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How to gain breadth of knolege instead of depth?
huhwhat123
Registered User new member
Registered User new member
Hi,
I think TED talks, National Geographic, etc. are great for learning "advanced" topics that may or may not ever come up in regular conversation, but I'm wondering if there's a good resource out there for learning every day things that most people are aware of but may sometimes miss. General things that everyone should know but would not necessarily surprise you if they didn't.
I'm talking about breadth of knowledge vs depth of knowledge. These days it's very easy to pick a random subject and study it in-depth, but it's hard to find a source to get good breadth of knowledge because if there are things you are not aware of, how can you look them up?
I'm talking about basic things such as:
What is the basic structure of government?
What's the difference between an extrovert and an introvert?
What are the different kinds of beer?
What are the different body styles of cars?
Etc.
I'm just wondering if there's any resource out there that is a collection of many topics ordered by how relevant they are to everyday life?
I think TED talks, National Geographic, etc. are great for learning "advanced" topics that may or may not ever come up in regular conversation, but I'm wondering if there's a good resource out there for learning every day things that most people are aware of but may sometimes miss. General things that everyone should know but would not necessarily surprise you if they didn't.
I'm talking about breadth of knowledge vs depth of knowledge. These days it's very easy to pick a random subject and study it in-depth, but it's hard to find a source to get good breadth of knowledge because if there are things you are not aware of, how can you look them up?
I'm talking about basic things such as:
What is the basic structure of government?
What's the difference between an extrovert and an introvert?
What are the different kinds of beer?
What are the different body styles of cars?
Etc.
I'm just wondering if there's any resource out there that is a collection of many topics ordered by how relevant they are to everyday life?
huhwhat123 on
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Wikipedia is every bit as accurate as the next encyclopedia but far wider ranger. Perfect for general knowledge on any topic with sources if you're looking for more in depth information.
From youtube good channels are, in order of my personal preference:
Crash Course
C.G.P Grey
Veritasium
i'm going to stick to channel links instead of video links or this post will get fucking enormous
check these channels out, I've got descriptions on what kind of things they specialize in
Crash Course - History, Literature, Psychology, Ecology, Geology, Biology, Chemistry, Physics
TestTube - Current events news and information, largely political in nature. Warning: Very left leaning and US viewpoint biased, if that bothers you.
MinutePhysics - Physics and cosmology
MinuteEarth - Geology, geology, anthropology, sociology, zoology
The Brain Scoop - Behind the scenes look at natural history museums, covers the kind of stuff you'd expect to find therein, largely ecology and zoology
Veritasium - Physics mostly, but science experimentation and knowledge expansion in general, often runs large scale experiments with the entire internet
CGP Grey - Mostly political science, geography, and anthropology, although there's some random trivia and observation in there too
Vi Hart - Mathematics and origami
Hard Science - Science experiments, often goofy as shit ones
SciShow - General science knowledge, trivia, and news
SciShow Space - Like SciShow, but specifically focused on space-related general knowledge, trivia, and news
Vsauce - General knowledge, trivia, and kooky "outside the box" stream of consciousness thinking
Numberphile - Mathematics and logic problems
Healthcare Triage - Medical research, education, news, and mythbusting hosted by Dr. Aaron Carroll, MD
this is just a section of the Youtube channels I subscribe to, the ones that focus specifically on educational and academic topics
check dat shit, bro
I also like a few of the aforementioned YouTube channels, though I've slacked off on Crash Course lately.
Frankly, I also learned a lot of stuff I know at, well, school. In college especially I took several history classes and a intro to linguistics course.
LESS EDUCATIONAL, MORE NICHE NERDY BULLSHIT BUT WHATEVER
Corridor Digital and samandniko - These two channels are paired because Sam and Niko are two VFX guys. Corridor Digital is their company channel where they put their tech demos and short films on display (and are super cool to watch in their own right), but their personal channel samandniko is the behind-the-scenes explanation and breakdown of how they do their VFX and short films, which can be super educational and interesting if you are curious about learning about that stuff.
Skallagrim - This dude is a fucking sword nerd. He does videos on swords, axes, and other traditional melee weaponry and fighting styles. He also does reviews of modern, purchasable weaponry and tools like machets and hatchets and whatnot and actually reviews them from a stance of practicality and usability. Dude knows his shit. To a lesser extent, he's a bit of a gun nut and has some educational videos on gun safety, gun knowledge, and gun politics, but he lives in Canada so his firearm collecting is pretty paltry and his viewpoints on firearms is informed by his country of residence (you'll never hear him make a 2nd Amendment argument, for example)
Get Germanized - Want to learn German, and learn stuff about German culture and history? This dude's channel is designed for English speakers who want to learn this stuff and is super friendly to beginners.
Mental Floss - A list format trivia channel. Stuff like "29 Early Sports Rules" and "46 Facts about First Ladies". Also hosted by John Green, who is pretty prolific on Youtube.
Vice - Holy shit do I have mixed feelings about recommending Vice, but the truth is they are on my subscribed list for a reason. Vice is a mixed bag of content, because they're a mixed bag of an organization. Some of the people involved in it are total fuck scumbags and some of the content they produce is stupid garbage. On the other hand, on occasion Vice does some brutal, hard-hitting, completely insane gonzo journalism the likes of which ought to be seen by a conscientious citizen of the world because they are important and harrowing and will broaden your horizons as a human being. And then sometimes it's literally kids telling dirty jokes or dudes eating weird shit from obscure parts of the world. So, yeah. Vice.
Red Letter Media - Ostensibly, Red Letter Media is a movie review and interview and entertainment channel and is mostly just goofy shit and not especially edifying. But, there's a series of reviews on that channel (known as the Mr. Plinkett reviews) which are worth watching if you're more than just someone who likes movies, you're someone who appreciates film as an art form and wants to better understand how it works (and very specifically, how it does not work since most of the Mr. Plinkett reviews are of turds like the Phantom Menace and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull). Mr. Plinkett is a persona of Mike Stoklasa that he uses to review the films, taking on the guise of a crotchety old man bitching about movies (who is also a total psychopath). The Plinkett reviews are chock full of really offensive humor and if you're the kind of person who cannot possibly endure "dead baby comedy" or a joke about fucking your cat, you probably can't watch them. That said, if you can put the Plinkett character and the fucked up humor aside Mike's insights on film are really valuable and worth understanding and watching, and if you can stomach all the other shit (or find it funny, everyone's different) then you will come away with a better understanding of film than you started with. There are friends of mine who are film students who have learned greatly from this stuff. This isn't some dumb whiny CinemaSins bullshit where he complains about plotholes every thirty seconds.
Tom Scott - General trivia all over the place (especially his Things You Might Not Know series), but also has a fascinating series of videos on language and linguistics that is definitely worth watching.
I got more shit I might post later. Youtube is my primary entertainment medium, it has eclipsed television or video games for me in terms of hours of the day I spend on it.
This is worth watching:
Something to consider.
for places on reddit that are good for learning, /r/askhistorians is one of the best places on the entire internet. /r/askanthropology is excellent but not as excellent as askhistorians, and /r/askscience isn't as good as either of them but is still pretty good
hitting hot metal with hammers
I post in /r/askphilosophy and although I typically wouldn't recommend reddit to anybody for anything, if you're there, that would maybe be an /r/ask* to check out.
Several of the novel series I'm reading are chock full of references and words I'd never heard of. So I'm constantly reaching for dictionaries or doing Google searches to find out what kind of literary or historical references the author is making and how he's tying them into the story he's trying to write. After a while you begin to notice patterns and can intuit far more than you previously could, with little formal background.
It also serves as a good jumping off point to go Wiki-walking on Wikipedia.
Reading the news from multiple sources has the additional benefit of helping you see the biases that they each contain.
BBC is decent if not boring in their coverage. I would try and establish a set of columnists that you trust (also try to know their biases). In Canada for example I'm a big fan of Andrew Coyne and Chantal Herbert as well as Michael Geist. Matt Levine and FT Alphaville is good financial journalism. Start with the Youtube channels, wikis and gen ref materials but then move on to stuff that will better keep you updated as the underlying topic evolves.
Steam: CavilatRest
The Atlantic
Slate
Wall Street Journal
New York Times-Esp Krugman
MarketWatch
The Economist
Grantland(sports)
xkcd
The business news sites are really good for what you are asking because companies make everything, so they cover a lot. Eg the current main sotrie on MW are about: HP spliting, a medical devices maker, food tech startups, and the iphone launch in China.
Howstuffworks.com has some good podcasts. Stuff You Should Know, Stuff You Missed in History Class, and a few others.
I think you are kind of misusing depth & breadth here. Knowing different body styles of cars isn't something that can be even called breadth, it's just a bit of trivia. The kind of knowledge you seem to be looking for strikes me as what would be filed under life experience.
Want to know about the different types of beer, go to a nice bar with a long tap list or a craft brewery tour and learn a way.
Want to learn basic stuff about landscaping/plumbing/electrical work/ HVAC/ carpentry? Buy a house, it's an endless adventure of 'Shit you never knew could break and how to fix it', same thing with cars.
A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.*
You want to learn about stuff you need to read. Pick a subject, go to a library/on amazon and read a book on it. If you are looking for knowledge, read non-fiction books, or read fiction books that are historical, or at least based in the real world.
*Unless you only read one type of shitty genre fiction.
D&D has some pretty interesting threads that cover a variety of topics. The Science and History threads tend to cover a wide variety of topics, there are some good politics threads, and a lot of other interesting discussions.
I will note that when it comes to academics and career opportunities, depth of knowledge and specialization tend to be far more valuable than breadth of knowledge. It's important to be well rounded, but there aren't as many jobs or career opportunities for a person who is 'ok' at a lot of things compared to a person who is really good at a few things or in a small domain. Some focus can be a good thing.
You just have to learn to ask for a cite on someone's claim, or research and use your own, especially in a contentious debate.
Start picking up some good quality popular science/history books. I love reading these when they're well written, and they do indeed help you become a tremendous knowitall. When they're produced by someone who is clearly a master of their subject and can communicate that knowledge effectively, then the subject is almost irrelevent to one's enjoyment, and one finds oneself devouring them very quickly.
Some excellent examples I've read recently
At Home by Bill Bryson, where he links the things we do and have in our homes without really thinking about them to their historical origins and context. Fascinating, and also rather amusing.
Reaching For The Sun by John King. Before I read this well written, very accessible but by no means dumbed-down treatment of the subject, I knew basically nothing about plant biology. Now I know quite a lot!
The Earth Dwellers by Erich Hoyt, an excellent and engaging book about ants.