Why Your Obsession With “More Information” Is Kind of Dumb (And What Harari Thinks About It)

You probably think you’re smarter than ever because you’ve read five Medium articles this morning, skimmed through three newsletters, and listened to that podcast while driving to office and these makes you feel all super-intellectual. You’re doing breast stroke in a sea of information — and you think that’s the ‘in’ thing. We live in a world that’s high on information but actually low on wisdom. It’s like we’re all trying to fix a broken car by reading more manuals, instead of actually popping the damn hood.

In an age where the phrase “information is power” is gospel, historian and author Yuval Noah Harari (yes the guy who wrote Sapiens, Homo Deus and 21 Lessons in the 21st Century) offers a refreshingly contrarian view in his latest book Nexus.

Well, here’s the reality check you didn’t ask for: He thinks your obsession with “more information” is kind of dumb. Or at least, painfully naïve. He coins it as the naive view of information. Euphemistically put — it’s a mindset that assumes more data automatically translates into more understanding, better decisions, and is the panacea for all suffering.

The Naive View of Information: Data Is Not Understanding. And Understanding Is Not Wisdom.

“Just Give Me the Facts, Bro” is the world we live in.

“If I just had more information, I’d understand everything. I’d make the right decisions. My problems would vanish. My life would finally stop feeling like a poorly-scripted OTT series.” We are intoxicated with the idea that - more data = more clarity, more stats = more wisdom.

Harari says that’s like assuming eating more food will automatically make you healthier.

The idea that we can just gulp down more data, more facts, more feeds and expect to become enlightened, or even marginally less idiotic—that’s the naive view. And it’s everywhere.

This view assumes that information = truth = power. It treats information like some magical fairy dust you can sprinkle on your life to solve all your crap. But he goes onto explain that information is just raw material. It’s all noise until you process it. Harari points out that information doesn’t automatically translate into meaning, and meaning doesn’t automatically lead to better choices. There lies the gap, and that’s where most of us get lost.

The way we process information that we hoard depends on our perception, our emotional baggage, our biases, and whether or not we got enough sleep last night.

Just because you read 37 blog posts about mRNA doesn’t mean you understand vaccines.

Just because you remember the name of the latest hurricane, or the GDP of some country you couldn’t find on a map, or some scandal involving some politician’s mistress, doesn’t mean you actually understand it.

Think of hoarding all that information as a way of - dropping a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle straight on the floor. You don’t see the whole picture and it’s all a big mess. The gradual understanding only comes when you sit down and organize that mess by piecing the puzzle together.

The Myth of the Rational Citizen

Harari goes on to suggest that our worship of information — the cult of Google, the fetish of big data — has led to a strange paradox: We know more, at least we think we do but our grip on the truth is far from tight.

We may have access to encyclopaedias with a thumb swipe or may watch a lecture on quantum physics while waiting for an Uber. But do you think we really get any of it? Do you think we have become any wiser?

In fact, we’re more confused, more anxious, and more easily manipulated than ever. Because we don’t actually understand most of the information we consume. We just hoard it, and are delusional in thinking that it has made us smart. We don’t have the time, training, or mental energy to process complex information, let alone act on it wisely. And even if we do have the facts, we interpret them through emotional filters and religious predilections.

That’s why information is not the fix for polarization.

It’s not the fix for the climate crisis.

It’s not the fix for conspiracy theories.

This is Harari’s most brutal takedowns on the “information age” that information or facts don’t matter to the brain that’s already made up its mind.

So What the Hell Do We Do?

1. Get Comfortable With Being Ignorant

   
   

   Stop pretending you know everything. You actually have no freaking clue of what the hell is happening behind the ‘curtain’. Accept that. Just because you can Google the GDP of Uganda or done a 20-min crash course on data mining, or (worse!) quote Neitzsche on a date – you don’t know shit.

2.     Don’t Look for Facts, Look for Structure

Harari insists that meaning is the bridge between data and wisdom. Ask yourself: 

Why is this information important?

What story is it telling?

Who’s benefiting from me believing it?

If it won’t matter in 5 years, maybe don’t spend 5 hours reading about it.

3.     Take a Deep Breath

No need to react as soon as information hits you.

In this rush to feel “informed,” we often skip the uncomfortable part— pause and reflect. Slow thinking isn’t sexy, but that’s where the actual learning happens. Daniel Kahneman (another badass) calls it System 2 thinking: the deliberate, slow and effortful stuff. System 1 is the quick, impulsive thinking that we all succumb to and get screwed.

4.     Accept That You Are Not All Rational But Are All Emotional

Mark Manson always hammered this home: you can know something’s true but still screw it up emotionally. Harari adds that wisdom is less about having the right data and more about having the right filters—mental models, ethics, empathy.

Final Thoughts

 

Don’t be an information junkie. We don’t need more information. We need less of it but the ability to weed out all the shit so we need better mental hygiene.Look for the meaning because without that, more data just makes you are more naïve and are more gullible.

Harari doesn’t demonize information, he simply says that our blind faith in information today is the root of all evil. Because wisdom isn’t found in the flood. It’s found in the filter.

References - Credit Where Due

If that sounded profound, don’t be too impressed—I didn’t come up with it. The book did. It’s called Nexus by Yuval Noah Harrari.