# Tactics to avoid information overload These are all tactics for slowing the information flow for the purpose of increased [understanding](understanding.md) and higher [quality](values-quality.md). ## Fix 1: Slower inputs The first part of the issue is both a blessing and a disguise. There are many accumulated, semi-curated piles of information online. There are *dozens* of guides on the CSS spinner element, making carburetor cleaner, and how to make gluten-free strawberry rhubarb pie. In comparison with the people of 50 years ago and now, the information from then traveled *very* slowly by comparison. Imagine the methods to get a recipe for soup: 1. Read a recipe book if you had one, which meant a few minutes of leafing through it after consulting the table of contents. If you wanted a specific type of soup, there were no guarantees unless it was a soup-specific cookbook. 2. Talk with someone who can cook well, like a friend or a neighbor, via the phone or in person. You probably had to make sure they were home, unless you knew where they worked. 3. Visit a library to find a cookbook, preferably soup-based. This required sifting through a paper index card database of all the books, understanding the Dewey Decimal System, or asking a librarian for help. 4. Visit a dining establishment and ask around, though that frequently may not work. Now, it's on allrecipes.com, or r/cooking, or Pinterest. You don't need to leave your couch. Or you can text your friend if you want their specific recipe. The procedure between consumption and sharing has sped up exponentially: 1. Think of the information you want 2. Get to the information repository - Before: minutes to weeks (e.g., library, book) - Now: <30 seconds 3. Sift through that information source - Before: seconds to minutes (e.g., table of contents) - Now: <5 seconds (e.g., websearch) 4. Copy or learn the information you want - Before: seconds to minutes (e.g., handwriting) - Now: <10 seconds (e.g., copy-paste) 5. Travel back and use the information - Before: minutes to hours - Now: <30 seconds Total time consumed for information - Before: minutes to weeks - Now: <5 minutes There's a time and place for both, and slowly consuming information has tremendous advantages: 1. You spend more time focusing and [meditating](awareness.md) on it, which builds a deeper attachment to other experiences. 2. It took more time and effort to acquire that set of details, so discovering information is far more [rewarding](meaning.md). 3. The lead time waiting for the next stage of the information's gathering/using/communication process means less misstatement and misunderstanding. 4. Other people likely helped provide that information, which creates the primitives for building up [a community](groups-small.md). If you observe recorded media from even 50 years ago, people had a certain type of civility and inherent critical thinking capacity missing from today's culture. Most of it came from increased internalization of that information, which was first inspired by the comparatively longer time between information-gathering events. We find [meaning](meaning.md) through qualitative experiences (i.e., how we [feel](mind-feelings.md)), but computers are inherently configured for processing things *quantitatively* (i.e., [math](math.md)). Thus, while computers are impressive tools, they can become a source of meaninglessness. The absolute *worst* thing to do with information is to half-mindlessly consume it on an endless algorithmic feed. It increases breadth, but at a tremendous cost of depth. *Anything* works if it slows down inputs long enough to more accurately process its relationship with the rest of our lives: - [Religious](religion.md) exercises - [Meditation](awareness.md), guided or otherwise - More [small talk](language-speaking.md) in person with others about the information - My personal solution is to ["churn" the information repeatedly](https://stucky.tech/method/) until it becomes [a corpus of commonplacing](https://stucky.tech/creations/) ## Fix 2: Limiting streams We do well enough with any set of information, but the trouble arises from having too much information at *once*. - To be [successful](success-1_why.md) and [happy](mind-feelings-happiness.md), we do need at least *some* flow of information. - We must receive enough information to feel reasonably informed about what may affect our decisions, but never so much that it provokes us to unhealthy thoughts or the urge to step away. Learn to say "no" to more information. - Every new piece of information provides less [meaning](meaning.md) than the last (i.e., diminishing return). - When we start feeling boredom or fatigue, we *must* stop adding more information to our present pile. While it's our impulse to think of each article and subject as one thing, it's more useful for us to imagine the information flowing through a type of "stream". - Some streams (e.g., latest news headlines) run *very* rapidly, almost to the point of overwhelm simply by skimming them. - Other streams are comparatively slow (e.g., monthly newsletter). These streams have a natural speed, based on their origin: - Emails - Physical mail and newsletters - Social media and online forums - News websites - Blogs - In-person discussions and events with others - Public announcements like advertisements and government alerts Our intuition is a valuable detection system for [risks](safety-riskmgmt.md), so pay close attention to experiences you're feeling toward each of those domains, then scale back the flows to reflect it: - Cut out or limit specific social media or news, *especially* if it's because you're [bored](mind-creativity-how.md). - Swap out a particularly [addicting](addiction-substances.md) social media for a more thought-provoking one. - Swap out a news feed for a news aggregation service. - Unsubscribe from newsletters and email lists you keep deleting. - Avoid subscribing to new things. - Spend more time [working](success-4_routine.md) and less time [chatting](language-speaking.md) with others. ## Fix 3: Mindfully sift We consume because we're trying to stay informed about a few domains: 1. Large-scale events (e.g., natural disasters) 2. The latest [trends](trends.md), especially when they're connected to [our industry](jobs-specialization.md). 3. Specific people we want to follow, such as our friends or celebrities. These each require a different approach: 1. For large-scale events, we don't really need a lot of information. The fact that we hear about tons of *unimportant* news means we'll know quickly about wars, earthquakes, droughts, and other large-scale disasters even if we're not seeking for that information. They're also relatively impossible to [predict](imagination.md), so we're sacrificing our [happiness](mind-feelings-happiness.md) in the process. 2. Trends constantly cycle, and the newness of the trend determines how fast they move. We must stay trendy to the degree it's useful for making educated [decisions](people-decisions.md). 3. Following people should never be unpleasant unless those people could create risks that we [may have to manage](safety-riskmgmt.md). Therefore, the experience should be a hobby, unless those people are simply the conduit for trends. The constant stream of data is valuable to us because it *sometimes* yields something we like, which can chain us to a gambling [addiction](addiction-substances.md) that risks our time and attention instead of money. - The media industries advance this stream because they want you to stay casually inattentive to them (more time on their services means they make more money from [advertising](marketing.md)). - Work as hard as you can to attach whatever you're consuming to something legitimately practical. - Most people stop after they've burned out, but leave as soon as you see 4-5 consecutive things that weren't worth your time. Reading and watching content is *much* less effective than writing summaries. - While you don't need a [rigorous method](https://stucky.tech/method/), it's important to *do* something with that information to add any [meaning](meaning.md) to it. You must *enjoy* what you're consuming to pay attention to it. - We tend to consume mindlessly when we're bored. - If we want to [remember](mind-memory.md) and [use](success-4_routine.md) that information, it must be at least somewhat [entertaining](fun.md) to us. Doing is faster than reading, and reading is faster than seeing. - Everything you consume should direct toward some type of [creative project](mind-creativity.md). If you wish to multitask, pair up mindless tasks whenever you can (e.g., listen to music or a lightweight podcast while doing something relatively repetitive like [household chores](home-housekeeping.md)). However, do *not* pair thought-heavy tasks with anything else. - To [study or understand information](mind-memory.md), do *nothing* else at the same time, with the possible exception of listening to quiet instrumental music. - If the information is boring, but you still must work with it, feel free to doodle or something else mindless, but only to focus more easily on the boring information. ## Fix 4: Create more slowly There's tremendous wisdom in the slowness of speech, and the framing of society created an inherent slowness of speech (or writing) when someone was trying to present information to large groups of people. It usually took weeks or months to propagate a discovery: - A casual life improvement like a soup recipe or [cleaning tip](home-housekeeping.md) would arise as tribal knowledge in small talk at the [church service](history-church.md), town meeting, or Tupperware party. - Since news about the world was typically at daily or weekly intervals, we'd take comparative days or weeks to deliberate on what we should do with that information. - Slower input from the prior section meant learning new things and developing new skills *required* more spare time practicing and meditating on tasks. - The limitations on what we could do with [technology](technology.md) created more [meaning](meaning.md) for every individual contribution we made compared to now. The Over-Information Age has effectively reversed the constraints: - Within 3 minutes, a casual life improvement can get 300 votes from others on social media, with a 10-15 minute video or blog post adding extra emphasis to the experience. - The endless pipeline of news, updates, emails, notifications, and distractions can agitate us into taking action almost immediately if any of that information happens to be relevant. - We can learn just about anything almost immediately, which can easily build a chain of endlessly developing amateur skills in something without polishing that understanding or task into [mastery](professionals.md). - [Information technology](computers.md) allows one person to perform the work of 20 people from 100 years ago, which can add value through better results but also diminishes the entire experience. Our inherently social nature, mixed with the ubiquity of [social media](networks-social.md), have passively engineered us to perform off-the-cuff communication, which shortcuts the neocortex. The sheer supply of information will create an [economic devaluation](economics.md), but off-hand information means that much of that excessive information will be *bad* information. That thing you wanted to say will become more semi-decent noise for others to sift through. As an extreme [artistic depiction](mind-creativity.md), [Minus](https://minus.social/) gives the farthest end of the scarcity of our resources: 100 posts for life. Nobody, however, needs to be that dramatic. Instead, we must all be slower in our speech in small ways: - Only hit "send" *after* you've taken a few minutes' break. - Only reply with information that adds value to the dialogue. - Terminate conversations that don't lead anywhere. - Avoid pointless discussions. - Keep things simple, *then* expand on them if anyone cares. - Focus on [meaning](meaning.md) more than [impact](power-influence.md), and let the impact take care of itself. If you're recommending media to others, your journey will *not* be theirs: - You'll do a better job by [distilling the best parts for them](education.md), since people often don't have time or desire for reading or watching self-help, philosophy, or textbooks. - Keep your list very, very short and have a hidden extended list for the 2% who would care. *All* of this requires a specific type of humility: that [nothing is truly new](trends.md). You're not that important; nobody across the billions of people here has truly gone beyond what others ([or even God](religion.md)) have thought before. ## Fix 5: Well-managed information Now that we're not drowning in too much information or socially poisoning our environment with regurgitated information, we must manage the higher-quality remainder. Maintaining information requires sacrificing your attention. - Your information-gathering should advance a particular [purpose](purpose.md), or it's simply a computer-based version of hoarding. - Consistently ask whether that article or set of articles is still useful. - If it's hard-to-find information, ask why it's difficult to find, and if there are better alternatives instead of holding on to it. - If you need to, distill it into your own personally curated library or [useful web tools](https://github.com/Phileosopher/toolbox). Very frequently, it's much easier to *save* the information than actually *do* something with it. - We can often find a greater sense of [meaning](meaning.md) by immersing ourselves in many domains of quasi-[understanding](understanding.md) across many domains. - If you can't cross the threshold to make more from that information, it's not necessary to save. - We often maintain non-practical things because we still find them [beautiful](values-quality.md), which is fine if we know *why* we're keeping it and don't expect anything more from it. If the information may cause an adverse situation (e.g., [intellectual property](legal-ip.md) or [illegal content](people-rules.md)) ask if it's [worth the risk](safety-riskmgmt.md) to store it yourself. - Certain nations have laws other nations don't honor, and some nations have various conditions on how you can own or distribute content. - Frequently, only *part* of the content is illegal, and the rest may be [perfectly fine](legal-safety.md). Our [technological](technology.md) tools are *very* effective at managing raw information: - Starting with [the idea of the memex in 1945](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memex), we can use a wide variety of [productivity and tracking systems](success-4_routine.md) to directly collect and sort all our information. - Wellness apps can fulfill every conceivable need, ranging from [sleeping](sleep.md) to [eating](cooking.md) to [working out](body-3_exercise.md) to [making friends](people-4_friends.md). - Even further, [human nature](humanity.md) is predictable enough that [software algorithms](computers-programming-algorithms.md) can find intervals connected to our [habits](habits.md) and prepare *just* before we have a need or want. - [Artificial intelligence](computers-ai.md), such as [machine learning](computers-ai-ml.md), heavily expands on any previous algorithms' scope and can learn behaviors simply by observing tens of thousands of iterations. However, these tools have built-in limitations: - Productivity systems help you accomplish what you want to do, but they don't tell you *what* to do. - Wellness apps can fulfill our needs and help us survive, but thriving requires [meaning](meaning.md), which ironically requires the responsibility we may have otherwise found by *not* having the wellness apps. - An algorithm can be configured to predict what we want, but not whether it's a good idea for the context. - Machine learning algorithms act according to averaged-out behaviors, so exclusively trusting the algorithm will lead to a very average experience by an entity with zero understanding of how or why those things exist. [Machine learning](computers-ai.md) strips away context from each sentence, which will only make complete paragraphs worse than before. We typically trust the social media algorithms to sift through them, but we need more well-managed information, not just a better way to sift it. Information is, [by its very essence](values.md), linked to many other pieces of information. [The only way we are even capable of understanding anything](understanding.md) is by "tagging" all the information in our minds with other information. To that end, all the decent organization systems have a few built-in features: 1. Tagged groups, which are non-exclusive and user-made. 2. The means to create more tags as needed. 3. Permutations, divergences, and convergences of groups, as needed. 4. A built-in "miscellaneous" section for any groups, as needed. However, this isn't [well-organized](organization.md) enough to combat the heavy piles of information presented to us, and we need a more direct assault. We are frequently [unaware](awareness.md) of our own philosophical precedents, so we incessantly presume the meanings of words without clearly understanding them. Clearly demarcating exclusive categories (where it can *only* be one or the other) forces us to confront cognitive dissonance: - Multiple perspectives are acceptable for *working* with the information, but only one perspective is "truth" for the purpose of organizing. - Any "sporks" or "miscellaneous" elements must become new categories or sub-categories, even if not explicitly stated. - If the "truth" perspective starts becoming unreasonable, the entire system requires re-analysis, with the possibility of rebuilding all or part of the entire system. [Language](language.md) codifies how we [understand](understanding.md), and high-quality language builds information into as few words as reasonably possible, where the [meaning](results.md) we've built directly corresponds with our [intuition](mind-feelings.md). Once something seeps into our subconscious, we start developing [principles](people-rules.md), which slowly form rules for how we should live. Over time, a type of "[mental automation](habits.md)" frees us up to better work with information. ## Fix 6: Detect bias Learn to detect language that demonstrates the [types of bias](mind-bias.md) people often maintain. - Since we *all* have a bias, expect a pre-existing value system that misses at least *some* details. - Typically, people share most information because they perceive specific [facts](reality.md) they want others to know. - Most of the time, if the tone is depicted as unbiased, it probably has *more* bias than one where they fully own their slanted perspective. The true information tends to accumulate bias as stories are retold and distilled. 1. The raw scientific study or story is usually the most reliable. - e.g., "a study has found that eating a pound of sugar a week is bad for your health" 2. The press release is usually more vague. - e.g., "sugar is bad for your health" 3. The social media posts about the press release are typically sensational. - e.g., "we must disavow sugar use forever" 4. Hearing about the *social media posts* from others (e.g., a news article) quickly becomes complete misinformation. - e.g., "new anti-sugar cult has taken social media by storm" The language's tone can indicate many aspects of bias: - The article must adequately question its values and others, then point out potential flaws and complications with that particular view. - A content creator is typically paid to advance a particular perspective, so find out who pays them. - If you can, look at their past beliefs and projections, and whether they withstood the [fashions](trends.md) of that time (use an internet archive if you can). - Examine *why* they're focusing heavily on one aspect or neglecting another aspect. If the perspective implies "unbiased facts", sharpen your instincts: - Trust the information if it's [common-sense](mind-feelings.md). - *Don't* trust the information if it's difficult to verify or confusing, and slow down to learn more about it if it's relevant at all to you. - Learn to identify specific demands for more rigor without an equal amount of demand to the contrary. - e.g., demanding scientific proof of [God](religion.md) without demanding equally [scientific proof](science.md) of God's absence. Watch for misused language: - Adapting nouns to evoke a stronger feeling ("carnivorous mammal" instead of "cat"). - Adding adverbs and adjectives to make the story more sensational ("brutally slaughtered" instead of "killed"). - Beginning the story or paragraph with emotionally charged words ("Tragedy strikes at the...", "It is a terrible day in history when..."). Large media organizations frequently use an abundance of information to overwhelm. - Their reasoning is that if you're overwhelmed, you'll trust them because they clearly have much to say on the subject. - The most profound version of this comes from an abundance of poorly gathered [data](database.md). - [AI-assisted](computers-ai.md) media makes this tactic even *more* powerful. There are many, many ways to [distort image](image-distortion.md), and [technology](technology.md) *constantly* opens more possibilities. - To discover the truth, take time to methodically sift through the presented information. - If you can understand the ideas *behind* what you're consuming, everything that repeats the same idea will be easier to process. Typically, finding truth becomes increasingly hard when at least one side of a viewpoint is [controversial](people-5_conflicts.md). - Usually, if there's "consensus" without much explanation, any contrasting views will be difficult to find. - To save energy, carefully consider if even *knowing* a competing viewpoint has any [use](purpose.md) to you. - If you're willing to wait 6 months not learning anything new about a topic, the [trends](trends.md) will typically have shifted, and the truth will slowly unveil itself. If you may need to know the opposing views, consider *both* of them. - You'll understand more about a topic by reading 2 articles each from a [conservative and liberal](politics-conservativeliberal.md) publication than about 15 of them from only one side. - The more harsh the divide, the larger the middle ground between them, and the more likely there's a wide variety of perspectives buried by attention toward the extreme views. ## Fix 7: Focus on known-good trends [New trends](trends.md) have a distinct pattern: 1. Destroy existing conventions via dominance in the public space. 2. Overwhelm the public space to the point where everyone is tired of the trend. 3. Stop existing because another trend took its place. Then, after history exonerates them, the old trends with any long-term value will surge back into the public consciousness. They will sometimes become a fixed object in everyone's mind, sometimes signify an era (e.g., bell bottom pants represent the 1970s) or permanently (e.g., [the Federalist Papers](history-foundingdocs.md)). To avoid the inundation of useless information, it's wisest to aim *behind* whatever anyone's talking about today. Unless you're doing it for fun, following what everyone is raving about is simply too much information to consume. So, this opens up a new set of constraints: 1. Aim to consume trends that have been around for at least a few years (but preferably 10-20). 2. When creating, aim for the style of proven trends, with [your creative spark](mind-creativity-how.md) guiding the rest. 3. All other aspects being equal, prioritize older things over newer things. Some people may disagree with these ideas, but everything is a remix, and nothing is truly "new". If they would rather not admit that connection, they're probably a [technical idiot](https://gainedin.site/idiot/) and could stand to [integrate their shadow](personality.md) a bit. ## Fix 8: Stay practical Naturally, even old things can become nearly useless. Horsemanship skills, for example, no longer apply as much as [automotive driving and maintenance skills](autos.md). Now, no information is ever *completely* useless. There's always historical value, secondary value, data-scraping value, and aesthetic value to almost anything, even if it became useless for its dominant purpose. Archaeology, for example, is the science of mostly digging up nature's trash to find out what happened. So, with any object, we must be able to sufficiently answer what hypothetical (yet possible) scenario a piece of information could serve to benefit us (since it always has one). Then, we must respond accordingly: 1. If you can't answer it, shove it out of your workspace and deal with it later. 2. If you *can* answer it but can't act on it, shove it out of your workspace, but [organize](organization.md) it somehow. 3. If you can both answer it and act on it, make sure it's [a reasonable goal](success-3_goals.md), then get to it. For myself, I also have a few dogmatic rules to avoid unproductive information: 1. There is *always* truth, even when it's unknowable or without consensus, and the only meaningful dialogue comes through discussing whatever truth we have. 2. Truth won't contradict itself later, though it may be imprecise and need clarifications later. It's a reliable truth if its broad-sweeping practical implications don't change. 3. No matter the truth, *someone* in the room will disagree, and that [conflict](people-5_conflicts.md) has two productive uses: - The extra hardship against the assertion will burn off the citation. Mussolini, Kennedy, Joseph Stalin, and Gandhi all had valid points. - The conflict sheds light on the relative [power](power.md) of the individuals holding that view. This is highly useful to see how soon [trends](trends.md) about [taboo topics](morality-taboo.md) will shift. 4. The highest form of meaningful living requires [love for others](people-love.md), which considers others' interests equally with one's own. Love focuses equally on the truth and the individuals' [feelings](mind-feelings.md) about that truth. 5. [Agrippa's Trilemma](paradoxes.md) means the place for truth isn't self-referenced and is inherently a religious matter. We [fight and kill](people-conflicts-war.md) over where that information resides, but the only solution (albeit not very reliably) is to incorporate love. 6. We learn most things through trial-and-error before they're "[known good](https://adequate.life/fix/)", so there will be many screwups along the way. It does save tons of effort to know *what* is deductively true (Rule 1), but nobody will agree on it (Rule 3). Your own dogmatic rules *will* vary, but they should distill into equally potent axioms. Most information is a waste of time, but don't sift out *valuable* information: - Specific, timeless, career-relevant information - Important information about [friends](people-4_friends.md) and [family](people-family.md) - In-person, speaking with actual people The entire end of this, after all, is to add [meaning](meaning.md) to life: - The absence of information allows us to manufacture high-quality [stories](stories.md). - Taking life every day often means ignoring [what came yesterday](understanding.md) and [what will come tomorrow](imagination.md). - We need boredom to find [creativity](mind-creativity.md). Occasionally, it simply makes sense to release *all* of it and [have fun doing something else](fun.md) or [take a vacation](fun-vacations.md).