I post my ignorant opinions somewhere. There’s always someone who will correct me with correct information.

Well you see I’m a major GEN er alllllllllllll

But seriously Wikipedia, YouTube guides, enthusiast forums. Usually try to read from multiple sources

There used to be these buildings full of books that I could just borrow for free.

Don't watch or listen....READ!

Watch and read as much youtube and article as possible, and try to join a discussion with open mind.

My flat earther forums have a stickied Q&A where you can find the real truth on any topic. Did you know that dolphins are aliens sent to spy on us?

Read. Write. Execute. RWX. I'm going to piss some people off. Here goes: you are wasting your time if you watch videos. At all. A video moves at the pace it plays. It is linear. You can't jump around easily. Reading? You can jump wherever you need immediately. You can have multiple sources at once. If you use a book, yes a physical book, you learn where things are and jump right to them. Read

Write down a paraphrased version of what you read. Do not copy. Include references so you can return to source if needed. Note taking is a skill. Your notes should be organized in a way you can skim what you wrote as easily as the sources themselves.

Execute. You don't learn anything unless you do it. I've had too many students who watch Khan Academy, and think they understand it when they haven't done it. They don't score well on exams. Not my fault. I told them they have to do it to understand it.

RWX. I await the flame war I just started with the video people.

Wikipedia rabbit holes every time lol.

I am fascinated by medical stuff, especially conditions I have and similar conditions. Spent like 2 weeks reading about so many kinds of diseases.

The same way as topics in my field of expertise, of course.

YouTube.

A review paper from a reputable journal. The Annual Reviews series was great for this. Some of the Nature journals also used to run mini-reviews associated with research papers in the issue.

Wikipedia and books, depending on the subject matter and my degree of interest. For example, I've been reading historical research books because I love history. If it was something about the moon, it'd be Wikipedia and good enough.

sci-hub and annas-archive

I want to be less reliant on Wikipedia and Google Scholar, but in truth I still use them a lot

I skim the Wikipedia page on whatever topic is being discussed and pretend to be an expert.

I watch videos and read articles and use LLMs to give me the key points to grasp the basics. Then build upon that knowledge with more focused learning.

My first stop is always Wikipedia. The rest of the internet is a minefield.

Same way I’d inform myself on topics that are my field of expertise: reading, talking to experts, doing my own experiments and exploration, writing about it

That's what a forum is for.

Escalate. Start with early digestible low quality sources (AI chat bots, short YouTube videos, old Reddit threads, etc.) to build a general familiarity with the subject matter space.

Once you grasp the basic vocabulary and concepts, you know well enough what questions to ask to find more nuanced discussions and the right Wikipedia rabbit holes.

If you need more comprehensive understanding than that, use your newfound familiarity to start skimming primary sources.

Once you get more involved than deep dives into primary sources, you start blurring the lines of developing a new area of relative expertise.

You have to set a goal of what you want to understand and why you want to understand it, then read accordingly. If your goal is to know the usual number of eggs laid by a bird because you are trying to identify one from its nest in your yard, sure just read some Wikipedia and maybe read its sources. If you need to understand a broad topic in the social sciences in order to do your job or organize politically, well sucks yo be you, you need to spend months to years getting a handle on the various schools of thought and approaching them humbly and critically, reading many books.