Welcome to BogelBits! This is a blog for interesting, thought-provoking or fun articles that I come across and want to share with you. Sometimes I’ll share my own thoughts with you, but most of the time I’ll be passing along what I’ve learned from somewhere else. There are a few reasons for that.
- Quality Over Quantity – The world doesn’t necessarily need more perspectives rather the right ones need to be amplified. I’m not always the best person to inform or opine on a topic; in fact, most of the time I won’t be. Instead of writing for the sake of saying something, I’d rather help you find the expert analysis on every topic.
- Learning Through Synthesis – Jim Rohn is famous for saying that you “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with” and a similar claim can be made for what information you consume: over time your opinions become the average of the information you take in. Left unchecked and you can be sucked into social media bubbles, but when you take control of what you consume then you have the opportunity to observe patterns and trends over time and across disciplines. In science, the value of any particular study rests on the ability of someone else to perform the same steps and get the same results; you can never prove that cigarettes cause cancer, but observing the data over time can allow you to draw some pretty reasonable conclusions. The most transformative entrepreneurs and societal visionaries focus on consuming the best information so that they can see the trends and shape the future.
- Sharing Articles Is Fun – One of my favorite things to do is share an interesting article with a friend; especially one that I know is related to one of their hobbies or interests. It’s my hobby that I’ve been practicing for the past 10 years and now I want to share all of these interesting articles with you.
- Listening Before Speaking – My father has often told me that the smartest person in the room is the one who speaks last and is able to synthesize (and acknowledge) everyone’s input; they are able to quickly take in and process multiple perspectives in order to solve problems and push forward discussions. He might have just told me that because I have an innate tendency to speak quickly and it has worked in focusing my attention on thinking things through thoroughly before contributing ideas. I spend a lot of time thinking and hope that I’ll be able to provide interesting perspectives when I share them.
Who Am I?
My name is Eddie Bogel. Born and raised in Florida, I studied economics and philosophy at Harvard where I spent my time shouting stories to tourists. Since hundreds of them would gather to hear my tales, I created an iPhone app so they could carry my voice around with them everywhere. When that proved less successful than I’d hoped and graduation ended the student loan cash flow stream, I found a place working for an education start-up that will change the world.
All the while, I’ve been steadily reading articles about geopolitics, science, technology, economics, social justice, philosophy, social sciences and so much more, working to find the trends and hone my ability to perceive them.
Where Do You Find Your Information?
Mostly on Facebook. My hobby with following the news grew alongside the social network and I have a well-curated information stream that provides me with a hodgepodge of interesting things to read. On our Facebook Page you can find the “Pages liked by this Page” widget which will show you some of the places where I get my news.
Aren’t You Biased?
Of course, I’m biased! What kind of news aficionado would I be if I didn’t form some opinions over the years? There is no doubt that I have an unapologetically liberal worldview. One of my projects over the next few years is going to be to document my worldview in an organized, rigorous, and logical manner. It is important to note that there is a difference between one’s worldview leading towards certain conclusions and perspectives and uniformly dismissing opposing ideas for the sake of maintaining your own ideas in the face of facts. I always try and follow the facts and never intend to share things that are misleading or false. Some things in this world are relative and worldview-dependent and some things are verifiably true; let’s all try and figure out the facts together.