The Need to Read

> any examples of the wide gap between high-value content vs. low-value

A few spring to mind:

* Science: Compare IPCC reports with almost any discussion on climate change. If you take the time to read just the IPCC 'summary reports for policy makers', you quickly learn that almost all popular discussion of it is nonsense - the wrong questions based on wrong information, like discussing the quality of ice fishing in the Sahara - a waste of your time and worse, misinformation. A related example: Publications such as Nature and Science are so different than popular coverage of science, it's as if they are covering a different field of human knowledge.

* International relations (i.e., foreign policy, etc.): I've taken the time to find the expert publications and, as in other fields, you quickly realize that they are a goldmine of knowledge and almost everything else - even 'experts' writing editorials in the NYT or WSJ - is ignorant and/or deceitful. The non-partisan think tanks are very good: Brookings, Carnegie Endowment, CSIS, the Lowy Institute in Australia is great and a different perspective ... I have a much longer list if you re interested, and I next mean to look into the leading academic publications.

* Think of a field you have deep expertise in; do outsiders really have a clue? For example, IT security: Even IT pros on HN have large blind spots and most of the public is clueless. The language spoken by IT security experts, the questions asked, the solutions, are very different than what everyone else says. You need to read the right books, not just any book, to gain real knowledge.

* Next time you need to research something, look at the usual sources via Google web search, then look at scholarly publications (e.g., via Google Scholar). IME, often the former seems valuable and persuasive until I read the latter, and then the popular stuff seems frighteningly misinformed.

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> Any pointers to high-value content since you mention there is much?

Of course it depends on the field you are interested in; there is far more to read in any field than you have time for, unless you want a masters degree in it. There are more great works of literature than we have time to read; why read anything less? (There are reasons, but you get my point.) Examples:

* In the last few years I decided to read Confucius' Analects, an obvious example of a high-value book - why read about it and about Chinese culture when I can just read the Master himself? - but which translation? Great writers are subtle and likely have a breadth and depth of ideas far beyond their translator's grasp (unless their translator also is a genius and expert in the same field). Amazon reviewers seemed persuasive and helpful - until I turned to journal articles by experts in the field. Then I learned once and for all that Amazon reviewers often sound good but have no clue; the Amazon reviews turned out to almost all useless or worse - I almost believed them.

* I'm reading The Inferno by Dante now (translated by John Sinclair, as recommended by a professor in the field). It's one of the most beautiful, moving, exceptional works of art I've ever encountered. It's a loss to the world that anyone doesn't get to see what I see.

* I recently bought the Koran (after researching translations). A billion people are talking about Islam; hardly any have a clue about what they are saying - they just repeat low-value information. Rather than spending hours reading all that, I'll spend it on one high value book and know far, far more. And I'll also need to find a high-value book, maybe sociology, on how Islam actually is understood and practiced today.

(Certainly not all high-value works are 'classic' books like the Analects, Inferno, or Koran, though consider that there are thousands of years of writing by smart people to mine; if you picked the best of each century you'd have a lot of reading to do.)

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A few tips based on my experience (low-value info, but I've never seen anything good on the subject!):

* Much of the high value stuff can be intimidating, has bad associations (from when you were forced to read it in school before you were ready) or has a status that overwhelms the ability to see it for the flawed, human genius that it is. Get by those issues, form your own opinion with fresh eyes, and you usually discover that, hey, this is flawed but is indeed absolutely brilliant and wonderful. Much is a great pleasure to read (see Dante, above) - extremely talented people tend to master writing well too, and there is a reason so many love it. Some is indeed dry and much of it is challenging - but I've become more accustomed to that and find low-value stuff often lacks the richness, depth and brilliance I've come to expect.

* Follow your nose; be opportunistic; keep asking questions about the world: When I'm asking the questions that the book also asks or addresses, that's a good time to start reading it. Also, my instincts about what I'm interested in also are a good guide to what I'm ready for; or if a work angers me then usually that's because it's challenging me and I really need to read it. If I don't grasp some art-form or artist, I keep my eyes open for when it suddenly resonates and then read/watch/etc. I get much less out of randomly chosen books, no matter how brilliant.

* Unless you are superhuman, low-value stuff can be very persuasive without high-value stuff to compare it to (see my Confucius example, above). Humans just have very limited ability to see through nonsense. If you've never been to Fiji, how could you tell if someone is giving you good or bad information about it?

* Try not to settle for less than the best: Knowledge based on research and above all, expertise; art from the true geniuses. Unless you are diving deep, the settled knowledge of a field is the best starting place - imperfect like all human knowledge, but far better than the alternatives. Amateurs, even smart, studied ones, have gaping blind spots. The high-value experts aren't gods, but when I approach them with healthy skepticism I find I appreciate them even more: They often turn out to be real people who achieved true genius and who created amazing works of art and knowledge.

* Most people have developed the skills and resources to quickly find and evaluate low-value information, such as using Google web search and knowing Quora from Reddit from StackExchange. You'll need to develop the skills and resources for high-value stuff (see below) but once you do using them becomes far more efficient.

* The best resources on general topics that I've found (I'm still a bit of a novice myself): Google Scholar, JSTOR (if you can get access; it usually requires privileges at a university library), and most valuable in their way, reference specialists at university (not public) libraries (for example, there may be a Russian history reference specialist): They can immediately tell you which book or paper is the leader in its field, its strengths and weaknesses, etc., and can distinguish between books that are fringe ideas, experts' advocacy of their pet hypotheses, and settled knowledge. Most will help the public but you need to respect their time: Do your homework, carefully prepare your question, be patient, and don't expect many followups.

I find that I retain more if I actually read the book then write my own summary in a journal somewhere. I learned that habit from a friend and once in a while I'd go back over the notes.

There is much talk here in New Zealand, as there is in the US, about the possibility of a Universal Basic Income.

Looking it up, I found a relatively short investigation into the idea commissioned by the government back in 2010[1], that has more real statistics and conclusions than all the other talk I've ever seen put together.

What you call "high-value" writing still, of course, has the possibility of errors, bias, etc. But man is it still more informative to read than everything else.

Of course the punishment for reading this stuff is the pain of living in a world full of people commenting who "didn't read the article." :p

[1] Available here: http://igps.victoria.ac.nz/WelfareWorkingGroup/Downloads/Wor...

Exposing you to ^new^ ideas, ones not encountered before.