Signal and Noise

I often find myself thinking about these two posts whenever I fall into the doomscrolling trap. We are lucky to live in a time where we can access almost all of humankind's preserved knowledge at near zero marginal cost. We are lucky to have inherited an incredible literary and historical canon. And yet, we are so distracted by the noise of the present moment, by an algorithm designed to keep us hooked with newly minted, low-quality content, that we cannot help but deprive ourselves.

I understand the temptation, and the value, of consuming new content and keeping up to date with the cultural moment. But that must be intentional. A balance has been lost. I wish we could optimize social media to consume more educational, timeless content, in ways that would enrich our lives beyond a quick dopamine hit.

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The first is the about section of Our World in Data:

If you want to contribute to a better future you need to know the problems the world faces. To understand these problems the daily news is not enough. The news media focuses on events and therefore largely fails to report the two aspects that Our World in Data focuses on: the large problems that continue to confront us for centuries or much longer and the long-lasting, forceful changes that gradually reshape our world.

The criterion by which the news select what they focus our attention on is whether it is new. The criterion by which we at Our World in Data decide what to focus our attention on is whether it is important.

The front page of Our World in Data lists the same big global problems every day, because they matter every day. One of the biggest mistakes that the news media makes is to suggest that different things matter on different days.

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The second is The Never-Ending Now:

I watched my friends scroll their social media feeds with ferocious intensity. One thing stuck out: the people in front of me only consumed content created within the last 24 hours.

No exceptions. I succumb to the same impulse. Chances are, so do you.

The structure of our social media feeds place us in a Never-Ending Now. Like hamsters running on a wheel, we live in an endless cycle of ephemeral content consumption — a merry-go-round that spins faster and faster but barely goes anywhere. Stuck in the fury of the present, we're swept up in dizzying chaos like leaves in a gale-force wind. Even though on the Internet, we're just a click away from the greatest authors of all time, from Plato to Tolstoy, we default to novelty instead of timelessness.

We're trapped in a Never-Ending Now — blind to our place in history, engulfed in the present moment, overwhelmed by the slightest breeze of chaos.

Here's the bottom line: How can you prioritize the accumulated wisdom of humanity over the impulses of the past 24 hours?