What’s your reaction to people who say you’re spending too much time on site design?
Gwern
I have no defense at all there in terms of objective benefits to society. I do it because I’m selfish and I like it. That is my defense. I like the aesthetics of my website and it is a hobby.
Dwarkesh Patel
Does the design help you think?
Gwern
It does because I like rereading my stuff more when I can appreciate the aesthetics of it and the beauty of the website. It’s easier for me to tolerate reading something for the hundredth time when I would otherwise be sick to death of it. Site maintenance for the author is inherently this kind of spaced repetition. If I go over pages to check that some new formatting feature worked, I am getting spaced repetition there. More than once, I’ve gone to check some stupid CSS issue and looked at something and thought, “Oh, I should change something,” or, “Oh, that means something.”
So in a way, it’s not as much of a waste as it looks, but I can’t defend it entirely. If someone wants to make their own website, they should not invest that much for the aesthetic value.
I just want a really nice website. There’s so many bad websites out there that it depresses me. There’s at least one website I love.
I’ve never seen a better explanation of why I find myself finding it useful to repeatedly redesign my own personal blog over and over and over again.