I stopped reading whitepapers. Not because I’m a lazy noob, but because I’m humble enough to recognize I won’t be able to understand a lot of what they say.

Probably gonna get downvoted to oblivion, so you could consider this reverse moon farming. Anyways, before anybody discredits me, I am studying Computer Science and have been able to land some nice internships, so yes, I admit that I'm not an expert and there are many things I don't know, however I would consider myself someone that has been exposed to basic Computer Science concepts, and more advanced ones in Algorithms, Data Structures and Cryptography.

With that out of the way, I just wanted to say that there are a lot of people here giving recommendations to new people (which is great) and there is this specific one that really irks me, "Read the whitepaper". Why does it annoy me so much?

• Well, for starters I highly doubt that people giving these recommendations even read the whitepapers themselves, I honestly believe that they say this in order to look like "responsible investors" or "being in it for the tech", whatever their motives are, I believe that 99% are lying.
• For the tiny minority that actually reads the whitepapers, I don't mean to sound like an asshole, but I highly doubt you understand the important technical part of the whitepapers completely. I say this because I've taken several high level CS courses in college and I struggle every time to grasp some concepts that describe how a certain project works and what makes it significant. I am certainly no guru, but I believe that I know more CS than the vast majority of people who are trying to get into crypto, and if someone like me can't understand what these whitepapers say, how exactly will a newcomer get any benefit from trying to read these documents?

You know, I remember I got into crypto right when I started college, and even now 3 years later, I prefer just watching a simplified video about a project than trying to read the whitepaper, which I know will be a waste of time. There is a reason why most projects upload a simplified version that explains how the project works, and that's so that newcomers can get an idea of what the project is. Odds are that the vast majority of people trying to buy a certain cryptocurrency will be people that just don't have the background required to understand whitepapers, so let's stop recommending them to read whitepapers and instead recommend them something different, like watching videos or reading simplified articles that explain what the cryptocurrency that they want to buy is.