The Importance of Qualitative Research in Paracademia

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The dominant culture is one which is kind of trying to be a descriptive science rather than design science. Do you think more people should be doing paracademia? And do you think that's, is that good for society? What are your thoughts on that? Right, right. So I think like the binary question, it's pretty easy to answer yes. But maybe like more interesting is like a continuous question, like if we had to move some kind of lever from academia, what's a carrying capacity is kind of para-academic setting. Should there be tens of thousands of such people? Should there be hundreds of thousand of such people?"

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How can we accelerate learning? Is spaced repetition the best way to absorb information over the long term? Do we always read non-fiction works with the goal of learning? What are some less common but perhaps more valuable types of information that can be put on flash cards? What sorts of things are worth remembering anyway? Why is it important to commit some ideas to memory when so much information is easily findable on the internet? What benefits are derived from being involved in all stages of a project pipeline from concept to execution (as opposed to being involved only in one part, like the research phase)? Why should more researchers be involved in para-academic projects? Where can one find funding for para-academic research?

Andy Matuschak invents tools that expand what people can think and do. His current research focuses on a new written medium which makes it much easier to remember what you read. In previous roles, Andy led R&D at Khan Academy and helped build iOS at Apple. You can read more about his work at andymatuschak.org and follow him on Twitter at @andy_matuschak.

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