Read the Obits

There is a real danger that obituaries of people in the early 21st century will become inaccessible to future generations due to obituary rot:

https://shaungallagher.pressbin.com/blog/obituary-rot.html

> An unfortunate side effect of this move to digital-only obits will likely only become apparent a few decades from now, and it will likely frustrate the next few generations of genealogists hunting for records of early 21st century ancestors.

> Print newspapers were well suited for both the distribution and preservation of obituaries. Distribution isn’t a problem for digital obituaries, and in many ways the web is better than print in this respect. But when it comes to preservation, there are many factors that make digital obits in their current state particularly susceptible to rot.

Obits are among my idea-stirring hacks. Some thoughts on why they work, and some similar ones.

Obits are written long in advance. I noticed following Jorge Bergoglio's death that NPR's obit was written (and voiced, in the newscast / headlines) by Silvia Poggioli, though she'd retired from the network in 2023 (here: <https://www.npr.org/2025/04/21/1013050313/pope-francis-dead>). This means that they're both well-researched and polished writing, unlike most breaking news coverage. They also compress a lifetime into a few paragraphs (~75 in the case of Poggioli's article), which tends to bring out highlights.

Another format that often brings out interesting ideas, outside my own area of expertise: interviews. Especially with those not from the worlds of politics or mainstream business. All the better, historical interviews, from earlier times. These often give either perspectives on a different world, or a perspective on circumstances which presage the world we find ourselves in now.

Terry Gross's "Fresh Air" and the Studs Terkel archive are two particularly excellent examples. As I'm expanding my language comprehension, interviews and histories in foreign languages are another excellent option.

A third option: academic author interviews. The New Books Network has poor production values (bonus: well-produced audio is almost certainly a skippable ad) and a large number of duds, but where it hits the topics are almost always well outside the mainstream but at the same time the product of expertise. There's a huge back-catalogue:

<https://newbooksnetwork.com/>

An old Russian joke:

A guy keeps going to the newsagent: he scans the headlines and then leaves.

The newsagent sees him do this a few days in a row and finds it to be strange behaviour, so one day he asks him:

“Comrade, what are you doing? Can I help you?”

“Thank you comrade, but I’m only interested in the obituaries.”

“But comrade, the obituaries are at the back!”

“Not the ones I am looking for, comrade!”

> It’s not just about learning new facts, of course — it’s about asking questions. Why was a British mystic in Mexico City? How did Spanish-language television evolve in the U.S.? What led someone to invent PLAX or build search tools for financial news decades before Google? Even if you don’t find all the answers, just posing the questions helps you flex the creative muscle that thrives on curiosity and connection.

Maybe wait until you have at least 1 anecdote, anywhere in the history of the world, of major creativity from reading an obituary, before recommending it?

I think its hardly that much of an interesting idea. Reading wide ofcourse is useful and interesting. But I doubt reading obituaries are the best way to go about that.

One approach that I often do, is to go to fivebooks.com when an any random subject or topic strikes me and then try to read the books their interviewees have recommended on that topic. I have found many interesting books in this way.

Like their lists about the Spanish Civil war lead me to 'Forging of a Rebel' by Arturo Barea.

Another source is to look into famous/interesting peoples reading lists. Many famous people including Gandhi, Tolstoy and others kept lists of all books that they read.

I like obits as much as the next person, maybe more. But the premise of the piece very much depends on a particular definition of creativity; and then tries, and fails, to extend it to reading obits. If it's defined as something novel, then a priori it can't be obvious and therefore is likely to be an association between distant concepts - a statement of the obvious. Mednick might be right; but an extrapolation to obits, as in the original piece, is unjustified, and definitely unproven. Velcro wasn't invented because someone read an obit; it's good, impressive, but just regular creativity. Gentner posits an obvious truism, but its relationship to obits is tenuous at best, again unjustified, and just probably wrong.

The whole piece would be begging the question were there a question. It's a statement of faith.

I have a lifelong friend who is a very successful investor and who has been habitually reading obits since his high school days. I recall his explaining that obits served as an opportunity radar.

Whenever I see a "X has died" subject on the front page of HN, I invoke a personal rule that if I haven't heard of the person, I skip it. You dying shouldn't be what gets my attention.

Of course, there are long dead historic figures that we know about. But being dead is rarely the very first thing you learn about them.

Related, new era obits and celebrations (I am affiliated): https://www.chptr.com/

My father unexpectedly passed away a few years ago so this stuff is especially close to my heart.

I’ve learned a lot from lives of others so think this is wonderful advice for finding gems and remembering the normal goodness that exists in this world.

> one popular piece of advice for boosting creativity is to learn something new every day. But here’s the catch: This only works if that new information is very different from what’s already in your head.

This is a good distinction.

I make it a point to hang with folks from vastly different backgrounds from me.

I can get some very good (and bad) ideas from them.

The Economist obits are especially worth reading.

i like this advice. when trying to come up with new characters for fiction its very difficult to come up with something you don't already know but with this you have real people with their entire life story summarized for free.