Reflections on information seeking post Trump:

Where Good Information is Fleeing 

:  has lost 10 IQ points since Trump’s election. I’m not sure that this is a bad thing; it’s just that calling out asinine political behavior doesn’t take that much intelligence. Given that people should be calling out Trump’s bad behavior – and that is a good place to call people out – the fact that has gotten worse just seems to be an unfortunate byproduct of Trump’s election. But, while Anti-Trump might be reasonable, it’s not particularly interesting. So I’m on much less now.

Short Blog Posts: I see less and less good information happening when smart people write 1-2 pithy paragraphs about complex subjects. I just don’t learn as much. Moreover, whenever these people write on issues I know a lot about, I see how grossly they err, which makes me trust their other pieces even less.

Facebook: Basically useless at this point. All I want is friends and cat videos, all I get is 3rd rate political pontification.

Where Good Information is Emerging 

Protests and Actions: Over the past few months, my willingness to march and protest has risen significantly. Given that the immigration marches seem to have had some social and political effect, I lump this into the category of “good information.” I sent good information by participating; moreover, I gain good information by understanding what people really care about and what politicians will listen to.

Long Blog Posts: I’ve been gravitating more and more towards long blog posts: think Stratechery and slatestarcodex. When smart people spend a few weeks thinking about something and then write 1-2K words on it, you very well might learn something. I’ve also tried to shift my blogging toward this direction, with the aim of being more intellectual rigorous in each post.

Work: I’ve tried to engage in more narrow and deeper intellectual explorations at work, with the aim of spending 2-3 months on a topic and going deep on the relevant research and experts. While I think blogs and are useful for having a broad surface understanding of many issues, I’ve found carving out space to go deep on areas of interest to be hugely beneficial. There is a lot of good information in the best books and research on a given topic.

Mentors: I’m spending more time in coffee / dinners / drinks with the smartest people I know. With best folks, signal to noise ratio is wonderful and I can really pressure ideas through curiosity and debate, rather than through retweets and comments.

In Sum

Trump has turned and short blog posts into tribal warfare. While there was always some of this on social media, it’s much worse now. Perhaps this is best for the country, perhaps not. But it’s surely not good for information seeking.

Given this, I’m devoting more time to learning through getting out into the world, working more, reading longer blog posts, and spending more time with mentors.