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Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

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Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#81

Post by alextheparrot »

astebbin wrote: post #73
alextheparrot wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I watch Vice News through HBO, high-density domestic and international news during the week.

I've found Vice News to be great for firsthand reports, but lacking on background material. For example, they did a segment [0] on brown coal strip-mining in Germany. The reporter examined the stark human and environmental toll of the mining, but failed to address why such a dirty form of energy was in demand in the first place. I had to do my own research to find out. What I found, in part because I knew some of the…

Great comment about how to be an intelligent consumer. I remember watching that segment and definitely missed the context you described. I'll definitely be more vigilant of that in the future.

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#82

Post by electricEmu »

banned1 wrote: post #64
Dobbs wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how NPR and Fox News can be compared in good faith. Yes NPR has a liberal bias, but for the most part it attempts to reasonably source its articles and publish a journalistically accurate news report. Fox News is not a news channel. They have one or two news programs mixed in with "entertainment". Sean Hannity is not news, but entertainment pretending to be news[^1]. [^1]: https://www.dailykos.com/storie…

Is DailyKos the pinnacle of Liberal unbiased sources?

It's up to you to find the goodness in the article.

> Every site has their own goodness. I find interesting articles in each of CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, Braitbart, The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Geographic, etc. etc., but you have to sift through 99% of one-sided junk.

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#83

Post by mmirate »

RodericDay wrote: post #50
pdubbs90 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the BBC and the Economist good for this reason. They are/seem a lot less biased than U.S. stuff through some combination of higher standards and that they'd rather manipulate the emotions of Europeans than Americans (and I am an American).

The Economist is not an unbiased publication. It exists for the explicit purpose of arguing for the liberalization of markets. edit: classic anti-left liberal, not "american progressive" liberal

> [classical liberalization] of markets

That sounds like an awesome goal! Why the negative tone?

(by the way, "anti-Left" isn't a complete description of classical liberalism, since the Right is tainted by authoritarianisms such as cronyism, drug prohibition, social conservatism, etc.)

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#84

Post by burkaman »

enraged_camel wrote: post #36
ethn wrote: post #32

I think it's quite ridiculous that any author can get away with the obscure clairvoyant claim that people are really irrational and desire to be fearful——it's a claim contrary to primitive animal and human psychology alike. The motivation to go buy products associated with fear has nothing to do with fear itself even when you explicitly define fear as an uncomfortable uncertainty. The reason to want to know fear, why…

No, I don't think the desire to mitigate uncertainty explains it. The reason is simple: fear is about overplaying and exaggerating the risks and uncertainty. Fear of terrorist attacks is a great example. If you live in the US, that means that over the past 15 years you have been more likely to be killed by a lightning strike than a foreign terrorist attack. Yet a lot of people shit their pants with regards to, say, I…

Because terrorism is more unpredictable. If you don't want to get struck by lightning, stay inside when it storms, or at least don't stand in the middle of an empty field. If you don't want to be killed by a terrorist, don't go outside at all?

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#85

Post by humanrebar »

Dobbs wrote: post #48
banned1 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. CNN has gone the way of MSNBC (i.e. liberal, one-sided, pretty much echo-chamber). HN is the same way when it relates to political news (i.e. liberal, one-sided, pretty much echo-chamber). Fox News is, well, Fox News. NPR is, well, for the most part, the Fox News of the left. So on and so forth. In a world of two echo chambers (The Right-wingers and The Left-wingers), it's up to you to make up your mind.…

I'm not sure how NPR and Fox News can be compared in good faith. Yes NPR has a liberal bias, but for the most part it attempts to reasonably source its articles and publish a journalistically accurate news report. Fox News is not a news channel. They have one or two news programs mixed in with "entertainment". Sean Hannity is not news, but entertainment pretending to be news[^1]. [^1]: https://www.dailykos.com/storie…

> ...for the most part it attempts to reasonably source its articles and publish a journalistically accurate news report.

FoxNews is basically tabloid media, shark attack and child abduction stories and all.

NPR just does a terrible job of explaining other points of view. In some ways that's more dangerous. It is this kind of journalistic failure (a failure to earnestly explain people) that lets tabloid media seem relatively credible to people who feel like they're not being explained well.

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#86

Post by vacri »

banned1 wrote: post #43
komali2 wrote: post #37

I'm slowly trimming away the means I acquire news, because it's all becoming so editorialized. Twitter is bombarded with bots and flamewars, reddit is a lost cause, and news.google.com is mainly driven by larger syndications that have mastered the "Big Headlines Sell" strategy. That leaves HN and my little local papers, Mountain View Voice and its ilk. Great for local stories and tech news, but I feel like I'm missin…

Not really. CNN has gone the way of MSNBC (i.e. liberal, one-sided, pretty much echo-chamber). HN is the same way when it relates to political news (i.e. liberal, one-sided, pretty much echo-chamber). Fox News is, well, Fox News. NPR is, well, for the most part, the Fox News of the left. So on and so forth. In a world of two echo chambers (The Right-wingers and The Left-wingers), it's up to you to make up your mind.…

> HN is the same way when it relates to political news (i.e. liberal, one-sided, pretty much echo-chamber)

HN is one of those places where everyone thinks that there are plenty of "the other side" here. There are plenty of fiscal and social conservatives on this site. Probably the only sector of the conservative world that isn't well-represented here are war hawks.

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#87

Post by knodi »

banned1 wrote: post #43
komali2 wrote: post #37

I'm slowly trimming away the means I acquire news, because it's all becoming so editorialized. Twitter is bombarded with bots and flamewars, reddit is a lost cause, and news.google.com is mainly driven by larger syndications that have mastered the "Big Headlines Sell" strategy. That leaves HN and my little local papers, Mountain View Voice and its ilk. Great for local stories and tech news, but I feel like I'm missin…

Not really. CNN has gone the way of MSNBC (i.e. liberal, one-sided, pretty much echo-chamber). HN is the same way when it relates to political news (i.e. liberal, one-sided, pretty much echo-chamber). Fox News is, well, Fox News. NPR is, well, for the most part, the Fox News of the left. So on and so forth. In a world of two echo chambers (The Right-wingers and The Left-wingers), it's up to you to make up your mind.…

What the hell are you talking about, just because NPR report the news that not pro Trump doesn't make them liberal or left.

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#88

Post by anigbrowl »

komali2 wrote: post #37

I'm slowly trimming away the means I acquire news, because it's all becoming so editorialized. Twitter is bombarded with bots and flamewars, reddit is a lost cause, and news.google.com is mainly driven by larger syndications that have mastered the "Big Headlines Sell" strategy. That leaves HN and my little local papers, Mountain View Voice and its ilk. Great for local stories and tech news, but I feel like I'm missin…

Along these lines, can anyone suggest tools to monitor the 'weather' on social media by tracking bot and flamewar like activity? I don't mean in terms of the actual content of what's posted, just how active different networks are and suchlike. I've looked at some social media monitoring tools but they seem both expensive and centered on a particular user's account or brand mentions.

I'm looking for a high-level semi-realtime tool; it doesn't need to do sentiment analysis or anything like that.

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#89

Post by richev »

mancerayder wrote: post #77

Without a doubt the business news has a greater interest in delivery of facts on the ground than your typical national newspaper. To that end I pay for (and only pay for) the Financial Times due to their attempt to seek out truth. For example, on controversial issues they'll have editorials from both sides, long articles, and they publish letters criticizing and correcting articles. As it's investment-minded and Brit…

> The sad thing about the FT is how expensive it is.

Real journalism costs money, and ad revenues aren't what they used to be.

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#90

Post by eloary »

wu-ikkyu wrote: post #71
eloary wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Business news sources tend to be clear headed, because they are in the space of news you can put a dollar value on, and hence will pay for to make more accurate. That doesn't make them perfect, since they still tend towards an editorial agenda favoring "business as usual" power centers over disruptive forces, but I don't feel like I'm being fed outrage most of the time.

>Business news sources tend to be clear headed, because they are in the space of news you can put a dollar value on, and hence will pay for to make more accurate. It also pays to put out dishonest hit pieces against competitors, or dishonest reviews of your own products to make them seem better than they really are.

We get to see those because they're advertising. That's the whole point of "you have to pay." When I read a hype story about a company someone else is paying.

Really good, cheap or free info about the present and future tends to lie not in a consumer paper but in dense, wordy PDFs that are cast offs of internal researchers at major multinationals and government bureaus. Those documents are often released to tell investors and taxpayers "here is how we view the situation and why" and their structural mission is to get the assessment right so that they make correct moves. There is little storytelling or human interest to these documents, but they are valuable for the same reason that knowing about the weather is valuable.

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