Comments on: Retrieval Strength and Storage Strength

By: Alrenous

Alrenous — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:16:28 +0000

How can you try to use a skill you don’t have and not realize you don’t have it? They’re obviously buying these things, “learning” the language and never using it.

To me it’s like a programmer thoroughly learning the docs for a library without any intention to #include it. It’s just bizarre to consider.

By: Isegoria

Isegoria — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 20:36:57 +0000

Why are people who want to learn a language reliably satisfied with the sense of having learned the language? Um, because they think they learned the language? Is this a trick question? They're not seeking the illusion; they just can't tell it from the real thing. (The professionals who use obscure alternatives are the ones who can see through the illusion.)

By: Alrenous

Alrenous — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 16:13:12 +0000

Then why are they so reliably satisfied with the sense of having learned the language?

I found out lawnmowers and weedwhackers work the same way. They could be quiet, but then nobody feels like they’re working.

The problem is that demonstrating Rosetta’s impotence shatters the illusion at the same time it repels supposedly honest customers.

Similarly, the other markets of this kind I’ve investigated all have effective alternatives, they’re just obscure and only professionals use them. The people who actually need the thing, not the illusion.

By: Isegoria

Isegoria — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 17:49:27 +0000

If you ask for an illusion, and you get an illusion, you haven’t been scammed. I don’t think the customers buying Rosetta Stone software are asking for a magician’s act though. They don’t want the sense that they learned a foreign language; they want to learn that language. It’s a market failure — working to Rosetta Stone’s advantage, of course.

By: Alrenous

Alrenous — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 16:56:13 +0000

Point one: free markets. The Rosetta Stone isn’t a scam; they’re selling the illusion of learning, and that’s what the buyers are in the market for. If they actually cared about learning they’d do some metrics to test it.

Point two: insufficient understanding of consciousness. The ‘sense of achievement’ isn’t. Ask the usual scientific question; how do you know it is a sense of achievement? For red, you can’t be mistaken. But ‘achievement’ is just a feeling you’ve associated with success. Why? The association might be valid. Or not.