Junk Food Information
“Get the facts, or the facts will get you. And when you get them, get them right, or they will get you wrong.” — Thomas Fuller
Some thoughts inspired by Dr. Alan Levinovitz's recent appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience.
1/ Information online is packaged up in a way that is most likely to be consumed. The most "consumable" information is highly palatable and exploits what people want:
It’s easy to understand
It demonises someone or something
It gives us a sense of belonging
This information is like ultra-processed food, and we behave like junkies. In small doses, it may be fine, but if it is all we consume, it can be a disaster—we are giving ourselves mental diabetes.
2/ Large corporations exploit our instincts by supplying cheap, highly palatable foods that encourage us to consume them in excess. We now produce, distribute, and consume junk information ourselves.
3/ The energy it takes to produce and disseminate junk information is much less than the energy it takes to identify, refute, or mitigate its impact.
4/ Most things are complicated. When there is no way for people to push back or there is only room for ultra-processed dialogue, you inevitably get the stupidest, most extreme, and most sloganised version of a position someone holds.
5/ Socrates made a case against writing by saying that the words themselves are not a complete representation of knowledge. Words cannot respond to an interlocutor, and people will (mis)interpret them for themselves. In Socrates' view, knowledge can only be gained through dialogue.
6/ We need more meaningful dialogue and conversation that allow us to explore and interrogate nuanced issues. We need to identify pros and cons and examine the shades of grey in a choice or decision. We need to identify what we are blind to or might not be seeing.
7/ Our baseline or default position should err on the side of uncertainty, and we should not be married to our ideas. People (e.g., politicians) are often criticised for "flip-flopping,” but changing your mind should be celebrated.
8/ The evil is not in the form. There are lots of potential benefits to things like social media for learning and knowledge sharing, but if you're eating Twinkies for nine hours a day, you're going to get sick.