I'm curious: how do stackers usually learn? Taking Bitcoin as an example, I first heard about it randomly IRL, then did some research, later met different people along the way, which triggered more curiosity about Bitcoin.
But to this day, I still haven't fully read any Bitcoin books or own any 👀 because I am not really someone who sits in a room and learns that type of person, I like to play around things with my hand, make mistake and then fix it, so running a node and figuring out things along the way was pretty fun for me, then it led me to SN due to my search for good information and then discovered @Darthcoin, I would say I learned most of my Bitcon knowledge from him, his valuable posts are underrated.
Slowly, I hang around in SN and absorb more and more each day, It's been at least 4 years since I've been active here, being immersed in the environment definitely helps.
I am sure I still have a lot to learn about Bitcoin, but I am also freeing up more headspace to learn something else I'm interested in, like learning a new language, I would like to know how stackers usually learn? Especially in times full of noise, AI slop, bots, and influencers who do whatever to get attention, finding normal people who genuinely share without trying to build an online following is hard these days, since everyone wants to be a content creator and make money. Interestingly, I learned most of my skills not from any course or influencers, but from people who selflessly share the right information.
The experience of ‘doing’ goes much deeper than hearing, reading or speaking about what you want to learn.
Same as you, I guess! I just dive in and figure it out. I generally don't read the books or guides until I know what's what because I, owning my shortcomings like a champ and as if they are virtues (as a high-school dropout), hate someone telling me the way it is before I know the way it is. I'm open to someone's perspective from the moment I can form an idea about the limits of it, not before.
So I generally just do things.
I guess what I am trying to say is that it's getting harder and harder to find good information with so many pollution.It used to be so much simpler: search key word and wow, so many good blogs with years of deep sharing.
Exactly. The web is enshittified and it takes forever to find something relevant now. It's all buried under slop.
So, we fight fire with fire.
If you seek specific information, skip the search engine and ask an agent straight. For example, when I decided that no one was helping @Undisciplined with his Avalon adapter issue so I'd spend some time, I only had one data point for a 3S and it was completely useless. I just passed an instruction to arena agents instead of endless googling:
That gave me a couple more cases with some good info in them, that I then went and read. It did 68 searches for me in a few minutes and compressed and filtered all the rubbish to a list of 10 reports (of which 6 were still bs, but 68 searches * 10 results = would have had 680 links to read, and probably wouldn't have found much more.)
i still haven't get my hand on AI thing. 👀
These things got useful only a few months ago, and there's still a lot of things that need to be ironed out, so don't be in a hurry! Just try it whenever you're stuck anyway?
Just tested it, it seems they don't even list the source now?
Look at what I wrote in the prompt I shared. You have to instruct it with what you expect. So if you expect to get links, tell it "give me links". Don't ask. Instruct. Be Drill Sergeant Natalia.
noted. 👀
Which I should have done myself, since you had already turned me on to Arena.
I still spent an hour and half or so reading and cross referencing the reports and making sense of what all that means; the bot was just a way to get leads, like Google used to be. And it was my pleasure anyway because I learned some things about how USB-C power supplies are used.
It seems these agents are becoming the search engine now? They first polluted the search so people need to use them to filter the junks, crazy.
People polluted the search. You just gotta use the tools better than the masses and you're already ahead, which is easy as long as you're not lazy.
You are right. 😂
A book like the one I wrote (Bitcoin Hands On) is the way I would have loved to be able to learn about Bitcoin, at the beginning of my journey. That's for technical/self-custody part, anyway. It has (without much detail, until you need it) a set of step-by-step exercises in setting up wallets, backing up, restoring, sending and receiving, etc.
For the "Why Bitcoin" aspect of things, The Bitcoin Standard by Saifadean Ammous was amazing. That sent me down the rabbit hole.
I learn through obsessions, I think. I get some idea or concept in my head and then I just can't seem to think about anything else for a while, and looks like a desire jump into whatever it is with every spare minute.
I can learn things about which I'm not obsessed, but rarely do (unless it somehow serves the to further one of my obsessive investigations).
Read, learn, ask, discuss, test, do it all over again. Ignore insults or derision by know-it-alls, grow a thick skin, and learn more. Actually testing is the most important part. You don't know how Bitcoin really works until you get your hands dirty with the blockchain either using it, researching it or building in it.
agree.
I’m probably more abstract in how I learn than you, but I know we both like to put ourselves in situations where interesting things are being done or discussed that we can pick up on.
From there, I like to reflect on the new ideas and see where they fit in with the rest of my my worldview.
It’s generally after I’ve done that reflection that I start implementing new things into my life.
I like to catch leads or keywords along the way, then trace them down, climbing the ladder of the previously mentioned. 👀
The first few sources I use to start the whole tracing are usually important.
I believe it is possible to learn how to learn in different ways
Each way of learning has benefits and weaknesses
some are overlapping but some are distinct
You are unlikely to learn the underlying math from a podcast or a conversation in a forum
There is no substitute for the source material and learning to read it, and learning to learn that way is just a matter of repetition
There is no such thing as skill or ability, only reps
Yes!
I would say source of good info - testing - reps, and it's harder and harder to find source of good info in the age of AI slops.
I am a curious person. I have read dozens of books on Bitcoin, Austrian economics, cryptography, and economic history among other adjacent topics.
Running a full verification Bitcoin node and building custom monitoring tools helped me understand many of the nuances of Bitcoin. The attached image is from my custom built 11 pane tmux dashboard that monitors all of the Bitcoin parameters that matter to me. Each pane required a deep dive into that specific aspect of the Bitcoin network.
0: Blockchain and latest block statistics
1: Recent blocks and their timestamps, # of txs, size
2: Hashrate and difficulty
3: Peers and peering protocol statistics
4: Top peering networks by ASN
5: Peering clients and statistics
6: Fee estimates and UTXO stats
7: Mempool sorted by largest fees
8: Mempool and node stats
9: btop - node system monitoring tool
10: Debug log.
The one thing I do not monitor is the price. Because that is the only thing everyone else cares about, yet it is the least interesting aspect of Bitcoin.
Are there other aspects of node monitoring I am not covering that I should look into?
Studying Bitcoin is the only way to learn; we learn from trial and error. Those with knowledge rarely appear in videos and other advertisements.
a few months ago i was a unbeginner in weed-pulling; i am still a beginner, and at least i have begun;
#1559441
I think the internet is getting more transactional comparing how it was 10 years ago. 🤔
Same here — I learn by doing, not by reading. For Bitcoin specifically: I ran a pruned node on an old laptop (took a few tries, broke it twice) and sent myself small lightning payments between two wallets until the mechanics clicked. The book I did read later made 10x more sense because I already had the failures to hang the concepts on. My rule now: pick something tiny and slightly too hard, break it, fix it, repeat. Books are for after you've dirtied your hands, not before.