If you exclude obvious clickbait that you might click on despite your better judgment, what makes you actually click on and read something?
Or for books etc., what makes you actually read it after checking out back cover and flipping through pages/TOC?
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I think I personally need a very strong hook around something I have a stub for in my head already. As in, "this is interesting, and I have about 5 minutes worth of thought banked on it, so I need to read this year's worth of thinking to replace the stub with a developed idea"
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The hardest type of thing for me to read is a book-length thing on a topic where I've already banked about a book's worth of personal thinking time, and nothing in a quick glance suggests to me that it's going to either interestingly flesh out OR contradict anything I've thought
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For fiction, if I've already checked out the first couple pages, I'll read it if it shows me anything where I think "huh, hadn't thought of that before", or "huh, haven't seen a character/story/world like that before". Can be very minor, but I need that "huh" moment.
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My biggest filter is if the author is trying to understand and describe the fundamentals of the subject, rather than e.g. to engage with the discourse around the subject, or use the subject to score points in some social fight, or whatever.
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Trusting the source of recommendation is probably the most successful channel. Failing that, I often just go ahead and test read, and bail early if it fails one of several smell tests.
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With books; I go straight for the table of contents, bibliography and indeces.
With sites, I have more or less “trusted vendors”: if someone like, say, you, throws a hat in the ring, I am wont to inspect it. That effect will be compounded there where several of you converge.
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I think my brain sometimes lives a few seconds into the future. So whatever triggers deja vu, presque vu or Jamais vu
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For books, I usually attempt to figure out "Do I want to spend time with the mind of this author?" and "How far can I trust the author?" as well as things like "is this a topic I'd like to learn more about?" and "Does the writing style jibe with me?"
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