[HN Gopher] No news is good news
___________________________________________________________________
No news is good news
Author : vitabenes
Score : 147 points
Date : 2022-03-28 14:21 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thomasjbevan.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (thomasjbevan.substack.com)
| time_to_smile wrote:
| > News makes you scared of highly dramatic and highly unlikely
| events (plane crashes, shark attacks, terrorism etc) while also
| being oblivious to insidious and creeping risks that are low-key
| and hard to make dramatic and visual (say antibiotic resistance
| or indeed chronic stress caused by being in a news-induced
| perpetual state of physiological arousal).
|
| This is perhaps one of the most important points in this post
| that's buried pretty deep in the article.
|
| The author here is not advocating for "head-in-the-sand"
| avoidance of reality.
|
| Often when I see real, systemic issues brought up on HN or
| elsewhere: climate, the overshoot of industrial society, resource
| depletion etc. These concerns are often dismissed as "the media
| just wants you anxious!". But, by and large, the real scary
| pieces of information about these topics _are not published by
| major media_.
|
| The media wants you anxious, but not so concerned that you
| seriously question our mainstream mode of life. You should worry
| about nuclear war with Russia, but not about the war for natural
| gas that's really going on. You should be anxious about climate
| change, but only enough to make you recycle, not so much that you
| question the economic system that is fundamentally unstable.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| The media is owned by powerful corporations and individuals,
| but at the same time it's profitable to keep people in
| heightened emotional states. So on one hand they want to induce
| fear and anxiety, but at the same time they don't want to give
| anyone real concerns about the world we live in that might
| cause them to want to disempower the media's owners.
| spansoa wrote:
| "If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do
| read the newspaper, you are misinformed."
|
| Which is a hard problem. Personally though, I do a quick skim of
| the news each morning just so that I know we haven't nuked each
| other to death or that a new pandemic-like world event hasn't
| happened. I enjoy Reuters, Associated Press, and a local news
| feed for my area. Sumi.news[0] is great too if you want to
| essentially scan & skim the whole Internet in one fell swoop.
|
| [0] https://sumi.news/
| gnicholas wrote:
| Ironically, though not surprisingly, that Mark Twain quote
| appears to be apocryphal:
| https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/12/03/misinformed/
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Most of them are.
| Arainach wrote:
| The idea that only local news affects me is simply wrong, because
| the world is connected and things are influential.
|
| I do not live in Texas, but the Texas legislature restricting
| access to healthcare and allowing citizens to sue providers
| affects because certain political parties will treat that as a
| template for laws across the country, including in my area.
|
| The Florida legislature trying to ban books and discussion of
| topics once again sets precedent that will become attempted law
| in my area.
|
| People need to be aware of these efforts to know what to look for
| in their community and to prepare to counter such efforts.
| Information spreads and strategies are organized. Waiting until
| something is in my local area before trying to respond is
| guaranteed to lose.
|
| Even on a large scale, knowing about international conflict made
| me aware that I should stockpile Baltic Birch plywood before its
| price skyrocketed. Reading the news saved me hundreds of dollars.
|
| Fundamentally, ignoring the news is a luxury afforded to those
| who benefit from the current power structure. If you are well off
| and white, yes, you can probably ignore the news. If a subset of
| the government is constantly trying to find ways to harass you,
| deny you the right to vote or get healthcare, you have to be
| aware of things to prepare for and effectively counter them.
| kn0where wrote:
| Looks like the author reached a very similar conclusion as Aaron
| Swartz: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews
| gumby wrote:
| I have been a very strong adherent of this philosophy for over 30
| years.
|
| There's an adage, "there's nothing as worthless as yesterday's
| news". Which led me to wonder, "was it even worth knowing
| yesterday?"
|
| I realized the solution was a low pass filter.
|
| I first switched to a seven-page newspaper (CSM) delivered
| through the mail. I realised the editors had to figure out
| whether it would still be interesting by the time it arrived and
| important enough to take up space in the paper.
|
| I soon switched to a weekly newspaper (The Economist) and
| monthlies. I haven't looked back. The nice thing about a paper
| like the economist is remained relatively small (few pages) so
| had to make the same class of decision as the CSM, rather than
| expand the paper.
|
| I also have an RSS list of trade journals and such that I skim
| once a week, reading the odd title that looks interesting. Most
| of the time it's only a handful of articles.
|
| As for the high frequency stuff and stuff outside my bubble: I
| still talk to people and so I hear about stray stories. I do find
| it interesting that I have yet to have anyone bring up the
| Ukraine situation. At all.
| baxtr wrote:
| So how exactly did you find out about the war and when?
| gumby wrote:
| Probably the economist, though it might have been mentioned
| on HN
| baxtr wrote:
| You don't consider HN as daily changing news?
| gumby wrote:
| Read my other comments in this thread about HN, but I
| mainly do a title skim, and a topic that's an outlier but
| appears on the front page might cause me to look. Also I
| do comment and follow up.
| escapedmoose wrote:
| Similar to you, I keep my news limited to the local Sunday
| paper, HN, and word of mouth. Unlike you, I've found that
| Ukraine seems to be all anyone wants to talk about lately.
| verisimi wrote:
| What Ukraine situation? :)
| verisimi wrote:
| It was just a bad joke! :'(
|
| ...maybe it was _that_ bad and it deserves all the downvotes,
| but given the context of the previous comment, I didn 't
| think it was so awful...
| bradlys wrote:
| > I still talk to people and so I hear about stray stories. I
| do find it interesting that I have yet to have anyone bring up
| the Ukraine situation. At all.
|
| Could be your own bubble. Most everyone in my circle has
| brought it up. Many of us brought it up because we know people
| who are from Ukraine or have lived there extensively. I live
| and work in SV. Lots of Ukrainians work and live here.
| dragontamer wrote:
| > I do find it interesting that I have yet to have anyone bring
| up the Ukraine situation.
|
| Speaking of "weekly" discussions, the Ukraine situation has
| been brought up in my weekly Church prayers since it started.
|
| Generally speaking, if it a current event that the Priests make
| 2 or 3 "intentions" for (in the Catholic mass, the prayers that
| occur after the Homily but before the preparations), its an
| incredible event. In many situations, the words are vague so
| that it applies to as broadly as possible (ex: there usually is
| something about wars and disasters), but Ukraine specifically
| is brought up in those prayers in my experience.
|
| Which makes sense, the suffering and pains of that country are
| the greatest seen in many decades.
|
| --------
|
| Generally speaking, the intentions are specific to the parish
| community (pray for X who died last week) and local. Sometimes,
| a "sister parish" from another side of the world get their
| intentions emailed to our Church (ex: a hurricane that affects
| Haiti will be brought up, because our "sister-Parish" is in
| Haiti, so their "local" issues are brought up in our prayers as
| well. My current Parish doesn't have a sister-parish, but my
| last one had one in Haiti). For a global event to be brought up
| in specific terms (more so than just "prayer to end wars". But
| a specific "prayer to help the people of Ukraine") is pretty
| rare.
| bckr wrote:
| I am greatly in support of Ukraine and the destruction of the
| invaders, but
|
| > the suffering and pains of that country are the greatest
| seen in many decades
|
| Could this really be true?
| gumby wrote:
| Seems unlikely given wars that are going on now, like
| Yemen, or resource wars like Congo, or genocide like Burma,
| Rwanda, Cambodia...
|
| Humans' abilities to make others suffer continually amazes
| and horrifies me.
| bckr wrote:
| This gets at what I was talking about. I think people in
| other regions have also suffered greatly. This is not to
| detract from the suffering of the Ukrainians, but is just
| to clarify the facts.
| dragontamer wrote:
| > Could this really be true?
|
| The shear amount of large-scale artillery barrages going on
| is large enough to be picked up by NASA's FIRMS satellite.
| And there seems to be many Twitter threads where people
| collect information from that FIRMS / Forest Fire satellite
| to document the artillery strikes in realtime.
|
| Not even in the earlier wars of Russian aggression (Second
| Chechen War or Georgia War) seem to have this level of
| artillery.
|
| That being said: a fair amount of it is Ukrainians counter-
| artillery striking Russians and fighting back (which
| Chechnya and Georgia were largely unable to do
| effectively). So perhaps your point is that Ukraine isn't a
| one-sided massacre and has mounted at least some effective
| means of defense?
|
| Ukraine would be suffering more if Russia managed to get
| within Artillery Strike of Kyiv for example, but the
| Ukrainian forces have stalled out that advance... largely
| keeping Kyiv safe from destruction (well... to a greater
| degree than we've seen so far anyway). Mariupol on the
| other hand isn't as lucky, and widespread artillery is
| clearly being used upon that city.
|
| With humanitarian corridors closed, its clear that Mariupol
| is being sieged, Leningrad style, and there's widespread
| reports of starvation to death. There's also reports of
| many civilians being transferred to Russian camps. Then
| there are also the famous "hospital strikes" and "theater
| strikes" have have killed hundreds alone.
|
| ------
|
| But I guess you're right. Things could be worse for some
| other cities / areas who were unable to fight back against
| their oppressors. Most of the genocide events of the past
| decades are pretty horrible as well.
|
| But there needs to be something to be said about the huge,
| large-scale use of artillery that really hasn't been seen
| since WW2-era mass combat.
| kashunstva wrote:
| > Could this really be true?
|
| In the years following the Second World War, a timeframe
| that could be construed as 'many decades', I'd call it
| true.
|
| Unless your reading of the referent is 'all humans
| everywhere' in which case, it's probably debatable. Either
| way, it's bad.
| coffeefirst wrote:
| What's interesting about this is you picked:
|
| 1. Extremely high quality publications. 2. In a controlled
| manner.
|
| That's not "no news" at all, it's a healthy relationship to
| quality news.
| gumby wrote:
| Good point. I interpret "nothing as worthless" to mean
| "extremely low worth, but not necessarily nil" and indeed
| instead of "worth" I could say "worth in aggregate"
|
| Clearly there things worth knowing and not all of them were
| by Aristotle, Bach, Newton or Wittgenstein:-). The low pass
| filter screens put the froth; the selection of sources, the
| dross.
|
| Not that I even read every article in The Economist, but I do
| read about things I wouldn't notice or bother to were I
| reading from the firehose.
|
| Side point: great thing about HN is that someone can say
| "here's a clarification or contradiction in what you said"
| and have it often _not_ be hairsplitting, so can spark a
| conversation rather than shut one down.
| sedatk wrote:
| How does HN fit in this picture?
| gumby wrote:
| That's a great question! I do scan titles from an RSS feed
| more often than one might expect but ignore what I think of
| as "froth". More example while a "show HN" might be like
| catnip to me, in reality I skip most of them (sorry, brave
| show-ers, you guys are great).
|
| I'm not much of a social media conversationalist but I do
| find the discourse level of HN in the topics that interest me
| typically high enough that I often learn from it, thus it's
| worth it and fun to participate.
|
| (Discourse quality is bimodal but that's true at a cocktail
| party too, even one full of nerds)
| redleggedfrog wrote:
| I would have commented on this post except I didn't see it.
| mdb31 wrote:
| Yeah, well, no. You can't really function in society these days
| without following 'The News' to at least some extent.
|
| That doesn't mean you should buy into the '24h News Cycle' or the
| 'Extremism-inducing-filter-bubble', though. Myself, I don't pay
| any attention to 'The News', except as delivered on paper once-a-
| week via The Economist(1), and daily via their 'The World in
| Brief' email.
|
| So, this morning, I learned that 'At one point an actor slapped a
| comedian, sending the internet into a frenzy' -- which is, like,
| all I needed to know, right?
|
| Footnotes: (1) Yes, which is a relatively right-wing, centrist if
| you will, publication. I love it, especially disagreeing with
| it...
| beaconstudios wrote:
| In what way can you not function in society? Is that just in
| the sense that the news creates common cultural touchpoints for
| people to chat about around the water cooler? If so, as you say
| you don't really need to be that engaged to know the gist of
| what's going on. An occasional glance at a reputable, less-
| doomscrolly news source like the Econ, BBC, NYT or something
| like that should suffice.
| mdb31 wrote:
| I'm not sure we disagree? If you read The Economist weekly,
| you should be fine (although you can still be caught out not
| knowing about, say, today's Oscar's <tm, now go away>
| scandal.
|
| But completely disconnecting from 'The News'? That won't work
| at all these days, I'm afraid. I quite vividly experienced
| this a while ago when I returned from living in the US to my
| native Netherlands: I was completely unaware of some
| extremely-popular local hit songs. So, when people quoted
| these to me, I just didn't get the reference, like, at all.
| This caused quite some awkward moments.
|
| Now, magnify that experience to the world stage...
| EsperHugh wrote:
| > That won't work at all these days, I'm afraid
|
| I'm afraid I don't follow your point. Saying that something
| "won't work at all these days" means that there are
| meaningful, and I stress: meaningful, aspects of our life
| that totally break down in the absence of said thing. An
| occasional few seconds of awkwardness (which is a totally
| fine emotion to feel) regarding some celeb drama is, in all
| honesty, insignificant. You didn't talk about being fired
| or being shunned, being discriminated or being laughed at;
| you presented a very very bland example equivalent to
| admitting to your colleagues that you didn't notice a new
| coffee machine was installed. Maybe you suffer from a
| mental condition that amplifies these emotions so much that
| you can't stand that occasional awkwardness, but I don't
| see how that justifies defending being addicted to the news
| cycle.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| oh yeah I wasn't disagreeing with you, just trying to think
| about what you meant. I agree, you probably want to know
| the basic pop-cultural and international goings-on in order
| to not be left out of conversations.
| haswell wrote:
| I'm still not seeing the need for "The News" here. There's
| no reason not to follow your interests/hobbies. And there
| are other ways to catch up on world events without the
| daily drip of sensationalism. The author isn't saying you
| shouldn't read anything ever.
|
| But you don't need to read the front page of CNN every day
| to stay up to date on the latest music. In fact, you'd be
| much better served by reading publications focused on that
| - the opposite of consuming the content meant for mass
| consumption.
|
| People quote things that I don't recognize all of the time.
| This is likely to happen for all kinds of reasons, e.g.
| generational gaps and not just because you stopped reading
| the daily headlines.
|
| I think what you're highlighting is that getting off the
| news hype cycle might make people around you notice. But a
| different response to that would be to have a conversation
| about why you unplugged.
|
| That's what I do, and it leads to some interesting
| conversations.
|
| Only you can decide if the personal cost of continuing to
| consume is worthwhile just to maintain a certain vocabulary
| so you can continue socializing as you always have.
|
| This isn't a value judgement by the way, just an
| observation.
| eyeundersand wrote:
| > [The Economist] is a relatively right-wing, centrist if you
| will, publication.
|
| A comment above, in response to the publication being labelled
| as having "a sharp left / European bias" says:
|
| > The rest of the world would mostly call it "left-leaning", or
| maybe "radical centrist".
|
| I would probably categorize it as centrist myself, but it's
| funny how confirmation bias works.
| horse90 wrote:
| Yes. I'd also recommend abstaining from forums and anything
| bearing even a resemblance to scroll-down variety.
| [deleted]
| palidanx wrote:
| On kind of a random tangent, during the early pandemic I began
| reading a ton of cookbooks. I found it interesting how the
| quality of recipes and techniques was so vastly better than
| anything I found online.
|
| I think a similar item is happening with news. Online news is
| rather superficial where really long form things like books can
| give you the reflection to think.
| escapedmoose wrote:
| I was given a fantastic cookbook (Joy of Cooking) around the
| start of the pandemic. I used to _loathe_ cooking. Now I'm
| hoarding cookbooks and look forward to trying new recipes.
| Turns out my problem the whole time was relying on garbage-tier
| internet recipes. Maybe it's extreme, but I now refuse to make
| any recipe from the internet. It's not worth it.
| palidanx wrote:
| Sending you here to a rabbit hole:
|
| https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/good-food/favorite-
| cookbo...
|
| (unfortunately there isn't a good food filter)
| https://www.kcrw.com/categories/books
|
| Store just with cookbooks only in SF
|
| https://omnivorebooks.myshopify.com/
| telesilla wrote:
| How important news is too you depends on your relationship to
| where the news is coming from. In times of disaster, we pay
| greater attention to those places we are most familiar with, or
| emotionally attached to.
|
| Before email was so prevalent, my mother said the same thing when
| me and my siblings went travelling overseas for months at a time
| without calling. Now, she's in contact with us a few times a week
| and acting as the central news source for us all.
|
| So of course: if one of us was in a country that was having some
| "news" she'd pay extra attention and reach out to share what's
| going on with us and the entire family.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| If I insisted reading history was damaging, I suspect many people
| would object. The news is just history playing out; a daily dose
| of non-fiction with my coffee.
|
| There are, of course, a lot of terrible news sources. Many of
| which seem more aimed at creating outrage than anything else.
| Consumption of those may indeed be an issue.
| krisoft wrote:
| Ridiculous. There is one reason I read news, and it is stronger
| now than ever.
|
| I started reading news when I was about 14 and this was my
| reasoning: "There were Jews in nazi germany who could have
| escaped the horrors but didn't. Some, not all, but some had the
| resources to emigrate, to run, but they either didn't see the
| danger coming, or didn't believe it will get as bad as it got, or
| had too deep roots to move themselves. I will want to be like the
| Jews who escaped, who kept their eyes open and realised what is
| coming and went and saved their life and their loved ones life."
| And that's why I started reading news. In case there are people
| thinking about killing me and mine I can bolt.
|
| Now excuse my 14 year old self's naive understanding of history.
| It is never as easy as just that. But certainly there are dangers
| in life. I want to avoid those dangers. I want my loved ones to
| avoid those dangers. And here I don't mean the dangers of idk
| toxins in this and that normal foodstuff, or the dangers of
| strange man hiding in the dark. Those are catchy images, but
| statistically speaking they are not worth worrying about.
|
| So what kind of dangers do I mean then? Normally I just say "i
| will know when I see it", but sadly we have a very clear and
| present example. I heard about the possibility of the Russian
| invasion first thing last November. I did recognise that it has
| the potential of being very bad and if I would have had family
| and loved ones in Ukraine I would have tried to make them move to
| a safer place. And increasingly as the signal grew I would have
| exerted more effort to make that happen. I hope that if I would
| have had family in Ukraine they would not be there by the start
| of the invasion. (And I know this also has a component of not
| just being well informed, but also having resources. I recognise
| my privilege.)
|
| So that's why I'm reading news. To gather the temperature of the
| pot I'm swimming in with my loved ones. And I also understand
| that this makes me prone to overreact, and that is fine. I would
| rather be the pigeon who nervously flitters about than the pigeon
| who got eaten by the cat.
| pdonis wrote:
| Did the Jews who escaped Nazi Germany know to do that because
| of what they were reading in the news?
|
| I get that we all want to avoid dangers and that knowing about
| them in advance helps. I just question whether reading the news
| is a good way to do that.
| krisoft wrote:
| Are you asking about the historical facts? I don't know. Not
| my speciality, and I don't want to say something which might
| be not true.
|
| Are you asking about the younger me's understanding of this
| question? I can answer that. Understand the following in this
| light:
|
| My understanding that their persecution was not a bolt from
| the blue. Politicians were agitating against them. There were
| speeches, there were marching demonstrations, then there were
| aggression against individuals. Shops burnt down etc. It
| wasn't like yesterday was everything A-okay, and today you
| are sitting in a cattle car heading to a gas chamber.
|
| > I just question whether reading the news is a good way to
| do that.
|
| I understand that. And I agree with you it is better to be
| skeptical about these things. But on the other hand with
| Ukraine I had a good 5 monthish heads-up. Maybe 2 month if
| i'm calculating from the "my spidersense is tingling enough
| that I would start walking out with nothing but the clothes I
| have on my back if I must" moment. So in the present day it's
| hard to convince me that it's not a good way to do that. One
| of course also needs a head solidly attached to their
| shoulders, and a good mind in it, but that's always needed
| for everything.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| IMO news comes in two flavors, one of which should be avoided
| like the plague it is, and one which you should pay somewhat
| close attention to (relatively). The first, national and
| international news. And the second being local news. We should
| embrace the local journalists who shine light on local politics.
| arubania2 wrote:
| I tend to agree; I don't really follow news myself. If there's
| anything big going on, I'd know anyway.
|
| But IMO there are two blind spots in that philosophy:
|
| - If everybody did that, even the big things would not propagate.
| You'd only know there is a war going on if you heard the bombs.
|
| - Voting becomes a problem. Since everything you hear is from
| people around you, it is most likely an opinion, which you will
| then echo. Also you might miss stuff which would affect your
| opinion, but which your friends didn't care for.
| allemagne wrote:
| I think this is a great and useful perspective. The most salient
| point being that "fake news" and "bias" and "balance" is a red
| herring to the much bigger problem of "news" in general. The
| near-universal acceptance that one can and should have firm
| opinions about complex ongoing events, some constant stream of
| incomprehensible information that is most likely completely
| unrelated to you, is the actual problem. I think the author is
| basically spot on here.
|
| Where I think it breaks down is the prescription that everyone
| can necessarily separate themselves from "news". I think this is
| increasingly infeasible. Even if you, personally, don't buy a
| subscription or scroll twitter, I don't think it's too outlandish
| to expect that people around you in your family or community
| might take action based on some national or international news
| that is admittedly basically pointless. Are you supposed to
| righteously shut down every news-related conversation about that
| you're a part of?
|
| More broadly this also runs into the absurdity of trying to
| define arbitrary boundaries around "news". You're just begging
| your unconscious mind to label subjects you are personally
| uncomfortable with as "news" and therefore not worthy of
| considering.
|
| So removing "news" from your life as much as possible, or at
| least separating if from yourself and your ego to some
| significant extent, can really only be part of the answer and is
| also by definition an endless uphill battle. I don't think
| there's any getting away from the need for a broader media
| literacy.
|
| Also:
|
| >And perhaps there is something to that, given that my online
| avatar is a pixelated rendering of Stanczyk the Court Jester. But
| jesters are kept around because they say what needs to be said.
| And they express these unpopular messages with enough wit and
| entertainment that the kings let them keep their heads and indeed
| value their council.
|
| This faux-humility disclaimer made me cringe. I thought this was
| a good piece overall, but this made me almost close the tab.
| Don't do this. They already opened the blog post, don't
| desperately plead with your reader that you promise that your
| thoughts are worth reading.
| ppalata wrote:
| I would really like to follow this advice and stop reading news
| completely. But I like talking to people and generally, news is
| among the most commonly discussed topics. Furthermore, it helps
| me evaluate if I have similar opinions to the person I'm talking
| to (and thus the conversation is likely to continue someday). The
| article doesn't mention how to fulfil this need and it seems that
| I would become isolated if I decided to really follow it. I agree
| with the assessment but I don't know how to fix the problem I've
| mentioned.
| anonymousiam wrote:
| This reminds me of the ancient "no news" joke:
|
| https://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/92q4/badnews.html
| 1270018080 wrote:
| I have:
|
| - Deleted facebook
|
| - Unfollowed any news accounts and use Ublock to block suggested
| content on Twitter
|
| - Unsubscribed from any news subreddits
|
| - Of course never check news sites
|
| And honestly feel better overall and less stressed. Sure you can
| claim being apathetic/ignorant towards global current events
| makes me a bad person, but I do not care. To me, no human is
| designed to handle as much information input as we experience
| today.
| watwut wrote:
| > And honestly feel better overall and less stressed. Sure you
| can claim being apathetic/ignorant towards global current
| events makes me a bad person, but I do not care.
|
| I would not say so. But, I would expect you to NOT be outspoken
| and confident when someone else starts to speak about stuff
| related to current issues. And I would expect you to check
| yourself especially when it seems like the other person is
| saying something you intuitively disagree with, because chance
| that they are simply better informed is high.
|
| It is quite possible you do it, I don't want to imply that.
| But, I have met quite a few people who don't follow news
| (proudly) but then are full of opinions about issues they don't
| follow.
| vinyl7 wrote:
| That's the second part of de-stressing. First, stop watching
| news. Second, stop having an opinion on everything because at
| the end of the day nobody's opinion matters.
| IHLayman wrote:
| "Stop having an opinion on everything because at the end of
| the day nobody's opinion matters."
|
| ...don't you see how nihilist this sounds? And also
| unrealistic. You will have opinions, everyone has opinions
| and beliefs and feelings or else they wouldn't be able to
| function on a day to day basis. There is a scale to beliefs
| and opinions, based on how informed those beliefs and
| opinions are, and how well they mesh with conditions in
| your everyday life. It's important to inform your opinions
| and beliefs; the news, however flawed in its current state,
| forms at least one source of that information.
|
| I think that taking all of this as one absolute or another
| is unnecessarily polarizing this debate. It is very easy to
| argue that them news media economy is quite poisonous, but
| that doesn't mean that all of the information is useless.
| For example: I need to prepare for a storm that is
| approaching the area, I need to know if a COVID wave is
| nearing so I know to be more careful, I need to know if
| parking rules change or trash day is being moved. These
| immediate events affect my actions directly and so I must
| pay attention, sifting through the other crap as necessary.
|
| But even beyond that, this resignation to political
| nihilism is societally destructive. Like it or not, we are
| all connected in a society. Our actions affect others. We
| have shared infrastructure and services we all contribute
| to and benefit from. Part of that responsibility is a
| participation in politics. Is it currently toxic and
| despairing? Certainly. But sticking your head in the sand
| isn't an option, as we depend on cooperation in order to
| preserve a society on any level and that requires
| coordination.
|
| Should we reduce our news consumption? Of course. But we
| also shouldn't eschew all outside information and live in a
| self-imposed bubble. Maybe skip the entertainment section
| and focus on stuff that impacts you directly. If there is
| something that is shallowly followed by the news that
| sounds important, of course dig into longer-form articles
| until you understand it in full or discard it if it is
| important. Discretion matters.
| watwut wrote:
| That was general attitude in post communist countries. I
| remember that well and had same opinion.
|
| Later on, I realized that was what made us risk slipping
| back... and likely was contributed factor to why Russia
| actually slipped back to authoritarian, oppressive and
| aggressive. The countries that moved more toward democratic
| did so thinks to people who were not apathetic.
| t0bia_s wrote:
| "...because at the end of the day nobody's opinion
| matters."
|
| This is a danger that is in my opinion developed by over-
| consuming news and information from many sources. Of
| course, it is generally good to take news from multiple
| sources but if you are not payed for dig in information,
| you won't have much time to get deeply into problem and
| finally you just stay on the shallow top - which naturally
| let to resign on any opinion, because everything seems to
| be relative. It is not, it is simply a lack of invested
| time into subject.
|
| Matrix 4 btw speaks a little bit about it if you pay
| attention.
|
| On the other hand it is perfectly fine to say "I don't
| know". Which is not what we are learning at schools. We are
| persecuted to say that unfortunately. And here we are...
| Everyone has opinions on everything.
| 1270018080 wrote:
| If you ask me my opinion on most issues my answer is going to
| be "I don't know" or "I don't care".
|
| And that's the right answer that should be used by more
| people.
| depaya wrote:
| I agree with the general concept that, at the individual level,
| news consumption is bad for your mental health and pretty much
| useless. At the societal level though... if everybody took this
| approach there would be no accountability for politicians or
| corporations.
|
| How do we find a healthy middle ground?
| anthk wrote:
| >How do we find a healthy middle ground?
|
| In Europe we had teletext. In Spanish, but you get the
| concept:
|
| https://www.rtve.es/television/teletexto/noticias/129/
|
| Small paragraphs. Almost no bias. News condensed to be read
| on a small tv. No bullshit, no yellow journalism. Raw and
| short.
|
| Teletext as shown on old TVs:
|
| https://live.staticflickr.com/1453/25222724604_15d7a974a2_b..
| ..
|
| Now they should create pages like this. Like
| https://lite.cnn.io or https://text.npr.org, but with small
| content, too. Not just the design.
| brimble wrote:
| Check in once every few months. That's plenty. Done. [EDIT]
| Exception for local news. Maybe every week or two.
|
| Use the extra time to read books on political science,
| economics, and history. Maybe some media studies. You'll be a
| better voter doing that instead of following the news
| closely. It's not as if it should have taken someone who knew
| nothing about either person, but a lot about the actual
| issues and how politics works, a ton of time to figure out if
| they wanted to vote for Trump or Biden. 20 minutes of
| googling right before going to the polls should have been
| enough.
| shantnutiwari wrote:
| > Sure you can claim being apathetic/ignorant towards global
| current events makes me a bad person, but I do not care.
|
| 100% agree. The Media complex is the one that keeps pretending
| news is important-- its like a drug dealer saying drugs are
| important.
| Pasorrijer wrote:
| 100% agree. I think the 24hr news cycle is a huge contributor
| to negative mental health.
|
| When we travelled to the in-laws over the most recent holidays,
| the news was always on, and always talked about and my wife and
| I both commented afterwards it felt like an oppressive blanket
| of stress was laid over everything while we were there.
| black_puppydog wrote:
| Humm... reading the news saved me from entering into an expensive
| and hard-to-reverse lease in a teeny-tiny Paris apartment just
| weeks before the lockdowns. I'd have gone nuts there.
|
| More topical still, reading the (right kind of) news got people
| to evacuate their folks from Ukraine just in time before it
| became really dangerous.
|
| Sure, those may be once-in-a-lifetime events, but still.
|
| I'll happily accept that I'm reading too much ( _way_ too much)
| news though.
| groby_b wrote:
| Ah yes. Reading the news is useless in the sense that reading the
| mainstream news is useless. It's both deliberately (pushing a
| narrative) and by incompetence (Gell Mann Amnesia) wrong more
| often than not.
|
| That doesn't mean cutting yourself off from the world is wrong.
| Large outlier events often cast shadows (Covid, Ukraine war) and
| if you're in the path of the outlier events, knowing early pays
| off.
|
| The hard question is, how do you see the large shadows without
| having to twitch at every small event. The answer to this is, to
| some extent, mentioned in the article - expensive, subscription-
| based newsletters. It's still not the full answer. There are too
| many areas to pay attention to. Best answer I've found so far is
| having a group of friends & contacts with wide-ranging interests.
| beamatronic wrote:
| I spent my life trying to be a well-informed investor. It turns
| out that all you have to do is buy real assets when you are young
| and just hold them forever. And don't ever sell anything. That's
| it. As long as the world is relatively peaceful you will get
| rich.
| allturtles wrote:
| I agree with some of the premises of this article, that much of
| the news is actually of negative value, but I have some problems
| with this part:
|
| > If an event is actually important to your real life, you will
| find out about it. Such news will find you.
|
| > Well, from my experience you ignore all of the things you
| cannot control and that have little bearing on your life (again,
| if there is some news that will actually effect your life you'll
| hear about it)
|
| Here is the crux. There are actually important things we need to
| know about (e.g. a nearby natural disaster that may threaten your
| area; an upcoming local election with important consequences; a
| worldwide pandemic). How do we find out about about them? This
| article assumes they will somehow reach you anyway even if you
| ignore all news - how?
|
| IME, the way this happens, is that your
| relatives/friends/neighbors, who are following the news, tell you
| about it. In other words, this advice appears to me to rely on
| parasitism - a minority can ignore all news without harm because
| they can still rely on the majority who follow the news to
| provide really important information. As a moral position it
| fails the categorical imperative.
| dwaltrip wrote:
| Maybe the reverse is possible? The majority can ignore the news
| until the few who are watching the skies notice something
| important enough for people to break their no-news policy.
| bombcar wrote:
| Weather alerts come through my phone (a notification for a
| watch, a buzzing for a warning, and some siren like thing for
| an active tornado).
| jsharpe wrote:
| Those relatives/friends/neighbors may very well have a
| healthier relationship with the news than you do. For a certain
| set of people (me included), news is addictive and destructive
| to my life, but for others, it's something they can peruse once
| a day.
|
| Besides which, it's not like a majority of people will _ever_
| quit the news. You alone doing it is not doing anyone else a
| hardship. It 's not like anyone is thinking, "Ugh, I have to
| keep scrolling twitter so that I can keep my news-less friend
| in the loop."
| hardware2win wrote:
| I dont read news except cs related because they have no direct
| impact on my life meanwhile big stuff like covid is big enough
| that i will eventually hear about it
|
| All that negative stuff you have to go thru when reading news
| makes it being bad deal
| inanutshellus wrote:
| I'll come out of my shell a few times a week and won't understand
| what's going on. News sites just tell me the last 18 hours' worth
| of updates... So... I either disengage entirely and can't carry
| on a conversation or I stay engaged and worry about events I
| cannot affect.
|
| I'd like a "I haven't checked the news in [7] days and some guy
| at work mentioned [Ukraine talking to the UN], what's that all
| about?" website.
|
| I guess it'd be 7 days worth of news synopses for the topic.
|
| [7 days ago this city fell, Joe said stern words about it, and
| the Sauds started selling oil in Yuan because it didn't want
| China to get all its oil from Russia.]
|
| [6 days ago that city was retaken, and everyone was surprised.]
|
| [5 days ago Joe said more stern words but had no effect.]
|
| etc.
| superbaconman wrote:
| There are usually news programs on Sunday that will go over the
| past weeks worth of news. I like Bloomberg radio, which airs
| like 3 or 4 different weekly recap shows on that day.
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| I believe you'd have a far more satisfying and productive time
| coming out of your shell if you redirected Joe's conversation
| to asking about him, or his kids, or his hobbies- keeping it
| local like the article concludes.
|
| Unless it's your job, neither of you really understand whatever
| is happening with Ukraine and your conversation will be mostly
| limited to repeating what you've been told to each other, which
| doesn't enrich either of your lives.
| tchocky wrote:
| The Ukraine example might be true for a non-european country,
| but as a European in these times I want to be informed. I
| want to help refugees and the victims of war (either by
| donating or giving shelter for some days). If I wouldn't know
| things from the news, I wouldn't know about these things.
|
| Knowing in what direction world events might change is good
| to be at least mentally prepared when things turn worse.
|
| It doesn't have to be checking the news 24/7 but checking it
| once a day for the important parts I think it's important. I
| would rather say people need to learn how to distance
| themselves from the news a bit to keep a healthy mental state
| with all the things happening right now.
| mantas wrote:
| As a fellow European, IMO it's very important to follow
| especially what non-Ukraine politicians are doing. That
| will help a lot in elections in coming decades. Let's keep
| them accountable for once.
| watwut wrote:
| I think that OP meant Joe Biden. Timeline checks out. It is
| unlikely OP is in position to talk about presidents kids and
| hobbies.
|
| > Unless it's your job, neither of you really understand
| whatever is happening with Ukraine and your conversation will
| be mostly limited to repeating what you've been told to each
| other, which doesn't enrich either of your lives.
|
| A bit of very practical issue here is that Russian troll
| force is in full force right now, at least where I live.
| Trying to affect general opinion of people, in order to
| influence future elections and to make NATO/Eu passive due to
| pressure from population. The money were in fact flowing from
| Russia toward our right-wing nearly fascist or clearly
| fascist parties.
|
| I dont think "everyone else should be passive" is good
| strategy here.
| mantas wrote:
| It's pretty easy to understand what is going on in Ukraine in
| general. It's also pretty easy to notice certain
| politicians/institutions/companies reactions. Then it will be
| pretty easy to make choices. If people ain't passive, we can
| ensure this ain't happening again in 5-8 years.
| sjmulder wrote:
| There's an "out of the loop" reddit:
| https://old.reddit.com/r/outoftheloop
|
| It's not quite for this use case but could be of help. I
| regularly use it to find out what that thing is people are
| joking about on Twitter or such.
| mdoms wrote:
| This is an awful subreddit. It's mostly used for catching up
| on stupid Youtube/Twitch drama or asking why some other
| subreddit has been banned/locked/quarantined. On real stories
| the answers are very often very misinformed.
| twic wrote:
| Wikipedia's current events portal goes back one week, and
| there's a link at the bottom to more:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events
| webscout wrote:
| https://biztoc.com and https://upstract.com pull in some news
| from there.
| ljlolel wrote:
| Can just read the Economist weekly. Their articles are very
| brief but well written summaries.
| airstrike wrote:
| Also heavily editorialized with a sharp left / European bias
| groby_b wrote:
| The Economist is many things, but "sharp left" it is only
| to a certain subset of people.
|
| The rest of the world would mostly call it "left-leaning",
| or maybe "radical centrist".
| jazzyk wrote:
| Perhaps more like globalist/corporatist, which reflects
| their recent ownership?
|
| In 2015, Pearson - a publishing company - sold its
| controlling stake to a bunch of corporate owners, like
| the Agnellis (43%) and the Rotschilds (21%), among
| others.
|
| The change in their editorial direction was immediately
| visible (I had been a subscriber/reader for 35+ years
| until 2016)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Group
| mediaman wrote:
| The Rothschilds have had a substantial stake in the
| Economist for 70 years, including prior to the time when
| Pearson was a shareholder. Pearson did not control the
| board, had only 6 of the 13 board seats, and never had
| majority control of the company. It's unclear what is
| meant by "corporate owners;" Pearson is a publicly traded
| corporation.
|
| I'm also a long-time subscriber and do not understand the
| "shift" you are referring to. The Economist has been pro-
| free-trade, generally against heavy regulation, and a
| magazine that consistently takes small-l liberal
| positions for a very long time. That stance means that
| sometimes they are right - deregulation has been good in
| many areas - but sometimes they get it wrong, when, for
| example, free trade may have adverse effects.
|
| Sometimes they take positions that are bad - they argued
| for the second Iraq war - but they are pretty up front
| about their biases, and generally don't represent their
| biases as purely objective facts, as many traditional
| newspapers do. Their writing is clear and concise and is
| not meant to be consumed uncritically. The magazine is
| still unparalleled for what it offers.
| groby_b wrote:
| I wouldn't argue with that one, either. But it's also not
| "hard left" :)
|
| The word - if we're willing to shed many of the more
| populist overtones around it - is probably
| "neoliberalism". Consistently siding with money &
| corporations, with a democratic bent. (But not too much!)
|
| Since 2016, it's more and more living on its reputation
| and not coming quite to terms with the changes in the
| world. It is still firmly rooted in facts - can't really
| provide economic guidance when you deny realities - but
| it seems somewhat unable to engage with the rise of
| populism and nationalism in an economically intertwined
| world.
|
| Not unlike centrism :)
| dwiel wrote:
| I've actually found that Improve the News [1] is good for
| something like that. It has sliders to let you select what kind
| of new you are looking for with one of the sliders which
| controls "shelf life" ranging from short to long and "recency"
| from evergreen to recent. Not exactly what you are looking for,
| but I've found it can serve a similar purpose.
|
| [1] https://www.improvethenews.org/
| kgwxd wrote:
| I think that left/right categorization thing actually makes
| it worse. I'd like a "just the facts" option.
| [deleted]
| akselmo wrote:
| I mostly read tech news and im very picky with them too. Anything
| important i will hear from friends. Dont see the point clicking
| all the useless clickbait articles anyway.
| glitchc wrote:
| Articles that engender good feelings, either by revealing a
| positive story or reporting a positive event, do not receive
| nearly the same level of engagement.
|
| Anger sells. Outrage sells. Media companies have known it since
| the dawn of the newspaper. Bad news generates anger and outrage,
| hence all news is bad news. It's a natural consequence of the
| human condition.
| louissan wrote:
| "Pour vivre heureux vivons caches"
| grandanthem wrote:
| mdoms wrote:
| I'm sorry but this is just total nonsense. The author argues very
| that being informed is an unimportant article of faith. I can
| name a number of recent examples where being uninformed of the
| news would have had significant impacts on my life. For example,
|
| 1. New Zealand is still under various Covid restrictions and they
| are in constant flux. These impact real-world decisions I need to
| make like should I plan to attend a particular event, should I
| plan a trip for the winter or even go to the office next week. If
| I don't stay on top of the news I will be helpless. Even the
| event organisers and shop owners use phrases like "Red Light
| Phase 2" which must be gleaned from the news - Red Light today
| doesn't mean the same thing it did 2 weeks ago.
|
| 2. The Ukraine crisis. Even if you don't think it's important to
| be aware of such a monumental ongoing geopolitical event for its
| own sake, if I ignored the news I would have no idea why so many
| people on my island on the other side of the world are carrying
| blue and yellow flags, changing their avatars and vocalising
| their support for an Eastern European country they have never
| even mentioned before. You can argue it's not important to be
| informed about this kind of event but that assertion is no less
| an article of faith than the claim that it IS important. And
| quite frankly if it became obvious someone I was talking to
| wasn't aware of the Ukraine conflict it would sharply diminish my
| respect for them.
|
| 3. We had an ongoing weeks-long protest in my city recently which
| blocked several important streets and caused a lot of chaos. Is
| it in my interests to not be aware of road closures and massive
| police operations in my area? Even if I don't care about the
| protestors, their cause etc, it's still directly impactful for me
| to know where I can, can't and shouldn't drive my car.
| EsperHugh wrote:
| Why are you conflating being informed or following one
| particular event with being obsessed with the news? If Covid
| restrictions are so malleable in your city then you should find
| avenues that keep you updated, but once it's over you should
| also quit with the updates. Knowing what happens in Ukraine
| every single minute is useless. If you see all those hints
| around you about a conflict you are unaware of, why can't you
| just ask around or at most read a recap article or two? Why
| would this event entail being glued to your screen 24/7? Just
| like with other people in this discussion it feels as though
| exceptional events somehow justify the constant consumption of
| the news.
| mdoms wrote:
| > Why are you conflating being informed or following one
| particular event with being obsessed with the news?
|
| I'm not. This article isn't about "being obsessed with the
| news", it is arguing against following the news at all - in
| fact he addresses this directly. Did you read the article?
|
| > So what are you supposed to do instead, you might ask?
| Well, reducing news consumption is a good start but like
| Dobelli I would say mere reduction is probably not enough.
| Personal experience of attempting moderation has made me more
| of a hardliner. Personally, I vote for going cold turkey and
| simply walking away from the whole idea of news and the
| illusion of staying informed.
| cambaceres wrote:
| I agree with you, but this text is unnecessarily long for the
| points you are making. Please try to be more concise, otherwise
| you will not reach those which I assume is your main target - the
| ones addicted to short sensational news.
| ultramegachurch wrote:
| Agreed. Introductory paragraphs like the one below always bug
| me. I know what news is, I wouldn't have clicked if I didn't.
|
| "So what is the news anyway? In its simplest and most universal
| definition news is information about recent events or
| happenings. That's it. And so the news has always existed in
| some form since the advent of language and civilisations. It
| was transported by messengers whether it be by Hermes, the
| herald of the gods in Greek mythology or by some mortal
| messenger who was quite often murdered due to the contents of
| the message in spite of the saying warning the recipient
| against such actions. We know we shouldn't shoot the messenger,
| but alas."
| paulpauper wrote:
| If you were a Jew in early 1930s Germany, following the news
| would have been very important, but this is an extreme outlier.
| most news can be ignored.
| throwaway684936 wrote:
| If you're LGBT, following the news is incredibly important.
| It's essential to track legislation such as the Idaho anti-
| trans bill that jails parents, or Florida anti-LGBT bill that
| just passed, especially if you're an LGBT teenager or a parent
| of one.
| sammalloy wrote:
| I used to start my day listening to the thirty minute, BBC global
| news podcast, which often has three updated podcasts per day
| during the work week, and one per day on the weekend.
|
| Then, sometime around 2015, maybe 2016, I began to notice major
| changes to the BBC podcast as well as other sister news outlets.
| Suddenly, there were more ads, less investigative stories, and
| more filler about the latest consumer trends.
|
| Over time, I began to gravitate in the opposite direction, away
| from international news coverage and more towards hyperlocal news
| unique to my area. Other problems become apparent with the local
| coverage, mostly a highly skewed and partisan bias by the owners
| who apparently flirted with political power and connections.
|
| I'm still looking for the perfect balance between hyperlocal and
| international, and I would love to see a media outlet who links
| the two together and shows the connections between the two. As
| far as I know, that's never been done.
| ThalesX wrote:
| I build for myself a little frontend over Google Trends, that
| fetches news items, translates them for me and kinda gives me
| daily / weekly top news from around the world, also with the
| option of checking local stuff. It gives me a pretty good
| overview of what _people_ are interested in.
|
| I can choose my country, and it's going to show me globally
| relevant news first but published in my country, then a good
| chunk of news from most of the political spectrum, and then a
| good 75% of it entertainment and soccer.
|
| Some takeaways: India has a lot of stuff happening all the
| time. Soccer is pretty much the king of global traffic. I
| swear, it's crazy just how big soccer is globally.
| h2odragon wrote:
| Far away problems are so much more _interesting_ than those
| nearby. You needn 't really do anything about them, and its much
| easier to assign your own valuation to anything you do. Your
| successes can be trumpeted as much as you like and your failures
| need never be known to anyone but you.
| lordnacho wrote:
| This is true, there's an inner kibitzer inside all of us who
| needs material. This is the real source of entertainment that
| the article mentions. Every section of the paper caters to
| this: what would you do about the war, would you have given
| poor people better benefits, would you have slapped Chris Rock,
| what would you have worn to the awards, would you go out with
| that guy, how should your team have set up their defense?
|
| The only actionable section is the weather report, you can
| decide shorts or umbrella.
|
| The piece is utterly right. News in the constantly-coming
| format is junk food. Almost no context is given, even thought
| nothing at all makes sense if you just watched the news. What
| is NATO, what is a central bank? Why are the same teams at the
| top of the league? All of these things need some basic
| explanation that is never in the news, but always in any basic
| long-form piece.
| vikaveri wrote:
| International and national news are often important, but rarely
| immediate. By not immediate I mean that you can't affect it, it
| won't affect you and you don't have to do anything about it.
| Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe? Interesting, but nothing to do with
| me really. Ship stuck sideways in a canal? That might cause
| problems at work later and maybe I should get that bike I was
| planning on now rather than later, but I'll be fine. War
| between nearby countries that produce oil and food... I better
| check my emergency stocks are in good shape and that full
| electric car sounds good right about now? And so on, important
| and some of them will affect you, but usually with a delay or
| in a roundabout way.
|
| Local on the other hand. Very immediate, but often not that
| important, at least outside your local area. Sometimes you can
| even affect things and if it's something that can affect you
| and requires action, it might be a matter of hours. Water main
| breaks, you won't have running water for three days? Fill up
| buckets, head to the store, right now! But that's a minor
| inconvenience compared to international news, if they end up
| affecting you.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| Yes! And unlike nearby problems you know you can't really do
| anything about them. How many people in the US would read a
| national story about crime or education without knowing who the
| police chief is of their city, or who is on the school board,
| or even who is on their city council..
| ddoran wrote:
| > Fake news is a term to describe news that is merely untrue
|
| In my experience it is more commonly used to describe news which
| the speaker does not like.
| kilroy123 wrote:
| I feel like it's increasingly both and the lines are becoming
| more and more blurred.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| That ship sailed 6 years ago if we're being honest.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| As far as the terminology goes, maybe. As far as people
| choosing to believe what is convenient, profitable, or
| flattering about the world around them, that's been the
| case as far back as anyone can recall. I think we like to
| imagine that technology both makes us immune to the
| problems of our ancestors and makes our problems immune to
| historically-informed solutions.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Oh most definitely - I'm talking about the meaning of
| "fake news." It used to be a very specific phenomenon:
| sites/articles designed to spread misinformation, usually
| by cloning actual news outlets in order to make it more
| convincing. These weren't just "overly-spun" opinions or
| something, it was stuff like "Ilhan Omar doesn't want you
| to see these photos of her training at an Al Qaeda camp"
| featuring doctored photos or just grainy photos of some
| woman with a gun (actually saw that posted by a cousin)
| and "Obama signs bill opening 100 abortion factories."
| Just absolutely ridiculous, completely fabricated stuff,
| designed to spread like wildfire for ad dollars by
| capitalizing on "just reading the headlines and sharing
| what looks right" culture.
|
| NPR did a great interview with a "fake news creator" back
| in 2016: https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2
| 016/11/23/50...
| hunterb123 wrote:
| In my experience it's used as an umbrella term for biased,
| inaccurate, misleading, half-true, or completely false news.
| subsubzero wrote:
| I generally think news(a majority of it) is shameless drivel with
| extreme bias to certain perspectives. That being said with the
| pandemic and all the changing laws/issues surrounding it, not to
| mention covid community case counts were invaluable to
| understand. I would completely abandon the news in a heartbeat
| but I trade stocks and need to understand world news along with
| business dealings for me to make intelligent trading decisions.
| t0bia_s wrote:
| Oh yes, I agree. I have decided to create one tailor-made also
| for me.
|
| During few weeks without the information overload I discovered
| that:
|
| * Having the overview and discussing the current affairs
| personally as an unbiased listener is more liberating than
| analysing the text alone behind the screens.
|
| * The categorization of received news reveals those which simply
| interpret the source and those which really generate the original
| information.
|
| * Working on a computer presents a risk of being distracted by
| reading various articles and clicking on random links. Their
| reduction increases my productivity and I am able to be more
| focused on my tasks, without temptation of countless
| distractions.
|
| * Ignorance is bliss. It eliminates the prejudices, teaches us
| not to be opinionated nor to ask the right question.
|
| * Any form of "decentralization" of receiving information
| eliminates the manipulation of thinking.
|
| We are being indoctrinated by a fear agenda to excessively
| consume media, television and radio. Let's not forget that a
| frightened mind can be easily manipulated, which is used by both
| political power and corporates. Few of the wealthiest IT
| companies with a monopoly set the global opinions. They decide
| which information we receive; thus, they have boundless power.
| Because we don't care. We consider the freedom of speech as a
| right without any duties and responsibilities and meanwhile it
| slips through our fingers.
|
| - https://tobiaskucera.art/the-silent-march
| sixstringtheory wrote:
| I agree with much of what the author states. However I find it
| hard to completely quit cold turkey.
|
| I've settled into three subscriptions: the local paper (which
| also carries syndicated inter/national stories that I ignore
| completely-I'm looking for local politics and economy, and
| especially the special interest pieces in the Sunday edition and
| the monthly community-events inserts, not the crime report type
| stuff); The Economist, in which I ignore all the leader articles
| and merely try to find at least one or two interesting articles
| to read each week; and The Atlantic, with mostly the same
| strategy as that for The Economist.
|
| I recently let my IEEE membership lapse but did the same with
| their Spectrum magazine.
|
| I try to do the rest of my reading in books and not social media-
| HN excluded, of course!
|
| I still have this teetering idea that I should cancel The
| Economist, it often seems like a gossip rag dressed up in
| sophisticated verbiage. But every now and then I do find
| interesting, if not useful, articles. Maybe I'll switch out The
| Economist and go back to IEEE Spectrum or something similar.
|
| I usually enjoy the long featured pieces in The Atlantic.
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