I've been thinking about the relationship between truth and relevance, and while it's reasonably obvious that what is relevant is more often than not truthful, what is true is not always relevant.
A common recent critique of a lot of mainstream journalism is its perceived failure in presenting the objective truth, thus the "fake news" label. But I think it's the failure of relevance that is a far bigger problem
Tech has looked at an editor's job over the last decade and challenged it with - "Why does he get to decide what is true?. But we need to look at tech and ask - "Why does an algorithm get to decide what is relevant?"
Tech can disintermediate facts but I don't see any evidence that it can disintermediate relevance. One of the biggest cons we have been sold is that "algorithms are not biased".
Of course, journalists are flawed and biased, but if you think outsourcing relevance filtering to a digital ad revenue-maximizing algorithm is a good idea, good luck!
As for the question - "But how do you define the relevance of news?", we don't need to get all abstract or theoretical. Relevant news is whatever constantly challenges the ruling establishment, no matter what party in power. That's why it's a pillar of democracy and all that.
Criticism of the establishment, even the exaggerated & unfair kind, is still relevant to staying democratic, & you can always form a nuanced opinion by reading multiple sources. The rest is PR, particularly the high decibel "let's hold the toothless opposition accountable" crowd
While the oppressed always live in an Orwellian dystopia, the rich and privileged like us live in Huxley's dystopia - a world where the truth tends to be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.
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There is no single word in the world of food that elicits more fear and loathing than FAT. It doesn't help that the scientific establishment has thoroughly confused the layperson over the last 70 years with conflicting messages about dietary fats 🧵
Then the food industry got reckless with partial hydrogenation that resulted in trans fats, and interestingly enough, "trans fats are bad" is pretty much the only thing almost everyone agrees on when it comes to fat. Funnily enough: most people don't realise that the actual level of the problem is quite small now pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34342900/
A few protein facts to cut through the Influenza led Infogeddon 🧵
Most gymbros are overthinking protein and most old folks are not getting enough for basic body maintenance. Surveys regularly reveal that more than 80% of Indians do not get enough protein in their diet. Older women are often the worst affected
Many people overestimate the amount of protein in dal while also not realising that a balanced vegetarian meal can get you all the protein you need.
Here is one specific vegetarian example from Tamil Nadu. This meal is typically made once a year as part of a religious celebration to remember ancestors
Unsurprisingly, none of these dishes contain the following ingredients: Chillies 🌶️ , Tomato 🍅, Potato 🥔 , Cabbage, cauliflower, beans, carrot 🥕 etc. Because all of them arrived post-colonisation.
Interestingly, no coriander as well. It is estimated that coriander arrived with the Greeks (circa Alexander), so while it is tempting to believe that these dishes pre-date that, there is no corroborating evidence.
The #TSATU rabbit hole has always been one of the less appreciated things about @amitvarma's podcast. The links he shares in each episode's show notes are an incredibly rich source of pointers to build a nuanced and wide understanding of the subjects being discussed.
That said, any listener of the podcast will also know that Amit tends to reference a few ideas more regularly than others. So I thought I might do a quick and dirty analysis of all links shared in every episode's show notes
So, I crawled every one of the 297 episodes' individual pages and grabbed all outgoing links in the show notes. There are 7591 links (4727 unique links). The episodes with the most number of links are
The Anatomy of Onam Sadhya (in collaboration with @dataheartist, who did the illustrations and visual design)
The dishes span a range of flavour profiles, and we have captured the taste profile (sweet, salt, sour etc), aroma profile (bold, floral etc) and texture/mouthfeel (gravy, creamy, crunchy etc)
And a single line generalised recipe for each dish category (needless to say, there are many variations across Kerala)
A thread to aggregate all the food related misinformation mythbusting posts of mine in collaboration with various nutrition, fitness and medicine experts on Instagram 👇🏼
My chat with nutritionist @amitagadre that elaborates on the previous post and answers more questions and doubts from folks who sent them in instagram.com/tv/CewMzbSl9Ls…