While the intention of the article is noble (it's an empowering thought), I feel like it's missing out on a more important idea.
That is: while ideally we would critically and deeply analyze every aspect of our life, we have limited time and energy. The reason we've been able to accomplish so much as a civilization is because we delegate thinking to others.
"Always doubt the media" is bad advice. It's similar to "always doubt your parents" because they told you Santa Claus was real. Always doubting the media is exhausting, and the author probably doesn't do it anyways, because he gets things done.
What's perhaps worth investigating is how technology can help us reduce the amount of trust we put in a single entity. The trend from news sites away from user-submitted comments is worrying, because that's an example of how one can read a story and immediately read critiques and reviews of it.
Quite ironically, Blake's platform of choice for this post (Medium) removed our ability to make inline comments on his writing, which is perhaps the best way to accomplish that.
It's solid advice. Journalists have really become the used car salesmen of the 21st century. They should be doubted by default.
With declining revenues the salaries dropped and people attracted to the profession are more and more often outright propagandists for whom the ability to push their views is part of the compensation package. For the same reason sponsors get more control over content. Not to mention changes in ownership. Even the esteemed NYT is on life support provided by Carlos Slim who is now its biggest shareholder.
And let's not overestimate the energy required to doubt the media. You could probably stop consuming any reporting or journalism, stop watching tv, stop reading newspapers and live just fine. It's just not that important to know about all the events you cannot influence anyway.
Though I can agree with those who say he sometimes goes too far with his bullying, Nassim Nicholas Taleb has worthwhile things to say that align with this.
In the past journalism was an act of courage, revealing truths in the face of powerful establishments and risking jail or even death. Today (except in such repressive regimes as as Syria or Russia and except for war correspondents) it is becoming the refuge of disconnected cowards.
In my entire career I have never seen a financial journalist go to "the other side", that is pull the trigger or engage in risk taking or in any situation in which one can be exposed to harm from one's opinion. This can be generalized to journalists in general, who rarely, if ever, switch to doing, all the while pontificating on "Steve Job's mistakes" or similar purported errors of others, or praising Geithner and other powerful frauds. Jazi Zilber wondered why journalists seemingly so knowledgeable about politics never become politicians. It is the same problem: modern journalists are designed to be either cowards, or have a need to escape reality.
Yet the tragedy is that doers are in contact with the world through journalists. [1]
In his podcast with James Altucher, he explains how he makes a point of taking a bit of time out each week to publicly troll egotistical journalists, because, hey, someone has to. [2]
And though I don't have a citation, I recall one his tips for better living is to avoid spending time/brain cycles consuming mainstream news at all. If something is important enough that you must know about it, he argues, someone will tell you about it.
You'll be fine in the short term. But in 30 years, when there is no one even pretending to serve as a check against institutional abuses, when 0% of the electorate has any idea at all what is happening in the world, when if you find that something unconscionable there is absolutely no way to get people to know or care about it... what then?
In a world without press that is listened to, a bad actor could literally remount the Holocaust in plain sight and no one would stop it because no one would know.
Public officials act in the public interest because their constituencies read the news and demand that something be done about it. Sure, this isn't what they do all or even most of the time, but can you imagine a world where it doesn't happen at all?
Many facets of government and business cannot function without some sort of professional collection and analysis of facts about what's happening in the world. I expect that in our post-journalism society, public and private intelligence agencies will expand enormously and start doing something that looks an awful lot like journalism, except for very small and inordinately wealthy institutional readers instead of the public.
Journalists do not provide a check against institutional abuses. When the Soviet Union was literally staging a holocaust in plain sight, the NYT lied to cover it up[1]. Walter Duranty still has a Pulitzer to his name for reports from the Soviet Union.
Supposedly the greatest triumph of journalism, lionized in a movie, uncovering of Watergate was done by an insider who just told the journalists. Nowadays, they're not even necessary for this. I learned about Snowden leaks from here and Wikileaks. And then nothing happened.
The only reason I can see why people believe journalists are heroic fighters for truth, checks against tyranny, and so on is because they rely on journalists for stories about journalists.
I forget where I read it, but it was many years ago. But paraphrased, it read "never believe anything you read in print". It was quite an eye opening statement for me.
You are probably referring to the quote from Whitehead:
"Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them."
And while it is a powerful line, in case of media and journalists I made a habit of thinking deeply about every message I receive in terms of what is the hidden agenda their mighty landlords try to convey.
I disagree.
Your post is the total opposite opinion of the article.
Trust others, that would free you to accomplish.
How are you going to accomplish something without spending energy and time on it?
Both approaches are wrong in the sense that they are reductions to absurd.
-Everyone is lying, doubt everything, think about
everything
vs
-Trust everything so you have time to accomplish (by
thinking I guess)
The right hand approach would be, think about things in the proportion they are important to you.
Edit: add example
You would not spend the same amount of time or energy making sure you are not being scammed on some site that sells you the product you want to buy at half the price (e.g. 3bay.com or amazing.com) vs reading google news.
Edit2:
"Always doubt the media" is bad advice. It's similar to "always doubt your parents"
this is totally wrong, your parents (most of the time) would want to see you thrive; news on the other hand want to tell you anything to keep you on the channel to get more views and more money.
Author of the post on Medium is trying to get some fame, using first approach from your list. We can't be specialists in all fields, and journalists can't - it's just one case where knowledge of the Internet helped some guy to find some info. "News should be checked by experts" would be good title, "don't trust nobody, check everything" is absurd title.
Sure, we can't all be specialists in all fields, but in this day and age, if your job is primarily to investigate, examine and digest facts, not being able to use the internet at the level that is presented in the article is going to be holding you back.
The quoted articles all went out of their way to ask the question without bothering to answer it. What happened? Did the journalists not think it was an important enough question to investigate (and if so, why even include the question)? Had they spent an hour or two they could have figured this out or found someone who could help them out with it.
>That is: while ideally we would critically and deeply analyze every aspect of our life, we have limited time and energy. The reason we've been able to accomplish so much as a civilization is because we delegate thinking to others.
It's not an either/or proposition. I approach ideas as multiple constellations of possibilities without taking a definitive position on them. I think many other people do the same.
That is: while ideally we would critically and deeply analyze every aspect of our life, we have limited time and energy. The reason we've been able to accomplish so much as a civilization is because we delegate thinking to others.
"Always doubt the media" is bad advice. It's similar to "always doubt your parents" because they told you Santa Claus was real. Always doubting the media is exhausting, and the author probably doesn't do it anyways, because he gets things done.
What's perhaps worth investigating is how technology can help us reduce the amount of trust we put in a single entity. The trend from news sites away from user-submitted comments is worrying, because that's an example of how one can read a story and immediately read critiques and reviews of it.
Quite ironically, Blake's platform of choice for this post (Medium) removed our ability to make inline comments on his writing, which is perhaps the best way to accomplish that.