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Things You Notice When You Quit the News

raptitude.com

181–190 of 502 posts

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#181

I haven't had a TV in the house for nearly 8 years now, and don't miss it at all. The biggest problem to me, seems to be the 24 hour news cycle for things like wars, elections and the like. I was visiting friends during a couple of major air accidents in the past couple of years (The MH370 and MH17 incidents in particular), and was astounded at the propensity for news stations on ALL channels to fill every minute of…

> I haven't had a TV in the house for nearly 8 years now, and don't miss it at all.

I hear a lot of people say this these days but it doesn't really count for much if you regularly watch Netflix or other ondemand Internet based TV instead.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#182
I really resonate with the 'read three books on a topic and you'll know 99% more than the rest of the world.'

That is a bit extreme but it is true that very few people actually try to learn about things that the news makes them concerned about. That said, I do record the news on my DVR, skip to the weather forecast and then fast through the sports highlights. That way when I go to the office if I'm asked about how the local team did or did I see that move or play I won't be completely clueless. And I don't leave without rain gear if its going to rain. Those are pieces of information I can use.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#183
post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're describing is Gell-Mann Amnesia: "Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cau…

More people are interested in world events than in science, so it's reasonable to assume a newspaper will set a higher standard of reporting for those events. A journalist who studied political science isn't equally inept at writing on all subjects; he might have some very good insights on politics. Similar to how most HN readers have very little expertise outside of software engineering, and have said some pretty ri…

> Similar to how most HN readers have very little expertise outside of software engineering, and have said some pretty ridiculous things on other fields.

Wow, that could hardly be more wrong. HN has repeatedly demonstrated expertise in a very wide range of subjects. Sure there is a bias towards software but that's hardly the limit. Even if HN was only read by SW exports assuming that they don't know about anything else is ridiculous. Not that HN is nonsense free. Your comment for example.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#184
post #105

I haven't had a TV in the house for nearly 8 years now, and don't miss it at all. The biggest problem to me, seems to be the 24 hour news cycle for things like wars, elections and the like. I was visiting friends during a couple of major air accidents in the past couple of years (The MH370 and MH17 incidents in particular), and was astounded at the propensity for news stations on ALL channels to fill every minute of…

>Not only that, I used to be a commercial pilot, and I could not believe the amount of disinformation and outright ridiculous theories being bandied about by so called 'reputable' news sources. This is true every time there is a news story on about anything that somebody around me is an expert on. It's always "what the hell are they talking about!?" I've seen this directly, too. I've been on the local news quite a fe…

>"I've seen this directly, too. I've been on the local news quite a few times, and EVERY TIME what they end up broadcasting, and what I was explaining to them are different things."

Completely agreed from personal experience. Not new but always worth re-iterating.

The news can't even get the basic facts right without twisting through addition or omission.

How are we supposed to rely on them when factual sources are suspect/false in the age of fake/lie-news?

Find experts. Do your own research.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but there actually are people who admit to writing fake news: http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/503...

Yes: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/us/correcting-the-record-t... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism The first two were both NYT journalists - one a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1932 - and the third covers the 1890s, so let's stop acting like it's new, unique, or exists exclusively on one side or the other. This is how much of the modern press started.

Do I understand correctly that you would like to take back your earlier claim: >Whether you agree or not, if you ask any suspect if they're guilty, the answer is "No!"

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, I agree with everything you said. However, > No thanks. I would rather control my own news firehose, and be selective about the information that I want to learn more about. My worry is: Isn't this what caused the fake news / misinformation silos? By being selective about our information sources, aren't we distancing ourselves from how a majority of the world lives and thinks? And as product developers (as…

You are correct. My viewpoint was mainly about being fed a constant stream of nonsense and/or distractions along with the general feed. For instance, I absolutely loathe 'celebrity news', but most main news sites here that I go to have at least one or two articles on rubbish like that as their lead, and I have to dig to find the stuff that is relevant to me. To use the example of air accidents above - I rarely find o…

> gossip for just a handful of drivers.

They are using the technique of formula fiction, that is, what the ancient Greeks discovered as a sure-fire way to get and hold the attention of an audience.

So, in that formula, there is a protagonist the audience comes to identify with, that is, care about. Then the protagonist has a problem. Through various highly in doubt and improbable victories, from skill, guts, determination, smarts, luck, whatever, the protagonist wins and at the end gets the girl.

Can see a version of this formula fiction just as orchestral music with no words at all in the Richard Strauss Ein Heldenleben as at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2-dLoWorUs

So, to use some words, there is a man, the hero, aka, protagonist, nice guy, cruising along in life. Then he encounters his adversary, nasty, menacing, bad dude (flute, etc.). Then starting at about 10:00 in the performance above, he sees HER, the girl (solo violin -- IMHO one of the best solo violin parts in orchestral music)! She's a dream! But, soon, she's also darned hard to get and gives him a really tough time, a worse time than even Isolde gave Tristan in http://www.exoticitaly.com/images/Tristan-and-Isolde.jpg

where he wouldn't take his eyes off of her and she flatly refused even to look at him.

Near 14:00 she really chews him out!

Soon she starts to be nice.

About 15:00 they really start to smile at each other!

Around 16:00 they are together.

He keeps trying and eventually hear the music of the climax when he kisses her or whatever.

Teenage boys, your life is so much easier now: Have that climax music queued up ready to go at a single button click at just the right time with her on the living room sofa. Trust me: Richard Strauss understood her much better than you do!

Just about the time the hero is to settle down to a wonderful life of love, home, marriage, children, the adversary returns. The hero goes off to battle, maybe as in the Edmund Blair Leighton God Speed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Speed_(painting)

There is a big battle with the bad dude. Tough battle. Comes and goes. Finally the hero wins the battle.

Then there is victory music. Terrific victory music. As in art, the "communication, interpretation of human experience, emotion", the victory music communicates well what a really big victory must feel like, bigger than getting 10 KLOC of code to run, a Series A, a big M&A offer, an IPO, anything in business. Really great victory music. If want to do a foil deck with a mash up of some media content for a presentation to investors, maybe in the last slide in the foil deck use the Ein Heldenleben victory music as background. No words, but it would be tough to miss the message! Of course, not even a big IPO could come up to the Richard Strauss music, but, well, there were no words for lawyers to use to sue for breach of promise!

In the performance at the link above, the victory music is before 30:00 with the climax in the next minute or so.

At the end, after the hero has hung up his sword and is fading away, the girl is really nice to him.

If going to play with formula fiction, then might as well play with some of the best of it! Right, at one point the treble line suddenly goes up and the bass line, down. So, it feels, say, expansive, grand.

Ah, Richard Strauss, expert in applied psychology of human emotions! Good thing that human emotions haven't changed much since he wrote his music!

So, the race car drivers are made into protagonists people identify with. Similarly for what the tabloids do with celebrities. Similar to what a lot of TV news show producers try to do with their anchors.

Put all of it into various buckets, e.g., manipulation, light entertainment. But it's not information.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#187

I haven't had a TV in the house for nearly 8 years now, and don't miss it at all. The biggest problem to me, seems to be the 24 hour news cycle for things like wars, elections and the like. I was visiting friends during a couple of major air accidents in the past couple of years (The MH370 and MH17 incidents in particular), and was astounded at the propensity for news stations on ALL channels to fill every minute of…

> I haven't had a TV in the house for nearly 8 years now, and don't miss it at all. I hear a lot of people say this these days but it doesn't really count for much if you regularly watch Netflix or other ondemand Internet based TV instead.

Well, full disclosure, we DO watch the odd NetFlix shows etc., but I think the biggest difference is (a) no ads at all (b) no news blasted at us and (c) we can choose exactly what we watch, and when we watch it. We can happily go weeks without turning the thing on, and we do the occasional weekend binge of a TV series.

The difference is that it is totally under our control, and we can select the content (and reject it) at will. The pure lifestyle changes around this (i.e. we as a family would far rather be caught up on other creative endeavours rather than watching TV) have been significant.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't conflate the news with the TV news, which "fell" long before the respectable national newspapers started to. I agree it is not a good idea to watch the news. It's probably a good idea to read it.

But OP is talking about TV: > To be clear, I’m mostly talking about following TV and internet newscasts here Title is clickbaity, but that's not any commenter's fault.

Codingdave is talking about having no information about what's happening in the world (other than what friends tell him), which would imply cutting off all news sources, not just TV.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#189
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Paying attention to current events and bearing witness to some of the darkest aspects of human history is important at a societal level and if you don't think it is important to you personally then consider yourself lucky to live a life where the real world doesn't creep in often. But, how do you even know what really happens? Mainstream news is ridiculous in its intent because it literally is "if it thinks it stin…

> But, how do you even know what really happens? Mainstream news is ridiculous in its intent because it literally is "if it thinks it stinks, if it bleeds it leads". There is nothing good to get from mainstream news. Nothing. Sliced and diced to the most emotional snippets you could conceive of. The only ways to mitigate this is to use a healthy amount of skepticism, to educate yourself on the historical context of o…

> But, how do you even know what really happens? Mainstream news is ridiculous in its intent because it literally is "if it thinks it stinks, if it bleeds it leads". There is nothing good to get from mainstream news. Nothing. Sliced and diced to the most emotional snippets you could conceive of.

Our education system was supposed to deliver critical thinkers. Either the system failed you (and possibly a generation), or you have forgotten its lessons.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#190
post #176
post #109

TV is one of worst forms of media out there. It is practically the definition of mind control and although there are multiple channels, there is a strange sense of groupthink. This is similar to the Murray Gell-Mann amnesia effect, where famed quark discoverer Murray Gell-Mann opens the newspaper and reads a physics article. He is disgusted at the lack of research, the blatant misinformation, and random theories disg…

Social news online is even worse. At least with TV, there's a chance you'll be shown something from outside of your bubble. Polarization increased with deregulation of TV political coverage in the US. The internet has never been regulated in such a way, and has given rise to hyper-polarization.

Although the internet allows for hyper-polarization, it also makes it easier to manage group polarisation by allowing alternative views to be only 1 click away. It's just intellectually easier to select information from places that confirm your biases and polarize them rather than be challenged and consider alternatives.
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