Serendipity
Interesting post by Ethan Zuckerman on the topic of serendipity and whether the rise of the internet and digital media has increased or decreased it.
I need to think about this issue more. With the rise of the internet, my exposure to ideas has increased, which is wonderful, but I consciously try to avoid limiting myself to the same several silos of thinking over and over. Adopting a naturally contrarian mindset helps, and every few months I tend to rotate the blogs or news outlets I read regularly, not just to avoid groupthink but because I find myself naturally tiring of the same schools of thought being pressed by the same authors again and again.
Clustering is a danger, though. The same set of blogs you follow in your newsreader, the same set of sites you visit regularly because they're bookmarked, the same core set of people you follow on Twitter, all of these are huge sources of selection bias.
Be curious and skeptical. That's all I can offer for now.
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Old link from Wimbledon: amusing t-shirt worn by Serena Williams at the press conference after her Wimbledon victory.