Originally written on January 12, 2021,

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Introduction

Information abundance has led to a rise in dumb people and smart people alike. It is bad for an average person and great for a smart person. People who consume a lot of content be it news, political articles, videos, audios, etc tend to develop an echo chamber of thoughts and find it extremely difficult to get out of it. Whereas people who use the same media judiciously tend to develop a more balanced and open-minded view about what read online.

This is applicable to everything in life. While the fast-food chains have increased multiple folds in the last couple of decades, people have started consuming more and more processed food making them obese, while people who consume healthy options and maintain good health have increased too. This is called the paradox of abundance: On one hand, the median population is falling in the lower half of the optimal nutritional value range, small groups of people have managed to be in the top 10%.

Gresham's Law

It is a law commonly used in financial markets where it is said that bad money drives out good money until there is only bad money left. This very thing applies to information, food, work, and many more areas.

Let's consider an example of news. News outlets today have what it seems like a clickbait-y title competition where the only objective is to generate clicks on their articles. This means that the quality of content that is available on these media outlets is deteriorating day-by-day. Due to this, more and more people consume bad content and this cycle continues indefinitely.

The reason for this, what I personally think, is that it is easy to consume unhealthy information/food/content because it requires no effort and it adheres to the idea of comfort. More and more people want comfort in their lives and it makes them choose McDonald's over farmers' market.

How to succeed in the world of abundance?

Be mindful of the things that you consume. Rebel against the algorithms, look for legible news sources, read the hard stuff instead of BuzzFeed. For a conscious consumer, there hasn't been a better time to be alive. As Komal would say, "Choose wisely. Live well."