Quest for learning and keeping-up with the world around is going to define an individual’s societal position and economic prosperity in decades ahead.
Learning and keeping-up with national and international economic, political, societal, civic governance, et al current affairs and understanding perspectives of subject matter experts (SMEs), some who also provide insight into history of the topic, is mental energy draining effort – Reading and Listening.
Today we are living in best times humanity has seen to keep ourselves ahead of the curve. The tech-enabled sources – from substack, eBooks, long essays, podcasts/conferences/conclave videos where SMEs’ cerebral mass is poked and prodded, et al – are at our finger tips.
Reading was and remains one the best tool for the brain to study and understand any topic. Culturally, India i.e. Bharat, has been learning through oral traditions – from listening to discourses to watching philosophical/science/societal debates since ancient times.
Today, technology has converted the same oral tradition medium into a timeless repository of knowledge with least scope of reference loss or translation loss.
Fantastic set of audio and video information sources are available in the form of audio books, podcasts-conference-conclave interviews, monologues, etc.
So many of these tech-enabled information sources are free or available at nominal subscription cost. Also, as an expression of gratitude, supporting the content creators (donations/subscription) adds value to self-learning experience.
A few hours a week are not difficult anymore – travel time, workout/exercise/walking time, replacing TV news segments with reading or listening these new information sources, etc.
It takes decades to form and shape domestic/world societal-economic-geopolitical viewpoints.
Alongside reading and listening, discussions with those who indulge in such cerebral quests also help shape our own viewpoints – reaffirm or change. Reading and listening counter-viewpoints or perspectives also help overcome confirmation bias which is very natural and inherent to every curious brain.
It is a very humbling journey where I have noticed self, friends and SMEs viewpoints/perspectives/reasons/logics/data references/etc sometimes remain same or change over time.
It is fascinating how brain continuously processes data, updates its multi-dimensional algorithm model, and generates a whole new map of the topic in our brain.
Artificial Intelligence (AI), with heavy dependence on financial and infrastructure resources, is only trying to mimic what human brain, if trained right, is inherently infinitely capable of.
I am so certain that if there is sincere quest for learning and keeping up with world around (personal, professional, societal space), then AI will post minimal to no threat to profession or mental peace of such individual.
[My recommendations: The Cārvāka Podcast by Kushal Mehra, Andrew Huberman, Skeptic Magazine by Michael Shermer, The Joe Rogan Experience, Lex Fridman, Sam Harris, the annual Raisina Dialogues playlist by ORF, Aswath Damodaran, The Portal Podcast by Eric Weinstein, One-on-One Chats playlist of Gad Saad, the playlist of Milton Friedman and Free to Choose by Common Sense Capitalism – start with any few and then the host/guests will give further reference to books, websites, podcasts, study reports, etc. It is a journey where you keep collecting and absorbing without any pressure.]