How To Think For Yourself In A World Full Of Lies | David Pakman
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How do Stoic virtues apply to consuming modern media?
Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. You don't have to be smart to consume information, right? Consuming is passive. Turn on the TV, turn on a podcast, scroll on your phone, you pick up a book or go to a reputable media site. Obviously, these are different levels of media consumption, but at some level, they're all kind of passive. And a lot of people do them. What people do less is step back and go, is this true? Where did it come from? Do I want this to be true? Am I fooling myself? What's the agenda of the person saying this?
There's a famous expression attributed to Cicero, qui bono, basically who benefits, right? The ability to get perspective, clarity, to analyze all the things that are the incentives operating on the information that you're about to get, right? To get to the truth of the matter, right? We're talking about critical thinking here. And unfortunately, this is getting rarer, I think, especially with AI. We live in a world where there's a pressure to react instantly, to have opinions about everything, where algorithms tell us what we want to hear, and where people are outsourcing their thinking to influencers and pundits, and then, of course, technology itself. But as the Stoics remind us, that's not wisdom.
That's not the job. Not every impression deserves our assent. Not every headline deserves our outrage. Not every headline should be trusted. Not every thought that enters our mind is worth holding on to. I talked about that a lot in Wisdom Takes Work. I have a whole chapter on information diet, chapter on thinking from first principles. I talk about how people break their brains. I talk about skepticism. I talk about all the things that go into wisdom of which critical thinking is such an important part, right? Wisdom is that ability to step back, to question your assumptions, to test what you hear, to think things through, to not let other people do your thinking for you. Stokes talk about how we have the power to hold back our judgment, but that's so hard, right?
Especially in this modern media environment, this technological environment that we live in. As I said in the episode, a lot of media is designed to create the illusion of being informed. And wisdom is actually being informed and actually doing the thinking for you. And so that's what I wanted to talk to today's guest about, David Pakman. David Pakman is a political commentator and author. He's the host of The David Pakman Show. He wrote this book, The Echo Machine, How Right-Wing Extremism Created a Post-Truth America. We bumped into each other in line at the White House. He's got a huge media platform, and he's written a lot about how disinformation spreads, ideological bubbles. and why critical thinking and true media literacy is so rare.
And that's what we talk about. I'm just bringing you a chunk of that conversation now. As I said, media literacy, primary sources, pundits versus experts, audience capture, and intellectual humility, which is more important than ever. I gotta wait before you react. And again, power of critical thinking. If you haven't seen any of David's work, you should check him out on YouTube. You should check out his book, The Echo Machine. You can follow him at David Pakman Show. That's Pakman, P-A-K-M-A-N. He's awesome. And I think you'll like this little conversation. Every time you look at your phone, there's another chaotic headline. You almost feel like you have to be glued to your screen to keep up. But saving for your future doesn't have to be this hard because Wealthfront helps you tune out the noise and earn more with a high yield cash account and sophisticated, easy to use investing products.
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