A low-stakes critical thinking exercise for online media
A modern media survival guide
Critical thinking is a fundamental skill for staying sane in today’s online media landscape. Like many valuable and rewarding skills, it takes practice, and is much more difficult to master than it can be described. To make matters worse, a lack of critical thinking amongst the public creates opportunities for some of the most despicable behavior to go rewarded if not outright addressed. With this piece, I hope to provide some ‘beyond the basics’ guidance for those who may already be fairly good critical thinkers as well as a pragmatic first step for those who could benefit from an accessible starting point. While it is easy to dismiss online media as a whole, this should help people to navigate the unprecedented complexity of our current digital experience.
Instead of giving up entirely, it is valuable to get the most out of what is available today. Very often one can find excellent information from unlikely and often conflicting sources, while trusted and well-known resources can just as often fall short. Being skeptical of things that go against our biases is easy, but being as focused and critical of things we identify with is much harder. To truly be a shrewd critical thinker, and a proficient learner, one absolutely must learn to to put all ideas, foreign and comfortable alike, into a precise sieve. With the right frame of mind, one can transform their mind into a powerful forge that refines raw ideas into precious insight. This frame of mind includes a variety of cognitive skills that build on each other, and are relatively easy to take on at first. The real challenge is being consistent and properly processing ideas from sources and mediums you trust. The purpose of this overview is to help you learn how you can upgrade your own critical thinking capacity without coming up against any bias or personal stake.
An “info-junkie’s” guide to media
I certainly don’t consider myself an expert or authority on the subject of critical thinking. I like to believe that I am proficient at it, largely due to being an extremely online ‘digital native’ for much of my life. For a long time letting my curiosity run wild over the Internet was a major (counter-productive) coping-mechanism for stress to me. In hindsight, I can see how over-time I gained a valuable skill for traversing narrative networks to identify the most interesting speakers within a particular domain. This ability is something I would do unknowingly to abate my insatiable curiosity. Recently, I have had the opportunity to consciously assess this skill. By taking on a new interest of mine (health & fitness) I applied the same familiar skillset while reflecting on what I was doing and what I was learning. The results were fascinating.
With the abundance of online media already, and generative AI threatening to completely flood and outpace what was already immense, there is an absolutely overwhelming need to learn to evaluate and filter what information is out there. The great challenge of this, is that when one is new to a domain, we do not know what we do not know. A certain amount of trial and error is expected to wrap our minds around not just the domain itself, but also the fine details of the inevitable disagreements within that domain. The good news is that relatively simple methods can absolutely help you get the most out of what is out there fairly quickly.
The most important habit is epistemological humility. Understanding and accepting that there are limits to your knowledge, always will be is fundamental to building a strong mental refiner. You can’t learn if you don’t believe you need to learn. To go even further, you need to also be able to honestly evaluate what you believe you know. As you improve this skill, it will become easier to discover and confront your presently unknown biases and knowledge gaps. Epistemological humility helps improve every aspect of critical thinking in practice. By recognizing your own mental and intellectual limits you can also be comfortable recognizing those of your allies and trusted sources.
Collecting insight
As I’ve always loved to collect information the early steps are always the most fun for me. My curiosity gives me an open mind by default on many topics. Once you’ve recognized that you have more to learn in a particular domain, it becomes natural to seek out sources of information on that domain. Each domain will have specific topics that themselves represent almost entirely new domain in many cases. Once you get a sense for how vast and deep this fractal of knowledge is, the more you can appreciate the lifelong joy that learning truly is. This means that when one is new to particular topic or domain, the quality of the beginning sources matters very little. When beginning to wrestle with a topic it is crucial to expose yourself to the broad representation of what the discussion entails.
By casting a wide net, and not being too picky when starting out you can begin to learn the boundaries and differences within the topic or domain. As you let your mind feast on the diversity in quality and presentation of information, gradually you begin to build your own understanding of it. As this knowledge improves you now have the capacity to deliberately focus your learning on the topics that are either in contention, or otherwise important to you. In the beginning, it is immensely valuable to spend the time to seek out less-known or popular sources of information, but sometimes you can luckily discover them in passing as you explore. With a bit of epistemological humility, you can recognize that early on you don’t have enough understanding of the topic to judge sources too harshly.. The best use of this early stage is to use it to collect a variety of sources in whatever media forms you wish to learn from. The variety will later serve you as you begin to narrow down your focus to high quality sources of information or on those that otherwise provide valuable and unique perspectives.
Conflict is good, actually
One of the earliest discoveries one will make when entering a domain is that there are always significant points of contention. To outsiders it may often look like needlessly splitting hairs, but in many cases there is a crucial value in understanding the important distinction being made. If ideas are raw minerals that you refine into precious ingots of insight, conflict is the fire that puts the ideas to the test. Disagreement is when different understanding or perspectives are brought into contrast. This is not to say that all conflicts and disagreements are productive however. Drama can be fun and entertaining, however being able to disagree without losing composure or crossing lines is a difficult skill that I myself have yet to properly master. A great speaker with loads of insight may struggle when challenged, and a calm person may or may not have a passion for the finer points of the discussion. This makes getting the most out of conflict within domains a particularly difficult challenge, but it is productive, it is often immensely instructive.
The reason it “leads if it bleeds” is that any disagreement usually reveals much about not only the topic at hand, but also about the participants. What may appear at the surface to be mindless petty gossip and juvenile mud-flinging can often unearth things that people have yet to truly contend with. This goes beyond just the unknown biases of individuals, but also the thinkers within a domain almost entirely. By recognizing conflict as an opportunity to learn, you can often run off with the spoils of a debate from the sidelines while others continue to lose themselves. Of course, eventually you learn enough to be trapped in these conflicts yourself. This is where your learning becomes contingent on your ability to honestly reflect on your own participation as well as your opponents. ‘Turning the other cheek’ can very often be an opportunity to learn from your own conflicts and develop a much deeper understanding of what drives not only the conflict itself, but even your own actions and reactions.
When you get to this point, you’ve learned enough to begin to discern what sources of information are useful in particular contexts. It is crucial to not develop an “all-or-nothing” approach to this. Some sources will still be valuable sometimes, even if they are not for the vast majority of time. At some point, it is necessary to do a “cost-benefit analysis” of your time engaging with any particular media source. Each source and speaker has a certain “signal to noise” ratio and frequency. Having a rough idea of both will help you decide how best to partition your time and engagement with particular sources.
Intellectual prospecting
On any issue, there is almost guaranteed to be a variety of perspectives, or at least two sides. It is very common, that even the unpopular side may make some particularly important points that are valuable to the discussion, or even other issues as well. Under-represented positions are often a valuable deposit of unique perspectives and different approaches. Being able to listen to those who have different positions than you, even opposing ones for valuable points can be a way to find flecks of precious insight in what may otherwise seem valueless. In my own experience, being able to glean important points from those who I share very little in common with has presented me with ideas and opportunities that I never would have found otherwise. Being open-minded doesn’t mean merely changing your values and beliefs with current trends, but rather being able to fully investigate a concept even if you’re opposed to it.
If you ever needed a reason to love your enemies, a good one is to recognize that you can learn a lot from them. If you listen, they’ll very often make some scathing and excellent critiques of your allies. It may be worth taking those criticisms seriously, even if you have no intention to change your perspective on the issues. Very often your opponents and critics can be a very valuable mirror to hold to yourself. It’s much easier for you to recognize their flaws than your own. It turns out, that you’re quite likely to have similar flaws and weaknesses, even if only in kind but not degree. This is an opportunity to protect your mind from your ego. It is quite a mistake to ‘judge a book by its cover’ and assume there are no fruitful trees in the forest. To go even further, connecting with and learning from those on different sides of various issues can help get you a better grasp of the basics.
This is yet another area that epistemological humility plays an important role. While you may be incredibly certain about your understanding of a particular topic or focus, it can be easy to miss that your understanding has its limits. While other perspectives may clash with your own experience, it is possible there are many factors you yet don’t understand that explain the difference. Being able to accept that there is much outside your personal experience can help you identify places you need to understand better to truly gain a well-rounded grasp of a contentious issue. To make things so much more complicated, there are many inevitable communication barriers between people of different life experiences and backgrounds. To truly gain a broad understanding of divisive issues, one must learn to patiently listen to those in ways that over time can overcome communication barriers.
While true and false are absolutely real, and some of objective reality is regularly measurable, don’t make the mistake of being overconfident in certain positions. There can be a lot of value in understanding what leads people astray. By dismissing it all as ‘brainwashing’ or ‘disinformation’ you can miss that there may be real grains of truth underpinning the argument. There are many issues where our measurements of reality are simply too limited. Think of how many headlines are generated from studies that ultimately relied on self-reported surveys asking vague questions. Precision matters, and there are many places we will never truly have that much precision.
Hate the game, not the player(s)
With some of my personal experiences running this multi-media passion project, I’ve gotten hands-on experience wrestling with the incentives around content creation. Most people are familiar with the fact that mainstream social media algorithms will often influence creators and projects with how particular content and presentation is rewarded. This project was started with a deliberate focus on being as pro-decentralization as possible. This means not only making use of more niche systems like PeerTube & RSS, but also forgoing analytics entirely by running two darknet mirrors for the site. This means that in terms of feedback, I have very much been “running blind” relative to more mainstream media endeavors. While at the same time, Substack and the people I have come in touch with have provided me valuable context for the more commonly tread side of things.
“Follow the money” is absolutely timeless advice that pays dividends when it comes to critical thinking. I have had the frustration and pleasure of “not being bought” when it comes to this enterprise. I have deliberately forgone affiliate codes, and have yet to become notable enough to receive any sponsorships for products and services. The only financial gain I have directly received from this project is a small set of paid supporters via Substack, and some BuyMeACoffee / Monero donations. I give this context to explain that I have an understanding of the pressures of independent content creation, and the incentives that transform online discussions. Much of my choices have limited the time for this project to be as grand as I would dream. Lack of funding has restricted my time for this project as well as made ‘production value’ a very difficult challenge.
Attention Democracy with William Maggos
In a special converation you would have a hard time finding elsewhere, Gabriel joins William Maggos to discuss the fediverse, attention economy, and the Culture War. Taking a sober look at the very f…
Every platform and medium has its own pros and cons. Decentralized platforms such as the Fediverse and nostr will defnitely have more niche content, but otherwise are also a smaller audience. The big platforms requires you to thrive in a highly competitive “crowded trade” and it can be very challenging to stand out. Large corporate platforms will decide what does and does not perform well on their platform and that can have a immense impact on content and presentation, especially over time. Diversifying platforms can equalize access to your content, but unfortunately it is much easier to do that rather than diversity the income coming from a variety of sources. In almost every major online media platform the revenue follows a typical Pareto distribution where the vast majority of the revenue goes towards a few highly profitable ventures while the remaining majority make little if any at all.
Individual incentives and compromise
A powerful incentive these days is that very often creators will not be alone. Collaboration is almost always a win-win exercise when it comes to learning and presenting information as well as deepening ties between interested parties. I have greatly enjoyed my Digital Autonomy Series of interviews, and other collaborations I’ve done. That’s not to say there are no downsides or considerations that audiences should have regarding collaborations. Some people, like myself, are pretty happy to talk to pretty much anyone relevant. In many cases, people should know that collaborations can very much be direct business associations. This is intuitive to many people, even if it is not outright recognized. But there is also another form of association truly worth contending with: narrative networks.
There are different kinds of narrative networks, some are bottom-up, others are top-down. The modern media landscape is an “attention economy” that turns your time and attention into real financial gain for some. Some forms of content (such as propaganda) are deliberately produced at a financial loss to buy influence. To make matters even more complex, with people seeking out independent voices, there are many trusted speakers who can be bought for much less than institutions would require. This is what makes the democratization of the media landscape a bit of a ‘double-edged sword’. Independent voices are a vital force for accountability and unique perspectives, however they are more vulnerable to certain forms of pressure than larger institutions. This is not to say large institutions are incorruptible however, the fact is that their very existence has to rely on some source of funding which will represent a set of interests. If a single person is malleable, consider how corruptible a large project with exponentially more resources at stake and an existential opposition to particular voices and ideas.
As such, both individuals and organizations alike can organically and by design drift in and out of various groups. These groups are effectively playing a “team sport” to amplify each other implicitly and sometimes explicitly. This has benefits for those involved, but very often audiences bear the costs. It is much harder for voices deeply embedded in a narrative network (either top-down or bottom-up) to be critical of those on their team. Beyond mere personal association, there may in fact be strong interests or business ties that make criticism within the same ‘side’ a liability. This is why in 2025 you will rarely see mainstream figures publicly point out shortcomings of their own side. Nuance and authenticity is traded for consensus and figures both mainstream and independent alike are absolutely vulnerable to this. This is another area where an “all or nothing” approach isn’t helpful. It is reasonable to recognize the limitations of particular voices and projects, while at the same time learning from what they can offer. A problematic association itself may be disappointing, but recognizing the reality of the pressures on online media explains a lot of behavior.
Because of this, escaping online ‘filter-bubbles’ requires truly out-of-the-box thinking. This is why I mentioned earlier that a wide diversity of information sources is valuable, these days it is paradoxically all-too-easy to forget other information sources even exist. The trouble very often boils down to trust. As someone with a lot to learn on any given topic, trust is always required at particular points in time. It is absolutely paramount that we regularly reevaluate that trust so that we can refine our information sources over time. That said, to not close yourself out it is vital that you still remain open to differing sources of information, even revisiting old ones.
Refining information into knowledge
The difference between education and entertainment is application. There is nothing inherently wrong with entertainment itself, but it is very important to be deliberate about what you are doing. I think “infotainment” itself can be a perfectly viable way to present information, but it all boils down to what you’re acting on. Your learning should be aligned with your goals and values. Confronting your goals and values is an inherent part to developing them over time. So it is important to challenge yourself just as much if not more than the information you come across. Consider asking yourself what is the reason you are investing so much of your time with particular online media or platforms. It’s entirely possible that there are many important reasons for why you are, but sometimes it can boil down to the app or platform having conditioned you into craving novelty for a constant dopamine rush.
Learning to think critically requires putting ideas to the test. If you’re not willing to act on it, then you’re simply collecting. Again, I don’t think there’s much wrong with collecting information itself, as long as that is what one chooses to do. But I have learned myself that the best way to truly learn a particular topic or domain is to put the information to actual use. By testing what you have learned against reality you will inevitably learn that things are far more complex than simplistic and comforting explanations may convey. The truth of many things will always be hidden, you can only gradually improve your flawed grasp of it over time with feedback. Learning isn’t just about rote memorization of dogma or facts, but rather about the deeper understanding forged from testing your knowledge against your own experiences.
But that’s only part of the story. Your experiences as vast as they may be, can only account for a small portion of reality. It is entirely possible that you’re missing out on factors that are entirely unknown to you. Instead of assuming you’re perfectly objective in all things, being willing to seek out opposing views can help you truly refine your own knowledge. This is where it becomes very important to have real connection with those substantially different from yourself. Deep friendships with others who have radically different perspectives are valuable, especially if both participants have the capacity to set aside differences to grow each other. These days, those kind of friendships sound almost mythological, but I can assure you they are worth developing. Nothing is more epistemologically humbling than being confronted with an argument you never would have imagined by someone you already know quite well.
But sharing is definitely caring. Even at the most advanced stages epistemological humility pays off big, if not even more so. Sharing your understanding can be painful when one is used to criticism or fearful of correction. But both criticism and correction can be some of the most valuable feedback you’ll get. While validation feels nice in the moment, even the harshest criticism or uncomfortable correction will teach you so much more if you let it. The clearer you share the fullness of your knowledge the better feedback you can receive. You’ll be able to ask finer questions and learn from anyone. The beauty of this is that you can build your expertise while realizing you’ve been teaching all along the way. Teaching others not only reinforces your own understanding, but can also bring other fine minds into your circles to learn from.
Exercise: Analyzing a Narrative Network
Speaking of putting things into practice, I wouldn’t leave you with all this without a way you can immediately build your critical thinking skills. One may think that practicing critical thinking isn’t something you can just do, but I have found that’s not true at all. In this exercise you’ll find a domain you (likely) don’t have strong feelings about (Don’t worry, eventually you will!) and exploring it. You’ll need to follow the process I described above and cast a wide net for information then synthesize what you’ve come across. You’ll then be able to answer a question from a variety of angles, but also understand what drives those perspectives.
In an attempt to not bias your process, I have decided to omit any links as a starting point. I think using your own research skills to find a starting point would be more useful.
Example 1 - A foundation of sand: ‘Evidence-based’ weight-lifting”
A notable exercise scientist has become embroiled in scandal when a YouTube video about his PhD thesis was published. It turns out that the thesis as published was riddled with embarrassing mistakes, casting doubt on him. The scandal has erupted into a broader debate about the major figures in online “evidence-based lifting” circles.
Questions:
What does the quality of Dr Mike Israetel’s PhD thesis say about his advice on weight-lifting to the general public?
Who is critical of Dr Israetel and what are their major disagreements with him?
Putting aside who is right and who is wrong, what motivates particular figures to take particular sides in the drama?
What are the major limitations you see in the public exercise science discussions online?
How should people get information on building strength & muscle?
Example 2 - It’s just a game: Is Star Citizen a scam?
Over a decade ago Chris Roberts crowdfunded for two ambitious space games. One a single-player story experience, and a full-fledged Massively Online Multi-player game to go along with it. As of 2025 the single-player game is still not released and the MMO lacks many of the promised features and content. The game is regularly dismissed as a failure if not an outright scam in many gaming circles, but you won’t often hear that opinion expressed by content creators who speak about the game. By now, anyone still talking about Star Citizen regularly is subject to quite the survivorship bias.
Questions:
What content creators are regularly talking about Star Citizen and which ones are more or less influenced by Cloud Imperium Games?
How does that impact coverage of problems in the game, and problems created by Cloud Imperium Games?
What does coverage of Star Citizen look like inside and outside the community, what drives the difference?
For the creators who talk about the game, but are critical of Cloud Imperium Games, how do they fund their work?
If you had to suddenly make a living off creating Star Citizen content, (Please don’t do this!) what incentives would impact your presentation and content?
Restrict yourself to videos and content from a particular point of time. What would you have believed about the project in 2012, 2016, and onwards? How does it compare against your current understanding?
Example 3: Choose your own adventure!
Think of your own topic or question and explore the different sides of it. Try to think of an issue where you’re not invested in what the answer might be. Don’t just interrogate the question, but who takes what side and why. Consider things that are said and left unsaid.
Follow-up questions: Questioning yourself
After completing one or more of the above exercises, now you can really put your skills to the test!
Ask yourself the following questions:
What business/political interest(s) are represented by your favorite media sources stories and coverage?
What influences information sources I regularly pay attention to?
What kind of sponsor do you want supporting your media, and what kind(s) of sponsorships would you want them to avoid?
For businesses I support, what media represents their interests? How do they cover information that may be ‘inconvenient’ for that business?
What do you look for to discover and identify quality sources of information?
Bonus exercise: Feedback
It would be absolute hubris to believe that I have perfectly encapsulated all of what people should think of to build their critical thinking skills. If anything, I have left out a great deal to produce this as a single post. I would invite you to re-read this, and think of glaring omissions. I would certainly appreciate learning them, and I’d be thrilled to share any sent my way.
Well said! Always gratifying to hear someone make similar points to oneself ... in a very different way.
You might be interested in "Coping with Disagreement and Being Wrong".
https://whatdoino.substack.com/p/copy-coping-with-disagreement-and
Even before you linked that interview, I was thinking that this should be another Corbett guest talk. It's so very much up his alley. Although, between you, me and the internet wall, I think you do it better. There are some blind spots I see with James, where you keep on surprising me.
What I particularly like is how methodical your process is. I've tried to apply the same analysis in some episodes like this: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/conspiracy-theorists.
Your epistemological humility is my favorite trait, among the many that I love. Your organization of your thoughts and clarity of expression are up there too. This really flows, in a way that should be a course. Someday, in my world, I'd like to see you teach--not just what you know but how you know.
The corruption of money is insidious. Under my system, we do ordinary things to make an ordinary living, paying for our housing, our food, our playthings. Giving the best of yourself, as you do here, should be freely offered without compensation. And that's certainly not to criticize making it anyway you can in the present system. I'm just saying it's not always going to be that way. And I think many voices, that don't dare to question their own side, will fall by that wayside. And people with something original and meaningful to say, like you Gabe, will find a ready and appreciative audience.