Editing Ex Ineptia, Scientia?

Those who study things the most understood them the least to start with. If you found mastery effortless, you're rarely going to study that thing carefully and rigorously. Of course, the usual lesson is in being humble and curious about things and assuming that you do not understand them, thereby bypassing the idiocy of casual mastery and gaining true understanding of the underpinnings.

But there is a flip side. It means that most such careful studies of things are by people fumbling their way through the darkness, slowly picking up knowledge on their way. When you're studying something like the [[wikipedia:Long Line (topology)|Long Line]], your work might be the first to explore the idea. Other times, it's like trying to find meaning in the initial stumbling of an infant as he learns to walk. Everyone's done it, but some struggle and others don't.

Only the strugglers ever write about it, though. No one ever says "I learned to walk and it was easy". Some of the time it's worth reading the ideas of the people who struggle, but really, most often, it's just that they're completely inept.

This pattern repeats itself on the Internet, where anyone can write, and few have learned something novel. The crucial thing here is that when the success rate is high, it's better to observe the winners than to take advice from the losers. Unfortunately, [[wikipedia:The blind leading the blind|many of these groups are self-reinforcing]]. Some obvious examples are:

* Dating Advice: Universally provided by the ''chronically'' single to the single. Every year, millions succeed at this!
* Introspective Posts: Universally by those who find their minds impenetrable to themselves. Every day, many people wake up and handle their lives.

This is interesting because you're better off not reading the advice. Like those millions of people who have achieved casual mastery, you probably will too. Your chances of success are harmed by reading the works of fools.

In fact, perhaps this is a sufficient heuristic: if the success rate is high - then available written advice is likely counterproductive.