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Why Aren’t We Curious About the Things We Want to Be Curious About?

nytimes.com

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Re: Why Aren’t We Curious About the Things We Want to Be Curious About?

#51

Post by lonelappde »

kstenerud wrote: post #34
helpPeople wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I call my blog posts articles. They take multiple months of research. What should I call them?

Blog posts occupy the space between tweets and papers. Higher quality blog posts can contain a lot of useful information, but can never replace an actual deep understanding of the topic. You couldn't expect readers of your blog posts to then go on to write a novel blog post of the same quality on the same topic.

Readers of one book can't write a book of the same quality on the same topic.

Re: Why Aren’t We Curious About the Things We Want to Be Curious About?

#52

Post by lonelappde »

minikites wrote: post #39
kuu wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think by "article", the comment refers to article like in news or in some general audience site, not on specialized place.

There are news articles about the political history of Europe?

No, and that's the problem. We crave the dopamine thrill of "news", but history would be much more useful to our understanding of our world.

Re: Why Aren’t We Curious About the Things We Want to Be Curious About?

#54

Post by macromaniac »

kstenerud wrote: post #12

> When I’m surfing the web I want to be drawn in by articles on Europe’s political history or the nature of quasars That's the problem right there. Articles are the white sugar of information. They contain a tiny amount of actual info, but not enough to be useful in any meaningful way. If you truly want to learn about something, read a book or a paper. Articles will get you nowhere.

I think better than a book is just being curious about the world around you. Why does only my front car window have frost on it? Why does my granola bar wrapper emit light when I open it under my covers? You are guarenteed to learn relevant things that change your worldview instead of relying on whatever you are told to be curious about. Think for yourself, but you should also be curious for yourself.

Re: Why Aren’t We Curious About the Things We Want to Be Curious About?

#55

Post by zaphar »

paulsutter wrote: post #47
jasode wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The answer lies in understanding the Utility of the Novelty Seeker to a Group. You've made an interesting comment about "novelty seeking" but I just want to try and clarify what the author's article is talking about. Some representative sentences from the article: >When I’m surfing the web I want to be drawn in by articles on Europe’s political history or the nature of quasars, but I end up reading trivia like a men…

How worthy is it /really/ for a psychologist to read up on quasars?

Is the specific knowledge about quasars useful to a psychologist? That's hard to say. But is expanding your mental toolbox and exercising you mind useful to someone who engages in primarily intellectual labor? That seems likely to the case .

Re: Why Aren’t We Curious About the Things We Want to Be Curious About?

#56

Post by Yajirobe »

macromaniac wrote: post #54
kstenerud wrote: post #12

> When I’m surfing the web I want to be drawn in by articles on Europe’s political history or the nature of quasars That's the problem right there. Articles are the white sugar of information. They contain a tiny amount of actual info, but not enough to be useful in any meaningful way. If you truly want to learn about something, read a book or a paper. Articles will get you nowhere.

I think better than a book is just being curious about the world around you. Why does only my front car window have frost on it? Why does my granola bar wrapper emit light when I open it under my covers? You are guarenteed to learn relevant things that change your worldview instead of relying on whatever you are told to be curious about. Think for yourself, but you should also be curious for yourself.

And then when you try to google for information on these things, you end up reading the very same short articles.

Re: Why Aren’t We Curious About the Things We Want to Be Curious About?

#57

Post by tw1010 »

macromaniac wrote: post #54
kstenerud wrote: post #12

> When I’m surfing the web I want to be drawn in by articles on Europe’s political history or the nature of quasars That's the problem right there. Articles are the white sugar of information. They contain a tiny amount of actual info, but not enough to be useful in any meaningful way. If you truly want to learn about something, read a book or a paper. Articles will get you nowhere.

I think better than a book is just being curious about the world around you. Why does only my front car window have frost on it? Why does my granola bar wrapper emit light when I open it under my covers? You are guarenteed to learn relevant things that change your worldview instead of relying on whatever you are told to be curious about. Think for yourself, but you should also be curious for yourself.

You haven't read some of the amazing books that are out there if you've got that attitude.

Re: Why Aren’t We Curious About the Things We Want to Be Curious About?

#58

Post by tathings »

kstenerud wrote: post #12

> When I’m surfing the web I want to be drawn in by articles on Europe’s political history or the nature of quasars That's the problem right there. Articles are the white sugar of information. They contain a tiny amount of actual info, but not enough to be useful in any meaningful way. If you truly want to learn about something, read a book or a paper. Articles will get you nowhere.

Completely agree. I run Thinking About Things[1], an email newsletter with one interesting link every day, and the goal has always been to make the reader more curious about the topic and be motivated to find out more - not to satisfy an intellectual itch.

[1] https://www.thinking-about-things.com

Re: Why Aren’t We Curious About the Things We Want to Be Curious About?

#59

Post by tw1010 »

criddell wrote: post #46

This is why I have 20 unread books on my Kindle and at night when I'm looking for something to read I can't find anything.

That's like saying there doesn't exist riveting brain-changing books out there, which just isn't true. (Keep searching until you've found your bliss.)

Re: Why Aren’t We Curious About the Things We Want to Be Curious About?

#60

Post by shantly »

Worth noting that the ability to indulge practically any idle curiosity ("who was that guy in that one movie again?") with almost no effort is very new. Unless you happened to have the relevant book of trivia, or maybe a good encyclopedia for some things, and you were at home or otherwise somewhere those were physically located, you couldn't find out without quite a bit of effort. That kind of stuff just dropped out of one's mind almost as quickly as it came up. You might ask the people around you, and if they couldn't remember, oh well, off it goes.

If you wanted to know something, you had to work at it or premeditate and spend time and/or money to be ready to find out information in a certain category (having the right books, mostly).

Your brain didn't nag and insist that you go find it out right now, generally, for every little question of near-zero importance that happened to cross your mind. That's a curse of the Internet age.

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