Things You Notice When You Quit the News • Hacker News Board

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#391

Post by DonaldFoss » Mon, Dec 12, 2016, 3:13 PM UTC

graycat wrote: post #186

cyberferret wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, determ…

Mad props for the _ Ein Heldenleben_ reference. Richard Strauss was a genius, following in the footsteps and improving on Wagner.

Side note: I'm continuously amazed at the breadth of knowledge and reference on HN. Is it perfect? No. It is, however, frequently a breath of fresh air. It reminds me that polymaths still abound, and fondly reminiscent of the old /.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#392

Post by wu-ikkyu » Mon, Dec 12, 2016, 3:14 PM UTC

bshimmin wrote: post #261

I can't really get onboard with this. A lot of the comments here, and the commentary in the article itself, talk about how depressing the news is, how biased it is, about Gell-Mann amnesia -- and they're all right. But from my own experience, the people I know who don't follow the news (either at all, or extremely minimally) are spectacularly ill-informed; they get their news either third-hand (which suffers from all…

>operate with only the sketchiest understanding of what's happening in the world.

What sort of practical utility do you gain from being "informed" by "the news"? Could you give an example or two of how being informed by the news made you operate differently in your day to day life?

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#393

Post by wu-ikkyu » Mon, Dec 12, 2016, 3:21 PM UTC

>nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. the real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knolege with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time: whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. general facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will &c &c. but no details can be relied on. I will add that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. he who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false.

-From Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell, 11 June 1807

http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/99-01-02-57...

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#394

Post by ZoeZoeBee » Mon, Dec 12, 2016, 3:22 PM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #358

Chris2048 wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They covered the election 24/7, not just Trump, and why not?

It probably applies more to the Republican primaries, where Trump seemed to get as much publicity as the other candidates put together (and much more in international media) Negative publicity from news sources the typical registered Republican had a fairly low opinion of almost certainly helped him greatly in what was arguably the more difficult contest for him to win.

This is pretty much the DNC playbook from the election, elevate a fringe candidate and marginalize the moderates during the primaries, to make it easier to tear down the candidate during the election. Problem is Dr. Frankenstein wasn't able to control her monster

Operation Pied Piper, The DNCs 2016 Strategy From Wikileaks part of Podesta release

1) Force all Republican candidates to lock themselves into extreme conservative positions that will hurt them in a general election;

2) Undermine any credibility/trust Republican presidential candidates have to make inroads to our coalition or independents;

3) Muddy the waters on any potential attack lodged against HRC.

Pied Piper Candidates

Ted Cruz

Donald Trump

Ben Carson

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/1120.

see the attachment with email for the Strategy.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#395

Post by DonaldFoss » Mon, Dec 12, 2016, 3:27 PM UTC

graycat wrote: post #251

ZenoArrow wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"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!" While I appreciate your commentary on the music of Strauss, I disliked this particular comment. Is encouraging emotional manipulation really what we want for the younger generat…

> Is encouraging emotional manipulation really what we want for the younger generations? You are fully correct. We don't want that. But, then, is there an alternative? My first girlfriend, she was 12 and I, 14, I regarded as an angel. She was and remains the prettiest human female I ever saw, in person or otherwise. She was burned into my brain: For the rest of my life I will no more be able to forget her than I will…

After being married over 20 years, which I still find shocking that anyone has put up with me for so long, I find that "to let her be as emotional as she wants but stay rational and prudent" frequently backfires because she wants emotional _involvement_ and support. Being rational doesn't meet her needs, even though as a man, a geek HFA man at that, I'd rather stay in the safe, predictable, rational realm. Staying married and supporting my wife is more important to me than my comfort zone, just like apologizing means you value the other person more than your own ego.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#396

Post by krrrh » Mon, Dec 12, 2016, 3:29 PM UTC

talmand wrote: post #383

TeMPOraL wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's really really scary to me lately is all of this talk about "fake news", which originally referred to outright lies that were part of click-farms, but is now being talked about as if CNN and MSNBC are somehow the only source of "real" news. I am surprised by that too. This whole "fake news" thing appeared out of thin air around the US election and is reportedly a new phenomenon - as if most of the "regular" n…

It was an undefined talking point that has spread farther and faster than it was likely intended. I suspect it will disappear soon as the stupidity of it starts to affect the major news agencies and social media.

It referred to a real and serious phenomena, but now the phrase has been muddied by political rhetoric. It's still a problem, and it's different enough from the old clickbait sensationalism and conspiracy theory chain emails that it deserves its own name.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/for-the-new-yellow-j...

https://medium.com/@ev/i-found-it-interesting-that-when-i-we...

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#397

Post by Haul4ss » Mon, Dec 12, 2016, 3:30 PM UTC

wu-ikkyu wrote: post #393

>nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. the real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knolege with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief that…

To be fair, in Jefferson's time newspapers were overt instruments of a political faction. You started a newspaper to spread your point of view.

We have at least a veneer of nonpartisan purpose to the major newspapers of today, although you can argue they still have a bias. Online news/blogs/etc. are more analogous to the newspapers of the early Republic.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#398

Post by ashark » Mon, Dec 12, 2016, 3:33 PM UTC

ZenoArrow wrote: post #222

graycat wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, determ…

>"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!" While I appreciate your commentary on the music of Strauss, I disliked this particular comment. Is encouraging emotional manipulation really what we want for the younger generat…

If mood-setting music is unacceptable emotional manipulation, we'd better all stop interacting with one another to avoid the great crimes we're all (apparently) constantly committing, because that's about as benign as it gets.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#399

Post by DonaldFoss » Mon, Dec 12, 2016, 3:33 PM UTC

chrisdone wrote: post #318

sinatra wrote: post #125

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…

I've only truly learned about people in other places by traveling. Anything else is mostly caricature.

Try learning foreign languages. To understand a language, one must possess a level of understanding of the underlying culture and history.

Then one discovers that dialects arise from a common language with differences in geographic or societal culture and history.

Linguistics and etymology are fascinating topics, _almost_ as much fun as building (and test breaking) fault tolerant distributed systems.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#400

Post by notahacker » Mon, Dec 12, 2016, 3:35 PM UTC

throwaway7312 wrote: post #288

tw04 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It coalesced when the "MSM" managed to get the election outcome in the US so comically wrong. The only possible reason for the mistake was "fake news". It turns out "fake news" has been a driving force since roughly the time twitter arrived. I can only hope the (in theory) REAL media will eventually give up on "first is best" and instead focus on ACTUAL REPORTING . Relaying what twitter has to say about a world event…

That's not what this is about. It erupted across every news channel precisely as Pizzagate did. If you searched on Google News for "Pizzagate", what you would get was "FAKE NEWS!" "FAKE NEWS!" "FAKE NEWS!" The MSM hasn't been this desperate since it was shrieking to high heaven there was no chance in any universe in which Donald Trump could possibly win the US election. Whether this is because the MSM is desperate to…

This has nothing to do with how mainstream media actually act and everything to do with the thought processes of people that want [others] to believe the Democrat party elite is running a paedophile conspiracy act and the MSM is trying to hide it

So a mainstream media source - the AP is as mainstream and widely syndicated as it gets - running a story on an unrelated and probably actually real paedophile conspiracy in Norway after the Pizzagate 'revelations' becomes "MSM is taking down articles on high level pedophile rings" because the NYT removes news agency articles after a fixed period (even ones about fake news - e.g http://archive.is/760xP http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/11/15/technology/ap-us-...)

And the many reports into the story aren't proper investigative journalism because - shock horror - the journalists don't agree with 4chan that "cheese pizza" is a term identified by the FBI as a pedophile codeword that nobody in their right mind would ever use in a pizza store.