Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Things You Notice When You Quit the News

raptitude.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

461–470 of 502 posts

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#461

Post by jcoffland »

cyberferret wrote: post #187
jcoffland wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 i…

I'm not really criticizing. I've not had a TV in the house for 20 years but I watch plenty of TV via the Internet. It's better for all the reasons you mentioned. I just don't feel right saying I don't watch TV.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#462

Post by irrational »

xemdetia wrote: post #427
irrational wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny to me the quote mentions Palestine. I once spent six months in Israel on study-abroad (I was a near eastern studies major). While there I saw certain things firsthand. When I came back I noticed that all the US newspapers I could find in the University library all reported falsehoods regarding the events. I actually found that the BBCs coverage was the most honest and accurate. This experience has always l…

The main way I've found is to just read something from multiple countries. For a given article I care about or feel dubious about I always try to get at 3 or more country's take of it. While it doesn't help you find the 'truth' writers tend to misinterpret the same things different ways while things that are actually reported figures will lean more consistent. Also for lots of things there is generally the direct sou…

One thing I should point out is that my story took place more than 2 decades ago in the pre-WWW days. It was a lot harder back then to check sources in multiple countries.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#463

Post by devopsproject »

eutropia wrote: post #455

I think the movie Nightcrawler(2014) really nailed that creepy feeling I get from TV News. There's an aura of desperation, of lowest-common-denominator, hits-you-in-the-amygdala kinds of coverage. " Nina: We find our viewers are more interested in urban crime creeping into the suburbs. What that means is a victim, or victims, preferably well off and white, injured at the hands of the poor or minority. Lou Bloom(Jake…

Also on display in Natural Born Killers (1994) which doesn't seem to carry the same weight it did back then.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#464

Post by devopsproject »

BirdieNZ wrote: post #143
mmaunder wrote: post #93

Agreed there is a lot of garbage news. The trouble comes about if you aren't up to speed on current events that affect you. Just a simple example from today: The CIA's claims regarding Russian election hacking. I'm the CEO of a cyber security company and I'd hate to think what would happen if someone asked me about that and I wasn't aware of it. It's not just CEO's that need to stay current. If you're in PR, policy,…

I don't think the article is arguing to be completely disconnected, but rather to stop consuming TV and video news, and instead read quality articles on different subjects (current or otherwise). This results in being more informed about current and past events, not less.

so what orgs are putting out quality long form journalism?

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#465

Post by lobotryas »

closeparen wrote: post #192
Tempest1981 wrote: post #8

The local news seems to always be about murders and violence. Why is it beneficial to learn about every instance of "humans behaving badly"? (Celebrities, ok, maybe, but random people?)

>Why is it beneficial to learn about every instance of "humans behaving badly"? Because it is your civic responsibility to care that such things are happening in your community, and to allocate your political activity, voting, and charitable giving in a way that you believe will mitigate that suffering. Because if everyone said, "sometimes humans behave badly; why should I care?" we'd be living in a hellscape.

>civic responsibility to care about such things

Says who? Where is that written?

I couldn't care less about such problems in my community. I pay my taxes so the city/county can hire people to solve these issues. My politicians have little to no competition so voting for who's in office is largely meaningless in my case.

Why should I spend my time, mental and emotional energy on "the news" when this offers zero immediate benefit to me? Even during watercooler talk if someone says "did you hear about x?" I can reply "no, please tell me about it" without losing any face.

I've been thinking about deleting news apps from my phone lately because I realized I did not actually enjoy or benefit from reading what's going on in Us politics or international affairs. This article cinched the deal. If something is really important then I'll read about it here, on reddit's FP or hear it from my friends/colleagues. Everything else is just noise.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#466

Post by devopsproject »

vog wrote: post #254
white-flame wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find realclearpolitics.com to be a broad slice of articles and videos from "both sides", as well as holding actual raw polling data when questionably sounding statistics are being bandied about. It also links to other non-political news in other areas, showing the major splash headlines. Its front page is also very information dense, so it's a lot more efficient than hitting all those sites individually. I believe…

> I find realclearpolitics.com to be a broad slice of articles and videos from "both sides" I didn't know that site and just had a look at it. I found that really disappointing! All "news" for today are about Trump and nothing else: Sunday, December 11 - Trump Honeymoon Begins: Confidence in Economy Booming | Cohen & Thomas, NYT - Why "Trump Boom" Is a Real Possibility | Kenneth Rogoff, Project Syndicate - Here's How…

> This is "news" without information

we really need to start blasting clickbait as clickbait. They are not going to self moderate.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#467

Post by devopsproject »

redsummer wrote: post #20
ssaunier_ wrote: post #6

Must-(re)read: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews - it was 10 years ago.

He mentions: "instead of reading the back and forth of a daily, why not read a weekly review? Instead of a weekly review, why not read a monthly magazine? Instead of a monthly magazine, why not read an annual book?" Can anyone recommend such a weekly or monthly review? One that isn't particularly ideological. It would save so much time.

nextdraft.com is a daily one curated by one guy. I find quite a few interesting stories from it. I wish there was an option for weekly\monthly.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#470

Post by ZenoArrow »

ashark wrote: post #446
ZenoArrow wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. There's nothing wrong with sharing music with others, what matters is the intent. Sharing music to enjoy together, great. Sharing music you may not enjoy just to get your rocks off, not exactly the best thing in the world.

I don't know what social interaction generally, and especially relations between the sexes, would look like absent anything that's at least as "manipulative" as mood music , of all things. It'd be some extreme sci-fi material, probably considered highly dystopic by most exposed to it.

You don't get it. There's nothing wrong with mood music. It's about the reason you put it on.
Post reply on HN