Building an Information Diet That Actually Works

The metaphor of an "information diet" is imperfect but useful. Like food, not all information is equally nourishing. Like food, what you consume shapes what you become capable of thinking.

The Framework

Think in three tiers:

Tier 1 — Foundational: Books, long-form research, academic papers. Slow, deep, durable. Build your mental models here.

Tier 2 — Signal: Curated newsletters, quality weekly publications, podcasts with long interview formats. Fresh but filtered. Stay current without chasing the feed.

Tier 3 — Noise: Social media feeds, aggregators, breaking news. Use sparingly and intentionally. Good for awareness of topics to investigate elsewhere; poor as a primary source.

Most people's information diets are inverted: 80% noise, 15% signal, 5% foundational. The reverse would produce dramatically better-informed humans.

On Curation

Your information diet is only as good as your curation. This means actively:

• Unsubscribing from sources that produce more noise than signal
• Seeking out people whose thinking you respect and following their recommendations
• Regularly auditing where your knowledge gaps are and seeking out material to fill them

Curation is not an act of intellectual cowardice. It's the recognition that your time and attention are finite, and that allocating them well is a form of discipline.