Learn something

I have been posting the potential action items on Facebook and Twitter, separately from the blog. Not everyone reads that blog, but they might still like ideas for things to do.

Most of them haven't drawn a lot of attention, but I did get a few negative commenters on the suggestion to get and wear KN95 masks.

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/02/im-not-swearing-at-you-this-time-but.html

There was positive feedback too, but there were some anti-maskers. They started out asking questions that could have seemed reasonable, but it wasn't long before there were things that were clearly MAGA talking points, that I am also pretty sure they sincerely believed.

I know there is a lot of misinformation out there, and I can't recommend any one news source as consistently fair and reliable. 

There are a few things that do seem to help.

Specialized knowledge helps. 

If you know things like how various institutions function or how radios wave or diseases transmit or how hot jet fuel burns... any of those could be the thing that makes you say, "That's not how that works. That's not how any of that works."

I wish everyone had a good understanding of civics and hygiene and disease prevention,  but there are all sorts of things that are interesting and good to know, and there are lots of ways to get to know them.

My opening browser page pulls from Pocket:

https://getpocket.com/home

That means that there is a frequently updated mix of articles from magazines like Smithsonian, Psychology Today, Shape, Popular Science, and many others.

Some of them are ads; if it's something about the best meal kit or what the best investors know, I am probably not interested. Regardless, I find interesting things from a variety of areas and I appreciate that.

One great thing about Wikipedia is that the articles have sources listed. If you are not sure about something, you can find the article or book or interview that the claim comes from.

There are libraries full of books.

Currently I am going through some music books in the for Dummies series. It may not be the greatest title, but I am going in without a lot of background knowledge and with this series I do not need it.

Learning things will often lead to more learning; that is a beautiful progression.

It really is an interesting and amazing world, even though humans have set a lot of it on fire.

Potential action item: Pick something you find interesting and learn more about it.