What Scott H. Young thinks about mental models

@scott-h-young · 22 positions · 2 changes of mind · On ppll ↗

Canadian writer on learning who taught himself MIT's computer-science curriculum in a year, then spent the following year travelling through Spain, Brazil, China and Korea trying not to speak English. Author of Ultralearning.

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1 dated position, 2025, in their own words. Our reading of what Scott H. Young has said — not written or endorsed by them.

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1. 18 Nov 2025

   Our readingYou cannot learn to code by having a model write it: the mental models only come from writing programs by hand.

   Their wordsThe answer, I believe, is not too different from before: if you want to learn to code, you need to start by creating programs by hand.

   ↗Will AI Make Us Stupid?scotthyoung.com 3rd of 6 in this piece