Incidental Learning

Ezra has some interesting observations on inadvertent learning and the blogosphere. By getting our news predominantly from blogs and online sources, he suggests, we run the risk of missing out on articles or discussion tangential to our focus but nonetheless interesting. I can certainly see where he’s coming from, as I think I read a lot less of the New York Times now than when I had a print copy, in part because I don’t feel compelled to read every article in the international section, and most parts of the op-ed. Then again, I often find myself wandering the wilderness of Wikipedia learning all kinds of interesting new things.

In part because of our eclectic approach to blogging, I’d like to think that LGM does a pretty solid job with the “incidental learning” thing. Come here and your likely to randomly pick up bits about the Oregon Ducks, constitutional law, Kaus/Althouse/VD Hanson bashing, feminism, abortion litigation, hockey, baseball, battleships, counterinsurgency, movies, deposed monarchs, and whatever the worst thing to ever happen on this particular day was. I suppose that we might try to create alternative feeds for our different authors (or possibly organize the feeds thematically), but that would seem to defeat the purpose of having the blog in the first place.