As Karl Popper taught us, there's more than one way to approach the truth.
This doesn't prevent topics from having prerequisites (you need to learn X before Z – Z builds on X). It sometimes gives you options about prerequisites (you could use X or Y as a prerequisite for Z, there are two known approaches to Z, one using X and one using Y.)
Prerequisites relate to different ways to organize knowledge. There are options for that but for many issues only a small number of known options are good, effective and efficient. One day we might learn some new, good approaches to a topic. At that point you could perhaps use W as a prerequisite for Z instead of X or Y. But today people don't know about that option.
Look at currently existing approaches to a topic, look at their prerequisites, choose one of the approaches, and learn the prerequisites for it. Don't try to skip prerequisites on the basis that there's more than one valid approach to a topic.
What some people do is basically say "There is an approach where X isn't needed, so I won't learn X, and there is also an approach where Y isn't needed, so I won't learn Y." You need to pick some particular approach, see what knowledge is needed for it, and get the knowledge.
People often refuse on the basis that some alleged prerequisites are unnecessary. That people sometimes make mistakes in identifying prerequisites doesn't invalidate the whole concept. If you like, give specific arguments about why something is or isn't a prerequisite to a specific topic using a specific approach to that topic.
Messages (5)
I’ve been reading all of your recent posts. Do you use tracking to know if your posts are being read and from which IP address?
#16662 wtf no
I don't think I understand. Do you have specific examples?
#16946 http://curi.us/1944-questions
#16662 #16665
@Gavin: you can check the source code for like google analytics or similar things. GA doesn't give you the IP address but does show geolocation and "user journey" type stuff.
also since ET runs a server he presumably has something like nginx or apache as a reverse proxy, both by default log request paths and the requesting IP address (note: if he's using cloudflare or something then the IP is forwarded in a header, so not sure if nginx et al will automatically put those in logs).
I presume what ET means is that even if he has the capability to do that sort of analytics that he isn't doing that, and isn't interested either.
I also would have thought he's made it fairly obvious that sort of thing isn't something he's interested in.