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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   13310 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 10, 2026

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any sort of reading is going to practice the reading comprehension skills that not only directly lead to more educational/professional attainment but also make reading genuinely good books more accessible and therefore more likely to influence them.

What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

There's a reason kids start with Dick and Jane before Pride and Prejudice

Yes, because they are children. I was hoping that I already addressed this line of reasoning in the previous comment.

What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Okay, so this is the crux of your disagreement? If I convince you that making a habit of reading anything, including slop, increases a person's ability to read generally-- you'll cede the argument?

I will admit up front that if you are genuinely illiterate, or close to it, you can probably get mileage out of reading any text at all. Beyond that, yes, that is the crux and I will concede if it turns out that people with normal reading abilities benefit in a measurable way from reading slop.

My model of learning is that most skills look kind of like pokemon exp curves-- logistic based on quantity of prior experience, but with difficult tasks paying out more exp. I'll concede that you can come up with definitions of "normal reading abilities" and "slop" such that the addional exp gained by reading slow is effectively negligible, but would argue that in practice...

  1. A person's ability to do something is a combination of not just their skill, but also their motivation and discipline. Even if a book completely fails to increase someone's reading skill, having more positive experiences with books overall increases their motivation to read, and making a habit out of reading increases their discipline.
  2. "Normal reading abilities" aren't. I can point you to any number of surveys that say text comprehension and literacy rates are dropping in the english-speaking world, especially as a result of idiotic teaching policies like elevating "Whole Language Learning" over "phonics". In particular, I addressed my recommendation to read slop very specifically to people I suspect have subnormal reading abilities, in some sense. Ref-- "If you feel like you're a guy, and you don't read enough"... "a parent of one or more boys". I can also point you to literal writing subreddits-- where we should expect people to be far better readers than average-- full of people the kinds of mistakes even trashy pulp novels won't.
  3. Akin to the old quote about family dynamics ("All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,") every bad book tends to be bad in its own unique and fascinating ways. That makes them each individually worthwhile as tutoring resources for what not to do, because even the least discerning reader is likely to pick up on specific things they don't like and end up wanting to avoid. Speaking of my own experience, I have read a truly absurd quantity of terrible fanfiction... and unfortunately, as a result, have managed to develop taste. I really wish I hadn't, but alas. I'd developed an allergic reaction to meandering plots, flat characters, and bland power fantasies that can really only be attributable to how many times I've encountered all of those things, and as result had my quota for "bad, but fun" books nearly saturated. That leaves me with the "good, but fun," and "less fun, but legitimately great" books, the kind I think you'd want me reading. I think other people can replicate that exact same path... if I just get them to start reading, first.

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