Be less Informed

As time goes on more and more people are becoming conscious of the problems in the world. We even have a name for this in common parlance that feels positive, when someone becomes more aware of this we call them “woke”. This waking up then to the world around them, and it’s problems is a positive process of understanding and broadening one’s perspective, right?

A little of everything please

As the internet has become more and more popular everyone is fighting for people’s attention. Advertisers, journalists, activists, and sometimes advertising activists. Anyone any everyone needs to prop themselves up in this economy of attention. The notion of becoming more woke is a matter of getting people’s attention on issues that “wake them up” to the world around them. Minority perspectives, opinions of the oppressed, and just plain old alternate perspectives on current news. All of this is important to help round out peoples worldview, and is not inherently the problem. However the same drive that pulls us towards becoming more informed can become perverse and maladaptive. I would in fact argue that the gluttony of causes, and their insuing onslaught of information has led to the majority of people having no real causes to fight for.

This seems like a harsh and unempathetic claim to make. Is it really the case that the attrocities on the news are “not a big deal”? Not necessarily, however at some point there becomes a sanitizing in the consistent exposure. The people who are trying to find eudaimonic happiness instead find themselves becoming more disinterested. When they’re shown the atrocities of the world it’s taken in as being almost like a product itself. The social issues that exist become the newest vogue for those who want to “express themselves”. The hottest new war that we can attach our existing ideology to, the most recent tragedy that proves our point, and god I hope there’s just a few more shootings that proves my pet project idea right!

Deafening noise

I don’t mean to actually suggest that we need more “real” problems in the world, what I am instead arguing is that the problems themselves are often presented in a shallow and vain manner. The issues of the day become a matter of shopping for the latest tragedy that you can use to reinforce your beliefs. When people become so divorced from the topics “they care about”, the passion becomes hollow. The consumption itself instead sublimates the energy that could have gone into working on the problem, and they just keep reading instead of doing. This in turn means that in order to be a good little advocate you need to ensure you keep yourself on a steady diet of the events in the world around you. There’s no time to sit and keep talking about the event from last week, that’s yesterday’s news, come on we’ve got something much more important, this week’s tragedy.

The never ending cycle of trying to “stay informed” becomes ironically the opposite. In trying to keep up and because of the necessity to process information so quickly it is rare that anyone gets any of the background information to a situation. Lawsuits take time, and effort, but screaming online about how the “obviously guilty” aren’t being punished can win you brownie points. Background information can entirely change framing, but if you are constantly being bombarded by tweets that set the narrative, you don’t need facts. After all no one reads retractions, and those that do only believe it makes you less credible ¹. Not only that, but as topics have become more politicized there is now a direct incentive to lie about everything. After all if only a few details were different about the events then they would show people what’s ”really going on in the world“.

Infotainment

On any given day someone might “wake themselves up” with a dozen 5 minute videos explaining “the truth” about a problem in the world. Fraught with the latest examples and everything, after all, if there’s examples it must be real. But again as I said earlier we are in an attention economy, and keeping that attention has nothing to do with accuracy. The nuances of a situation, the decades of cultural context to the latest international calamity, the proof of a given event happening how it’s claimed, all these things are a hinderance. If we stop to present things properly, then the “information” gluttony can’t be satiated. Wasting time with facts isn’t important, there’s injustice around and people need to be made aware!

Glib analysis aside “infotainment” is a concerning phenomenon in and of itself. There are hundreds of channels on youtube that exist to “inform”, but many of these are incredibly partisan. Some creators do this more or less explicitly than others. Prager U for example does this quite often. Usually the information is not necessarily wrong, however they will skew things intentionally to paint pictures that are not in alignment with reality. The Gravel Institute is another example of a channel I used to watch for their information videos. Ironically they outright name Prager U as an inspiration for their channel. Unfortunately as I later learned in a now-retracted video on Ukraine they fell victim to the temptation of creating pseudo-propaganda for their political affiliation under the guise of education ².

There is inherently a problem of incentives with this sort of content. The old school PBS and history channel days of funding projects for the sake of having them is largely dead. Therefore more and more people need flashier, snappier and more attention grabbing “educational” content. However the same things that garner attention are often direcly at odds with the most informative approaches. Understanding context is often a slow process, as is deciphering nuance. Likewise the ideological bents of people give them incentives to “gloss over” things to make people more amenible to their side. For example many people fond of the CCP in china will often “gloss over” details about the tianamen square massacre, or the Uyghur genocide. Likewise pro-america propogandists will avoid discussions of MKUltra, Henry Kissinger’s ties to Khmer Rouge or why the Iraq war started. Everyone has their biases, but much of the media survival is based on playing to them, so be careful.

Become less informed

Circling back now with the background about much of the media as it exists today, what can actually be done about any of this. Should we bury our heads in the sand and ignore the problems in the world? No, obviously not, that’s very stupid to do. But as is somewhat evident in the tone for this article I am skeptical to say the least about the intentions of “activist entertainment”, and “the news”. Especially in north America, activism has become the new ethical vogue. This in and of itself is arguably a problem, people often go “shopping for a cause” and this attitude primes people to make poor choices about their skepticism in general. But more concerning is the role this moral grandstanding plays in the outcomes in our existing information landscape. Being dubious takes time and effort, so is this just an article to tell you that you need to spend even more time reading about issues?

Yes and no. My point is actually an unintuitive one at first. You should spend more time reading, but about the topics that actually matter to you. Stop taking in all the deafening background noise and spend time focusing on the topics that actually speak to you. A good rule of thumb is to at least be more informed about the problems that you, yourself would be willing to go out and put the “active” into activism for. The topics that make you want to go out and do something about them. Whether it’s something international that affects you and/or family, or even something incredibly local. Regardless of what it is you should aim to put into practice what you preach. Having this background information on topics can be incredibly helpful because it can help shed light on perspectives being portrayed in media. Being misinformed on a ton of topics I would argue is more morally irresponsible than being well informed on a smaller number of topics.

You don’t need opinions on the latest 20 tragedies, instead you can just have a well informed opinion on a few topics. You don’t need to spread lies to your friends so they know how “woke” you are, just be actually awake on the topics that matter to you. Find the topics that are meaningful enough you are willing to take action, not just endlessly pontificate, and passively consume information about. In other words as I said earlier, try to put the “active” back in activism, and treat the tangential topics for what they are, things you don’t know about.

Lastly for the somewhat less charged topics that don’t have “activism”. If you don’t intend to read about the events in the middle east, or the stock market, or recent medical advances, that’s fine. If you do intend to, then make sure you’re doing it responsibly. People have various incentives to misinform, and you can only blame youself for falling for many of them. So in conclusion you don’t need an opinion on everything. Instead focus on developing the reasons you have the opinions you do, and constantly challenge those beliefs. Continue to temper those beliefs as you go, and continue to explore topics more openly and honestly without shysters getting in the way.