Is the problem that we're not curious about the right things? Or is it more that passively wandering through a crap-garden has an astronomically small chance of

Is the problem that we're not curious about the right things? Or is it more that passively wandering through a crap-garden has an astronomically small chance of offering you anything but crap? (Not to put too fine a point on the "crap" thing, because that's not really my point.) The piece talks about those who read, but elides the free agency of those who offer. Clicking on an article someone offers is not just moving through an unbiased and natural "world" and interacting with it like picking berries off a bush. This world was built by other humans, framed by other humans, who decided what to offer. Behind every article is a human with an agenda and perhaps traffic & revenue targets. If you let them determine what you read, yeah there will tend to be a mismatch. This is not an "opportunistic" approach, it's a "passive" approach. Let's say we were talking about pizza instead. You want pizza. Do you go wandering around hoping someone offers you pizza? Pretty sure if you don't already know where to get pizza, you go look up pizza. But then are you like "Oh but there are 'thousands of hits' for pizza, boo hoo?!" No, that is what success at finding pizza looks like. Sorting out which one is your favorite pizza, the one that's just right for you from all those many options is like, the least amount of work you can frigging do. It's fortunate-people problems. If you're curious about something, this author was right the first time: Just look it up. First hit is almost always Wikipedia, which is fine. Start reading, and you're off to the races. They even have hyperlinks to all related terms/concepts that might need explication or that you might be, ahem, curious about. Yep it takes some minimal amount of will and discipline to read and click links and direct your own learning. If you can't muster that, you're kind of in trouble. But do it anyway; practicing will make you stronger.