.
• Active Ideation Builds a Dynamic Digital Library (View Highlight)
• (View Highlight)
• It focuses on merging ideas, concepts, and thoughts of other people into our own words and linking these new ideas into the web of knowledge we’ve already developed. THIS is how our knowledge grows! (View Highlight)
  • Note: 아이디어를 통합하고, 다른 이들의 개념이나 생각을 자신의 단어로 바꾸면서 우리가 기존에 갖고 있는 지식에 연결시킬 때 지식이 자라난다.
• This solution is basically the zettelkasten approach which converts the author’s words into your words much earlier in the process and then assimilates whatever you extracted into your growing body of knowledge (via links). (View Highlight)
  • Note: 제텔카스텐 방식과 정확히 일치한다. 책에서 많은 통찰이 나온다면 거기에 관련된 노트를 모두 만들면 되는가? 내가 처음 옵시디언 배울 때 pdf 책 보면서 했던 방식과 동일하다.
• In this way, you spend more time developing your thoughts (compounding value), as opposed to progressively curating other people’s thoughts. (View Highlight)
• We need you to be your best self. We need you to share your unique perspective and ideas with the rest of us. (View Highlight)
• your focus should be on creating your own work. You should spend time on the actions that create value — which are note-making and ideation (View Highlight)
  • Note: 자신의 것을 만들고 가치를 만들고, 아이디어를 만드를 과정에 시간을 쓰자.
• This is the power of LINKING YOUR THINKING: a system inspired by the Zettelkasten methodology and built on fluid frameworks that will supercharge your thinking today — and deep into the future. (View Highlight)
  • Note: Linking Your Thinking은 제텔카스텐을 기반으로 하는 유연하고 성장하는 유연한 프레임워크다.