Knowledge (and how to be a better person)

Whether you want to do well in debating or in life, it helps to know things. There are many articles out there on knowledge in debating and how to get informed, what I write here is my personal take on what is worth reading and a few choice sources I doubt are very widely known. Enjoy.

Current Affairs

By current affairs I mean news on what is happening today and analysis of why it is happening and what it's implications are. While the sources below are by no means entirely trustworthy, together they do provide a variety of viewpoints and narratives, each of which reveals an aspect of the truth which, at the very least, can be put to work in a debate.

• Major News Channels, Highly Biased
• CNN/BBC: US/UK Bias
• RT: Strongly pro-Kremlin
• Aljazeera: Pro-Arab/Gulf Monarchies, decent if biased analysis and documentaries.
• CCTV: Chinese state broadcaster.
• Minor/Unknown Sources, Truly Excellent
• The Restless Realist: Excellent analysis of current IR
• The War Nerd: Brilliant analysis of wars, how they work and who is winning where
• Asia Times: An paper from Hong-kong, unknown outside than analyst community, it has decent, diverse geopolitical analysis.
• Slate Star Codex: A statistics blog, useful for cutting through spin and ideology
• Paywall/Limited Access Sources
• The Economist
• The Financial Times
• Foreign Policy
• Foreign Affairs

General Knowledge

Not everything here is directly applicable to debating but the sense of perspective a well rounded knowledge of the world can give you is. These books and series are a few of my favorites.

• History/IR
• Guns, Germs and Steel
• The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
• Crash Course: World History
• Man, the State and War
• Economics
• The Undercover economist
• Bad Samaritans
• International Macroeconomics
• This may sound dry, but it is necessary. Society is based on the production and distribution of goods. Without understanding economics, it is very difficult to understand how societies function.
• Anti-Orthodox: Books to challenge your worldview
• Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
• The Enemy Within: The Secret War Against The Miners
• Manufacturing Consent