优秀作家懂得珍惜读者的时间。
内容总结：
【观点聚焦】当代思想者提出“优质阅读”新标准：尊重读者时间，推崇思想密度
在一场关于阅读价值的对话中，知名投资人纳瓦尔·拉维坎特与访谈者尼维就当代阅读选择展开深度探讨。双方一致认为，真正优秀的作家应当尊重读者的时间，提供高思想密度的内容。
纳瓦尔直言不讳地批评传统哲学著作"沉溺于琐碎争论"，特别指出包括柏拉图、叔本华在内的经典哲学家往往陷入"构建宏大理论体系"的误区。但他同时肯定叔本华短篇随笔的价值，认为其写作风格具有现代社交媒体"高信息密度、善用精妙比喻"的特质，单段落即可引发长时间思考。
对话中提出"林迪效应"书籍的概念，即经受时间考验的经典作品。纳瓦尔建议，探究人性本质应阅读历久弥新的经典，而获取实用技能则需追踪前沿知识。对于既非经典又非前沿的内容，特别是信息密度低的历史类书籍，他明确表示回避。
值得注意的是，双方将社交媒体时代的阅读习惯重新定义为"对时间的尊重"。纳瓦尔强调，当代读者更需要的是能够与既有知识体系连接的智慧结晶，而非简单堆砌信息。他列举博尔赫斯、特德·姜等作家为例，说明优质作品应做到"每页都有洞察，每段皆含智慧"。
这场对话揭示了信息爆炸时代精英读者的选择标准：摒弃冗长空洞的内容，追求直击本质的思想密度。正如纳瓦尔所言："最好的作家懂得尊重读者的时间"，这一观点或将为当代人的阅读选择提供新的参照系。
中文翻译：
最优秀的作家懂得尊重读者的时间
尼维：与叔本华不同，你是一位工业化哲学家。就像工业设计师那样，你的哲学是为大众设计的。人们总建议你去读经典——亚里士多德、维特根斯坦这些所谓的哲学巨著。
我几乎读过所有那些著作，但收获甚微。真正让我获益的，是像你这样在推特上分享哲学思考的人。如果有人想读哲学，我会直接建议他们跳过经典，去读大卫·德utsch的作品。
纳瓦尔：你说得没错。你提到的那些哲学家我完全无法忍受，柏拉图也不例外。
其他哲学著作我大多翻几页就放下了——它们总是纠缠于细枝末节的晦涩论证，试图构建包罗万象的理论体系。连叔本华也难逃这个窠臼。当他试图与其他哲学家对话时，往往是他最糟糕的一面。
我欣赏的是他的短篇随笔。那些文字简直像是穿越到推特时代的创作——他若生在当代，定是推特霸主。他的思想密度极高，每个观点都经过深思熟虑，例证和比喻精炼得当。有时读上一段，就够你思考一小时。正是通过阅读这些内容，让我成为了更优秀的写作者、思考者，也更擅长洞察人性。
当然，他写作于19世纪早期。一旦涉及科学、医学或政治话题，他的观点显然已经过时。但当他探讨人性时，那些洞见却历久弥新。
关于人性的认知，我推荐阅读林迪效应认可的经典——那些经受住时间考验的古老著作。但若想掌握特定领域的专业知识并创造价值，就该关注最前沿的动向。这类知识时效性强，淘汰速度也快。
这两类阅读都有其意义。令我困惑的是去读那些既非经典、又不涉及人性主题的陈旧著作。我也回避知识密度低的读物，比如某些历史书籍。
虽然欣赏威尔·杜兰特的《历史的教训》——这本质上是其十二卷本《文明的故事》的精编版。但我不可能去通读整套巨著。已有历史阅读基础的读者能理解他的宏观概括，而非盲目接受结论。
现阶段的我更追求高密度的阅读。你可以称之为"抖音症候群"或推特世代特征，但这本质上是对自身时间的尊重。我们已积累大量信息与知识，现在需要的是智慧——是能与我们既有认知体系相融合的普适性原则。
我们确实需要高密度的阅读材料，而我认为叔本华正是典范。我钟爱的作家都具备这种特质：德utsch的思想密度极高，博尔赫斯如此，特德·姜也是。早期的尼尔·斯蒂芬森同样精彩（虽然后期作品变得鸿篇巨制但仍保持高密度）。
真正优秀的作家都懂得尊重读者的时间，叔本华正是这一传统的杰出代表。
英文来源：
The Best Authors Respect the Reader’s Time
Nivi: Unlike Schopenhauer, you are an industrial philosopher. Like an industrial designer, your philosophy is designed for the masses. People suggest you read the great books—Aristotle and Wittgenstein and all the supposedly great philosophers.
I’ve read almost all that stuff, and I’ve gotten very little value from it. Where I have gotten value is the philosophizing of people on Twitter, like you. Anybody who wants to read philosophy, I would just tell them to skip it and go read David Deutsch.
Naval: You’re not wrong. I can’t stand any of the philosophers you talked about. I don’t like Plato either.
Every other piece of philosophy I’ve picked up and put down relatively quickly because they’re just making very obscure arguments over minutiae and trying to come up with all-encompassing theories of the world. Even Schopenhauer falls into that trap. When he tries to talk to other philosophers, he’s at his worst.
When I like him is in his shorter essays. That’s where he almost writes like he’s on Twitter. He would have dominated Twitter. He has high density of ideas—very well thought through; good, minimal examples and analogies. You can pick it up, read one paragraph, and you’re thinking for the next hour. I think I’m a better writer, a better thinker, and a better judge of people and character thanks to what I read from him.
Now, he’s writing from the early part of the 19th century. Whenever he wanders into topics that are scientific or medical or political, he’s obviously off base—that stuff doesn’t apply anymore. But when he’s writing about human nature, that is timeless.
When it comes to anything about human nature, I say go read the Lindy books—the older books, the ones that have survived the test of time. But if you want to develop specific knowledge, get paid for it, do something useful, then you want to stay on the bleeding edge. That knowledge is going to be more timely and obsolete more quickly.
Those two make sense. What doesn’t make sense to me is just reading stuff that’s not Lindy, or that’s not about human nature, but is old. I also shy away from stuff that’s low density in the learnings, like history books.
I like The Lessons of History by Will Durant because it’s a summarization of The Story of Civilization, which was his large 12-volume series. But I’m not going to go read the 12-volume series. I’ve read plenty of history. I know he’s referring to these kinds of things, so I’m not just taking his word for it on high-level concept.
But at the same time, at this point in my life, I want to read high-density works. You can call it the TikTok Disease or the Twitter generation, but it’s also just being respectful of our time. We already have a lot of data. We have some knowledge. Now we want wisdom. Now we want the generalized principles that we can attach to all of the other information we already have in our minds.
We do want to read high-density work, but I would argue that Schopenhauer is very high-density work.
All my favorite authors are very high density. Deutsch is extremely high density. Borges is very high density. Ted Chiang is very high density. The old Neal Stephenson was very high density (then he just got high volume, high density, high everything).
But the best authors respect the reader’s time, and Schopenhauer is very much in that vein.