/lit/ - Literature and Writing

More nuanced and expands your vocab. But I mean people read on the internet so perhaps reading in itself doesn't make you smarter is the content you read.

>>936
Well reading something that's edifying and well reasoned can give you a different frame for thinking about things or a clearer picture of the truth, and improve your character. It won't raise your IQ, but it will seem like your IQ was higher since you'll make better decisions and have a better grasp of reality because of the model you've inherited from the author.

On the other hand, credulously consuming garbage that's terribly reasoned, corrupting, or purposefully crafted to be deceptive sophistry can make you functionally retarded and a huge fucking faggot. This is most things they read in college english, history, psychology, sociology, and poli-sci courses. Your IQ won't really be lower, but you'll be useless just like if it was because you're operating using a faulty model of reality.

So basically if you're of average intelligence and don't trust your own ability to sort trash from things of value, either don't read philosophy/nonfiction/mainstream fiction, or at least limit yourself to Christian apologism, theology or things written before the 1850's, and I'm 100% serious. If you're not equipped to defend yourself modern literature is a minefield of poisonous anti-knowledge. Basically 100% of female non-stem graduates would have much better lives if they never read anything post highschool, probably stopping even before then. Even if you think you can handle it, consuming too much trash and books of low morals is still damaging in and of itself, be careful!

Reading disconnects you from your surroundings and makes you a midwit.

>>954
This is the kind of hazard I was talking about. The world is full of the kind of overeducated dope who values the vague propaganda concepts of "freedom" and "equality" more than human life and flourishing, even their own. It's how you can live in a dystopian city with declining living standards year over year, be cognizant of "bad neighborhoods" of a certain demographic, go to your holding pen of corporate underemployement where you are constantly assailed with propaganda pandering to said demographic, and then conclude "white supremacy" and "fascism" are to blame. It's a total prioritization of the internalized theoretical framework above the obvious reality.

Of course awful literature isn't the only culprit, but is a major one.

>>936
It has increased my vocabulary, and increased my foresight for future actions - granted both were never that great to begin with.

>>956
Is there anyway to identify and avoid said propaganda? Mainstream media, and magazines are obvious sources for it, but I do believe there are other, better designed ways of getting propaganda across. Is a work written by one who genuinely believes in those concepts, necessarily propaganda, or do they need to discuss said concepts or feature them as a theme in some way?

>>1132
The obvious thing would be to significantly limit your exposure to media. Instead of watching TV, go for a walk, look at some trees. Trees can't lie to you. People's understanding of the world is supposed to come from the world, not from some intellectual abstraction of the world.
And I fully realise the irony of me saying this on a website dedicated to television.