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And one of the biggest lies that internet culture tells us is that something is only important and interesting if it is new. As someone whose day job is at a nonprofit newsroom, I have a front row seat to the consequences of that lie. Convincing anyone to read a story that is more than a week old is an uphill battle, the ideology of which is clear:... See more

one of the biggest lies that internet culture tells us is that something is only important and interesting if it is new

Media, and arguably most of culture, is oriented around the new. (Dad-voice: "That's why it's called 'the news!'") The VC dollars swirl like dust devils. Social media platforms rise and fall. Magazines are founded and folded. While I, the wizened crone of the newsletter world, remain happily focused on my next step.

I enjoy reading a lot of old news. I find that, at the end of the day, the world moves in cycles, and the tricky thing is the length of the cycle seems to be just ever so slightly longer than the length of the human lifespan—so it seems really new and novel to us, but it's exactly what people went through in prior times. And we don't read old news ... See more

This allows us to pop the algorithmic bubbles—the weapons of math destruction—used by the Twitters, Facebooks, Googles of the world to lull us to sleep. It shuts off the intermittent dopamine drip to which we have become tethered and addicted.Though I do not lead a life so interesting to write about each and every day (partly why this newsletter go... See more

remember, "interesting" "inspiring" and "informative" are all at odds with "optimized"

We live in an aggressive media environment. Everything we see advertises for our attention. Information is constantly pushed onto us.

As the torrent increases, it devalues more and more information that comes our way. All social media is advertising. Even my posts are essentially ads for my work and point of view. Newsletters have become overwhelmi... See more

Consume old stuff when you're young and new stuff when you're old. This is the opposite of what most people do