Chase Your Reading

Robin Hanson, an associate professor of economics at George Mason University, wrote a compelling and concise essay in 2010 titled “Chase Your Reading.”

In this essay, Hanson argues that readers are more intellectually productive when they adopt a goal-oriented, critical approach (chasing) rather than a passive, exploratory one (searching). By focusi... See more

There are two ways people obtain info online: fishing and hunting.

Fishing is passive. You don’t know what you want to know and just casually scan the screen till something catches your interest. Examples include scrolling social media, browsing news websites, and idly refreshing the YouTube home page.

Hunting, on the other hand, is an active proces... See more

So I advocate reading books in cluster – the author can be the clustering factor, it can be the topic, it can be the historical period – but you really get into a person’s mind if you re-read everything they’ve done within the span of a few weeks or months, and then watch them on YouTube, and just try to think about and write out notes, “What am I ... See more

People tend to gravitate to different sides of the explore/exploit spectrum. If you are high on openness, like I am, exploring comes easy. But it is harder to make a commitment and exploit what you’ve learned about yourself and the world. Other people are more committed, but risk being too conventional in their choices. They miss better avenues for... See more