Re:Overdosing on Celebrity Gossip, The News, and Low Quality...
by jsun on Monday October 14, 2013 @06:07PM
(#6549948)
I think the author was more talking about the difference between consuming information or consuming narrative even though he didn't quite phrase it that way. Learning about a new piece of regulation that just passed on immigration reform is information. Learning about what the sheriff of Arizona thinks about illegal immigration is narrative. Someone somewhere crafted that piece for you to consume and is spoon-feeding it to you. It's like the junk food of information.
We like narrative, because its fun and exciting and designed to appeal to us, but at the end of the day has very little information value.
If I'm aware of a war broiling in a certain country, I can avoid investing there. If I'm aware of market trends, I can plan my investments accordingly. If I believe immigration restrictions on educated workers will be loosened over the next fifty years, I can develop products that will be especially useful to people with green cards and white-collars.
Sure, you won't be able to do anything tomorrow, but that won't mean you ready yourself to seize opportunities that present themselves over the next decade or two.