[wenc]

I usually listen at 1.5x passively.

But what you said made me curious. I listened to this podcast at 3x. I was able to understand all the words, but my conceptual understanding decreased. I also have to listen actively -- not passively.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SFkwdm0PP0

At 4x, I could only understand the shape of the sentences but could no longer make out the words. But I turned on the captions and found I could keep up. Turns out reading at 4x works, listening at 4x doesn't.

English is also spoken with different prosodies and cadences. For instance, I can understand Singaporean English perfectly, but it's less amenable to being sped up. I tried listening to this lecture in Singaporean English in 3x and found that I could barely understand it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA1dnUYzRWU

[manusachi]

Blind people often go upto 600 words per minute and more with text-to-speech, which is, I think, would be an equivalent to 5x and more.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

In fairness, they cannibalize their visual cortex to do that:)

[sooheon]

There's the cue for my biennial reread of Peter Watts' Blindsight.

[kamarg]

Did you read his followup Echopraxia? How would you say it compared to Blindsight?

[sooheon]

I've read Blindsight multiple times, and weirdly couldn't finish Echopraxia. Maybe this time.

[Bluestein]

Went into my list. Appreciated :)

[bryanrasmussen]

I'm pretty sure you can train yourself to do the same, but the effort probably doesn't seem worth it for most people.

[worthless-trash]

But its robotic and predictable, human speech is not.

[throw0101d]

> I usually listen at 1.5x passively.

Eminem's song "Rap God" has a segment where he goes at about 6 words per second (@4m23s):

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbGs_qK2PQA

[BizarroLand]

Racine sings the english translation of the Disappearance of Hatsune Miku much faster:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tohDycgc-H8

However, there is a difference between a rehearsed and practiced performance and communication that makes these things more a feat of acrobatics.

[throw0101d]

For a time in the 1980s John Moschitta was well-known for making fast-talking commercials:

* FedEx: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeK5ZjtpO-M

* Micro Machines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gzd11GMBONg

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Moschitta_Jr.

[digitalsushi]

i can catch a single fastball. sometimes. i cant catch 1 per second

[Bluestein]

1.7x here as a matter of course.-

PS. I wonder if, even peripheralally, having one of 'em newfangled AI glasses teleprompting you at the same time, could get one up to 2.0x or higher.-