Information Cocoon 
I live surrounded by information I have carefully chosen to be compatible with my own beliefs and understanding – I live in an Information Cocoon and without meaning to be rude, I suspect you do too! It is something that is difficult to avoid, we have limits on our information gathering capacity in both time and money so why shouldn’t we spend our time reading only what interests us and the authors/sources we tend to agree with or trust? The danger (and I don’t use the word lightly) is that we close ourselves off from conflicting opinions and facts presented by other sources. By only consuming mutually affirmative sources we increase the intensity of our beliefs/understanding and further skew the range of issues and topics we’re familiar with.
I have tacitly realised this on several occasions but have usually shrugged my shoulders and accepted it. Today I’ve decided to make steps to rectify the situation. I’m going to add the Financial Times and The Daily Mail to my feeds (I might have to change the latter as I’m not sure I’ll be able to survive reading it for long!). This is a paltry step really… but what else can I do? Perhaps I should try befriending a Tory voter?
May 7th, 2007 at 15:24
Hello dear brother,
I am a Tory voter, does this mean I am not your friend. I found a solution to your Cocoon called Life. I like to read everything and anything I can, 99% of it being utter crap, but at least you end up expanding your view point. You must be careful to not consider any of it, while considering everything, as most of it is lies, with a little bit of truth.
Take the BBC, if I was to trust them, I would believe that Bank of America Recently sued ABM for $220 billion, due to their sale of a $22bn falling through. The truth was that, indeed they did bring up a lawsuit against them, the lie was that it wasn’t even close to $220bn, maybe 22 or 2.2 or 220million.
As an old, sometimes wise, man often says, “Lies, damn lies and statistics”, you can work out which accountant says that one in your own head.
P.S. I liked those photos on your Flickr, especially the one of the canal-side garden. That admin of Photosoc, types to you as if you aren’t a photosoc member hehe. “Hello I am admin of photosoc Bath, can we use your photos.”
December 31st, 2011 at 19:18
hello every one – hope yous had a good xmas – back from parents 12lbs heavier a`hhh just back from tenerefe weather crap , all the best for the comming year – mick