information overload

Clay Shirky argues at Web 2.0 Expo NY that the problem online is not information overload but filter failure. He says the real challenge is building better ways to filter and organize what we see.

The first lecture of David MacKay's Cambridge course on information theory, pattern recognition and neural networks. It introduces the core ideas of his book Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms.

A PBS Space Time episode asking whether the universe's information can ever truly be lost, tying quantum mechanics, determinism and black holes together. It sets up the black hole information paradox.

3Blue1Brown uses Wordle as an excuse to teach information theory and entropy, building a solver that picks guesses by expected information and incorporating word frequencies.

PBS Space Time episode on the black hole information paradox, covering how black holes seem to destroy information, the no-hair conjecture and the proposed role of the event horizon. It is part of a series on black holes.

A New York Times Opinion documentary tracing Soviet and KGB disinformation, from the 1980s AIDS origin hoax to modern campaigns like Pizzagate. It features former KGB officers and the people who tried to counter the lies.

David MacKay's 2007 Google Tech Talk presents Dasher, a text-entry system driven by continuous gestures and a language model, reaching about 35 words per minute with one finger and 25 hands-free. It explains the information-theory reasoning behind the design.

Destin Sandlin of Smarter Every Day explains Multi-Domain Operations through footage from his last mission at RIMPAC 2018. He covers missile and torpedo testing and interviews military leaders about the cyber and information domains.

Daniel Dennett gives a Royal Institution talk toward a unified theory of information, tying together evolution, learning and engineering. He argues that design can arise bottom-up through small steps without a designer.

The final codec conversation from Metal Gear Solid 2, in which the AI 'Colonel' explains that the Patriots filter out junk information and curate truth for humanity. It plays as a dark meditation on information overload, manipulation and shared reality.

Daniel Schmachtenberger discusses why the information ecology is damaged and what healthy public sensemaking would take. The conversation ties this to the meaning crisis and to improving discourse.

A short Newsweek clip of White House press secretary Jen Psaki saying the administration is flagging problematic posts to Facebook that spread COVID-19 and vaccine disinformation.

A very short clip from the children's cartoon Arthur riffing on the line about not believing everything you read on the internet.

Stanford physicist Leonard Susskind gives a public lecture on the holographic principle, the indestructibility of information and the nature of black holes. It asks whether the world could be a hologram.

A Royal Institution event with Sean Carroll and Jennifer Ouellette on what happens if you fall into a black hole, covering the firewall paradox, the information problem and the holographic principle.

A long information session where The Boring Company presents its vision for Loop, an underground high-speed transit system, and the traffic problems it aims to solve. It includes discussion of faster tunnel boring and electrification.

A vlogbrothers video tracing how the claim that people eat a credit card of plastic every week spread. It walks through the funded talking point, the misleading amplification, and the peer review that missed it.

The full 1984 interview with Yuri Bezmenov, a former KGB operative, in which he lays out four stages of ideological subversion. It is a long interview with G. Edward Griffin.

Leonard Susskind lectures at Stanford on how gravity and quantum information theory have merged into a new way of thinking about physics. He covers entanglement and complexity, with applications from black holes to strange metals and the foundations of quantum mechanics.

A Kurzgesagt video arguing that social media's problem is information flooding and tribal polarization. It suggests a return to smaller online communities and more in-person interaction.

Tom Nicholas critiques Veritasium's sponsored video on driverless cars, using it to examine YouTube sponsorships, science-channel credibility and how statistics and misinformation can be used in branded content.

The secret project cutscene for The Planetary Datalinks from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, featuring a quote about free information flow as the safeguard against tyranny.

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment takes on Dr. Oz and the dietary supplement industry. It explains what is problematic about both, with a comedic wrap-up.

A BBC News segment on University of Washington research that synthesized a photorealistic Obama video, modeling mouth movement so any audio can be put in his mouth.

MSNBC's clip of the April 2020 White House coronavirus briefing in which President Trump responds to a DHS presentation on disinfectants by musing about injecting disinfectant into the body. The segment is three minutes long.

A one-minute UK road safety advert showing a family car crash in which an unbelted rear passenger kills his mother in a head-on collision. It is a notoriously graphic public information film.

Dan Olson's 76-minute essay on flat earth belief, built around a hike to a lake to test earth's curvature. It examines the community, how YouTube promoted it, and how it connects to wider conspiracy thinking and QAnon.

A lecture by Richard Feynman on how computers work, using the analogy of a filing clerk that becomes progressively dumber and faster. It also covers heuristics and how computers handle data and solve problems in finite time.

Part one of Montemayor's animated-map documentary on the Battle of Midway, told using only the information available to the Japanese side. It focuses on Nagumo's dilemma.

Sacha Baron Cohen's speech accepting the ADL International Leadership Award, in which he criticizes social media companies for amplifying hate and propaganda. He argues that freedom of speech is not freedom of reach.

Psychologist Barry Schwartz argues in this TED talk that abundant choice makes people more paralyzed and dissatisfied rather than freer and happier.

3Blue1Brown's discovery-oriented introduction to error correction codes, building up Hamming codes from the puzzle of locating a flipped bit. It explains the parity-check idea and why it is so efficient.

Science journalist potholer54 examines the claim that SARS-CoV-2 came from a Wuhan lab, tracing the sources behind it and the weaknesses in the evidence.

hbomberguy's long video dissects the anti-vaccine movement, analyzing Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent MMR-autism study, the media's role and Wakefield's loss of his license. It combines detailed research with humor.

A short Last Week Tonight segment where John Oliver stages a statistically representative climate debate, with Bill Nye facing a crowd of dissenters. It satirizes false balance in media coverage.

A PBS Space Time episode explaining the holographic principle: the idea that our 3+1 dimensional universe may be described by information on a lower-dimensional boundary. It walks through black hole entropy and the AdS/CFT correspondence.

Part 1 of Smarter Every Day's three-part series on manipulating the YouTube algorithm. It features Renee DiResta and examples of how social media platforms can be manipulated.

Kurzgesagt examines how AI-generated content is flooding the internet, from video and music to news and books. It looks at how this makes verifying what is real harder.

A short Ze Frank piece from his 2006 show about "brain crack", the rush of exciting new ideas that feel great but tend to fall apart once you start executing them.

Benn Jordan examines the role of bots and propaganda accounts on X and other social platforms, including the platform's decline and the influence of Russian operations. It covers more than bots, discussing bias and how the platform changed.