Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
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Notes -
Has anyone else noticed that people in academic or intellectual hobbies tend to split in terms of disposition? On one hand, you have fact collectors; Those professors who read everything in a dry voice, who seem impartial to the conclusions or suggestions of whatever they might say, as if the raw accumulation of knowledge or data were the only goal, and who fill their books with raw, nigh uncategorized information. On the other hand, you have those who love intellectual topics due to their love of conclusions, and who see knowledge as a stepping stone to something greater. These types love to cherrypick, they make sweeping generalizations, they are often your world-famous intellectuals.
I don't have much to add to this dichotomy, but I believe it would benefit everyone if we recognized it. Partially because they are incompatible: Just as narrative writers draw ire from the fact collectors and their inaccuracies, so too the former is frustrated with the latter's awful signal-to-noise ratio. As one hard-aligned in the former category, I find myself learning more from a Thucydides than an Oxbridge historian or a Freud than a journal; even if I entirely disagree with their narrative it still produces something to collide against and draw sparks, whereas a collection of facts passes through empty air leaving no impression.
Yep knowledge lovers vs wisdom lovers. A tale as old as time.
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