“If you buy into the full-scary narratives promoted by either the political left or the political right,” says Scott Adams in his book Loserthink, “you’re probably experiencing loserthink.”

I'm going to talk about two unconventional ways to get informed in the age of “fake news.”

1] Spotting loserthink

2] Getting skin in the game.

First things first:

Loserthink 101

Loserthink is the phrase Adams’ uses in his book to describe the many ways humans engage in unproductive thinking.

Unproductive thinking, says Adams, is how we accidentally build mental prisons for ourselves.

We do so by mimicking arguments we hear from pundits…

Making bad assumptions about why things happened…

Believing we can manage events in the present to fix the past (and not seeing how paths and opportunities to successfully fix most problems)

Believing someone only because they are an expert, and for no other reason… And on.

Adams asserts that by giving specific unproductive ways of thinking a name -- loserthink -- it makes them easier to spot and control.

The idea that naming something gives you power over it is nothing new.

The famous Greek philosopher Socrates reminds us that if we want to understand something, we must first give it a name.

Only then can we begin to differentiate it from what it isn’t and move accordingly.

Adams puts it plainly: “If you have a negative word for something, it will be easier to avoid than if you don’t.”

That said, spotting loserthink is all the more important in an age that capitalizes on all forms of unproductive thinking.

The goal is to replace loserthink with more useful ways of looking at the world.

The mainstream media, which have become masters of capitalizing on unproductive thinking, is the easiest place to begin.

Rather than taking the news at face value: “A more useful way to think of the political news,” says Adams, “is that nearly every major story is exaggerated to the point of falsehood, with the intention of scaring the public.” It's what sells and it's what creates the bottom line in dollars.

Therefore, news is NOT news, but rather ENTERTAINMENT.

There can not be honest news and reporting from ANYTHING that is funded by the almighty dollar at the bottom line. NOTHING.

It’s easy to forget, but the doom and gloom press is not a reflection of the world.

The mainstream map no longer even tries to show the territory. 

Rather, the current state of the media is a reflection of the way news has changed.

The technological change that fully “broke the news,” says Adams, is our ability to measure audience reaction to every headline.

“Once you can reliably measure the income potential of different approaches to the news,” he writes, “the people who manage the news have to do what works for profitability or else they are abandoning their responsibilities to shareholders.”

ONCE AGAIN. A BUSINESS (ENTERTAINMENT) FUNDING THE BOTTOM LINE WITH THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR. PERIOD, AND PERIOD AGAIN DAMMIT!

Thus, there’s been a slow creep from presenting the facts (once known as journalism) to outright manipulating people’s brains to garner more views.

But if we are aware of this, we can shield ourselves from its influence.