Er, Natural disasters, as caused by climate change, are increasingly within the sphere of human control. War is also very much a result of our own behavior. I have trouble with the argument that 'ignoring' these things has a positive outcome.
Or how about: So what if I can't do anything about big issues? There's usually something I can do because of those big issues.
If I'm aware of a war broiling in a certain country, I can avoid investing there. If I'm aware of market trends, I can plan my investments accordingly. If I believe immigration restrictions on educated workers will be loosened over the next fifty years, I can develop products that will be especially useful to people with green cards and white-collars.
Sure, you won't be able to do anything tomorrow, but that won't mean you ready yourself to seize opportunities that present themselves over the next decade or two.
I think the author was more talking about the difference between consuming information or consuming narrative even though he didn't quite phrase it that way. Learning about a new piece of regulation that just passed on immigration reform is information. Learning about what the sheriff of Arizona thinks about illegal immigration is narrative. Someone somewhere crafted that piece for you to consume and is spoon-feeding it to you. It's like the junk food of information.
We like narrative, because its fun and exciting and designed to appeal to us, but at the end of the day has very little information value.
My spin on that was not that these things should be completely ignored, but that you should be informed and act on them; if you're not going to act on them, don't constantly consume the news about them.
I don't completely agree with that. I do read about those topics; I don't necessarily act upon it, e.g., engage in climate change research but I do use that information to inform my actions, e.g., what I purchase, how I vote, etc.
