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On many of my favorite Youtube videos, that "excrutiating" warm-up is part of the appeal. It feels more like a mysterious build-up towards an exciting payoff, when done right. That can be generalized towards writing or any other media.



If you do that, the payoff had better be there.

But even then, you probably should be very selective when you do it. If the point is to entertain, it may be OK. (The Avengers Endgame is just over three hours. I bet there's some buildup in that.)

But don't do it if the point is to communicate. I read somewhere that someone said (either about physics or CS): "There's 50 times as much going on as I can keep up with, and I only operate at 2% efficiency. So there's this factor of 2500 working against me, and every day I fall seven years further behind." In that kind of of environment, if I read your stuff, you'd better not waste my time.




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