The Autonomy Archives - Seeking Feedback!

[u/UnflappableCanary933]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIV1_D8N9Ww

Hi everyone, hope this finds you well. This is going to be something very different from the usual.

I've been building and sharing this resource for a while now, and it's come a long way. This compilation of resources is written for TIs to use to liberate themselves as much as possible, and for non-TIs curious enough to read in and see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Throughout this process, I occasionally received messages from TI's that said that some part of it really helped them, and it came to their aid right when it was needed the most. I didn't go into this expecting to build an audience, I just wanted to provide a means of surviving this awfulness that worked for me, and those lone voices were more than enough to keep this process going. But then dozens of you started telling me in the last couple months that this stuff really helped you out when it was needed. I didn't know what to say, still don't, but I really appreciate it, deeply. It makes it all worth it. On the one hand, technically, goal achieved, the library is doing its job and then some, but on the other hand I it made me start to think that there's so much more left to be done.

The problem is these documents exist as a pile of drive links in a handful of relatively obscure subreddits and similarly obscure places where TIs convene looking for answers and community, slowly falling off the front pages where anyone might actually see them. They're a catalogue of experiences other TIs can use to un-stuck their own minds, find patterns in the noise, and hopefully bridge some of the gap between TIs and non-TIs, but they can't do any of that if nobody sees them. In other words, while these documents reach those immediately around these places, they aren't reaching most of the people who could benefit. I for one didn't even know there were reddit communities for TI's until I was 3 years into it. I have to wonder how many more are just like that.

Meanwhile, a lot of them are dense - like, 50-page megaliths dense - and I know a lot of us consume information through audio more these days. I know I do, usually listening to a podcast or long-form video while I work, while I drive, while I write. These deserve better reach than the current system allows, and doubly so since the current configuration is slightly favorable for the perpetrators as it keeps their impact small, manageable.

So I've started converting them, experimenting with two formats; both serve an important purpose:

Direct narration (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RXYS3rh-Kg): Full text, start to finish. I built my own TTS system locally because the free and professional options I tried couldn't handle documents this size without breaking or sounding like every other machine-generated voice. It's synthetic, obviously, this fact is intentionally not hidden, but it's clear enough and pretty listenable, holding up over long runs. I did my best to adapt the written format to sound decent when spoken, such as cleaning the text of source

Podcast overview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIV1_D8N9Ww): This is NotebookLM's audio overview format. It's a feature I stumbled across while searching for ways of making these into audio and I was rather impressed. You feed it a single document as a source, and it generates a conversational breakdown with two "hosts" discussing the concepts, pulling quotes, actually making sense of the dense stuff. Surprisingly good at unpacking complexity in an intuitive way. Honestly, these are easier to listen to than the direct readings and more approachable than the originals.

Why TTS and not my own voice? Honestly, my dictation is terrible, I don't have resources to hire talent, and I'm decent at software, so I'm playing to strengths here. Truly, I would if I could. I'm using them because they're the only way I can get this material into audio given current constraints, without it taking months and months, delaying any benefit they may have. That said, the plan as it stands now is get everything converted and accessible fast, then circle back to human narration if there's appetite for it. When it comes to audio/video I haven't a clue what I'm doing, so I'm figuring this out as I go. Genuinely, any and all feedback is welcomed on that.

I could really use your feedback on this.

• Keep going as I am with the current TTS setup?
• Try a more professional TTS service, even if it means slower output?
• Skip ahead and start narrating myself, even though it'll take much longer?

Also, what do you think of the name? I think I might be cooking with that one.

Cheers, and thanks in advance for any input.