The goal of Project Stormthread is to empower anyone to learn from the internet quickly and effectively on any topic.
About Stormthread
Stormthread is a blog that is designed to help people navigate the often confusing, complex and immense amount of information we are exposed to.
The project’s focus is to help people deal with the problems of information overload, misinformation, lack of context, and biased information sharing.
Stormthread is born out of the realization that these problems are not only disruptive today to us and our societies, but that these issues are also getting worse. This is our humble contribution to help solve the unavoidable contemporary information challenges we face today.
We believe a key part of the solution to these problems comes from empowering people with the knowledge to independently interpret info by adapting to dynamic information environments by focused and effective learning.
Stormthread’s Philosophy
Stormthread’s Philosophy is based upon the values of honesty, integrity and clarity.
To help anyone learn anything they must be able, in the modern age, to learn effectively from the internet- as easily and quickly as possible.
But beyond the forever critical need for our individual focus on self-growth and learning, which will be have addressed in its own dedicated posts in future, how can people learn easily and quickly online?
We believe this can be done with the following key elements:
An emphasis on getting and/or finding the actual underlying meaning of information
Through the compression of data by putting an emphasis on radical succinctness
By prioritizing references and source materials to do the heavy-lifting in communicating complex ideas to others. Rather than every person creating their own derivative re-hashed writing of other’s ideas, let the most original writings speak for themselves through:
Sourcing an idea’s actual point of origin
Clearly showcasing raw evidence
And, where possible, foundational sources should ideally take precedence over commentary when appropriate (and when there is no loss of descriptive value when commentary is left out)
In the end these elements should assist us in the finding and favoring of high quality sources over low quality sources of information.
If we can share these ideas effectively with the wider online community, we believe there can be a more efficient and powerful information sharing system assembled online for the benefit of all.
How can we begin assembling this vision?
By setting online research standards - so that information sharing is more efficient in the online domain.
And by actively encouraging and providing the means for the sharing of our online search efforts via a strong independent community.
Making points ‘1.’ and ‘2.’ actually easy to do for people. Starting with people who have a specific focus on deeper, longer form and more complex research topics.
We believe that this project will only achieve success if these milestones can be achieved while enabling users and this community to maintain control and self-governance.
What will Stormthread do?
In the near term, Stormthread will provide educational content focused on online informational literacy and building independent self-learning skills by:
Improving people’s ability to search and find the best information on a topic online, quickly and easily. The internet is the key for anyone looking to learn anything in the modern age.
The ability to successfully navigate information online and find what one is looking for requires progressively higher levels of informational and digital literacy than ever before. We will post content that focuses specifically on the strengthening of our abilities to sort through the noise and ‘BS’ that accompanies almost all topics of importance today.
The rapid expansion of technology, the explosion of easily accessible online data, and the overall increasing complexity of our lives lead us to our project’s founding notion: there is a growing need for all people to competently and independently process complex online information.
So Stormthread will provide breakdowns and approaches to help you find your own techniques to breaking down the complexity you’re bound to face on your online search threads and rabbit-holes.
As Stormthread matures, in the medium term, the site will seek to provide a community driven space to support an open, honest and genuinely pluralistic idea landscape based on people sharing online research information with others in a standardized format.
In the longer term, Stormthread will begin cycling into more ambitious projects that will develop progressively more advanced online tools designed to empower all people in their search for the best information.
What is coming next?
- Educational Blog posts, covering all things pertaining to online informational literacy. Delivered as clearly, concisely and simply as possible.
- We will advocate and highlight the importance of individual self-learning
- Breakdowns and analysis
- Book Reviews, on literature that’s relevant to all the topics previously discussed in this post and more.
- The release of tools and applications aimed at helping people find, organize, collaborate and share information researched online.
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