Don't inform yourself: learn

2025-01-10

Is the attention span of people getting smaller? Who fucking knows.

Is the attention span of medias getting smaller? Feels like it, won’t pretend to have a smart fact-based analysis of the matter, just basing my judgment on vibes.

Well, I could give countless examples and add my interpretation on top. How the repeated and consistent antisemitist statements of Jean-Marie LePen is caracterised as “slips”, you know, accidents, not even “freudian slips”. Or how we are given without context the discourse of politicians who call for more “US-like” institutions in Europe (Macron asking for France to become “predator”, Starmer cultish devotion to AI, Draghi asking for tech monopolies in Europe), not as a demand, but almost as an innevitable consequence of history and technological progress, at the risk of being left behind. No media ask what “being left behind” is, and why it’s bad. If “being left behind” means I’m not LARPing a 90’s cyberpunk novel (as the US is currently doing, I think “Snow Crash” is the main source here), count me in boys. Same with the NATO 5% GDP armament spending target (Depending on the country, this can go up to 25% of government spending!)

Common sense says that information gives power. But does it? Useful info allows you to make better decisions, but lies, and missleading info does the reverse. And how do you make the difference?

But saying “useful information is useful” is crétinerie. Like no shit Sherlock: blue things are blue.

Information is not inherently “good” or “bad”. Is “Mein Kampf” bad? Eheh, surely, what kind of monster would deny this? But in the context of a historical discussion on the rise of nazism, isn’t it actually a precious artifact?

What matters is the analysis of information, how we integrate it in our understanding of the world. How the system that we use to make sense of the world is affected by it and made more capable of making sense of the world.

This is where a knowledgeable social psychologist would surely quote Kurt Lewin’s experiment. During the WWII, the US government tried to sell offal to families, and asked Lewin the best way to do it. Lewin tried several methods. Colorful advertising, very compelling arguments. But it didn’t help. So Lewin decided to get the families to do the job for him: Create discussion circles with the mothers¹, give them data about offal, and let them discuss what’s best to do. And they concluded that offal was worth a try. And they went home and cooked offal, instead of nodding politely and completly ignoring what they just heard.

So, active participation in the analysis is what made the housewives change behavior. Nothing short of that, not even the most digestible, simple, easy-to-understand injuction. Information is not a thing by itself, but can only exist through its interaction, in your mind, with the rest of what you know of the world.

In our modern medias, every news item is like some sort of cookie your viewer consumes. Each item, one after the other, not a connection, not even a sentence connecting the two! You immediately forget the previous item to be fed the next one. Each item, one after another, non stop. We have ads to sell, it is imperative that the viewer doesn’t turn off the TV.

But remember Lewin! Information without analysis, without the time to think or discuss it, is as good as useless.

Turn off the TV, close the feed, put down your phone! Look out the window! Go get some friend and talk!