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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

#91

Post by turnspike »

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…

- The story of the world is largely a military history. For brutal facts, figures and movements and minimum pathos: http://strategypage.com

- Dan Carlin's Common Sense podcast is a relatively unbiased source for US politics.

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

#92

Post by 40Alpha »

knodi wrote: post #87
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.…

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

NPR has been known as being a left leaning news outlet long before Trump entered the picture.

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

#93

Post by [deleted] »

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.…

[deleted]

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

#94

Post by anigbrowl »

mmirate wrote: post #83
RodericDay wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

It's not a negative tone, the poster is just observing that the Economist has bias. I have no problem with its bias considering that it's clearly stated on a regular basis; I've read it for years and greatly respect it even though I don't agree with its editorial stance.

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

#95

Post by 40Alpha »

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…

I find the Wall Street Journal to be quite solid if you're willing to fork over ~$350/yr... Well worth it.

Just a side note for Reddit - cat and dog pictures are overrunning the community.

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

#96

Post by chestervonwinch »

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…

"Democracy now" is usually pretty neutral in their headlines. The guests are often far to the left, though.

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

#97

Post by RodericDay »

mmirate wrote: post #83
RodericDay wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Give this essay a read: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/05/how-the-economist-thi...

> The Economist is not, therefore, an honest examiner of the facts. It is constantly at pains not to risk conclusions that may hurt the case for unregulated markets. This tendency reached its absurd apotheosis in the magazine’s infamous 2014 review of Edward Baptist’s The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. The magazine objected to Baptist’s brutal depiction of the slave trade, saying the book did not qualify as “an objective history of slavery” because “almost all the blacks in his book are victims, almost all the whites villains.” When outraged readers pointed out that this is because, well, the victims of slavery tended to be black, The Economist retracted the review. But as Baptist observed in response, there was a reason why the magazine felt the need to mitigate the evils of slavery. Baptist’s book portrayed slavery as an integral part of the history of capitalism. As he wrote: “If slavery was profitable—and it was—then it creates an unforgiving paradox for the moral authority of markets—and market fundamentalists. What else, today, might be immoral and yet profitable?” The implications of Baptist’s work would have unsettling implications for The Economist. They would damn the foundations of the very Western free enterprise system that the magazine is devoted to championing. Thus The Economist needed to find a way to soften its verdict on slavery. (It was not the first time they had done so, either. In a tepid review of Greg Grandin’s The Empire of Necessity with the hilariously offensive title of “Slavery: Not Black or White,” the magazine lamented that “the horrors in Mr Grandin’s history are unrelenting.” And the magazine’ long tradition of defending misery stretches back to the 19th century, when it blamed the Irish potato famine on irresponsible decisions made by destitute peasants.)

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

#98

Post by 40Alpha »

penpapersw wrote: post #78
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…

Wait why is reddit a lost cause?

Just look at it... 30% of all posts are dog/cat related. 10% are top news sources that I could get from news.google.com beforehand and the remaining is just a void of randomized "cool" posts that many will forget within hours. Nevertheless, I still go on it everyday and am pleasantly entertained.

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

#100

Post by anigbrowl »

Swizec wrote: post #33
nowarninglabel wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Joy is much harder to manufacture than dread Is it though? And is it just harder in our current configuration or absolutely harder no matter how resources are allocated? I'd argue that Joy is easier/cheaper to produce, we just haven't optimized for it (yet).

Joy is fleeting, fear is forever. Manufacturing joy is easy, yes. Tie a counter to a semi-random process that's semi-controlled by a human and they experience joy when the counter goes up. The so called slot machine. THis is how HackerNews karma, Facebook notifications, your email inbox, and other addictive activities are designed. You experience momentary joy. But fear, fear is forever. How many fears have you been…

That's a pretty weird definition for joy. I can certainly conceive of some fleeting pleasure from a feeling of winning a game or somesuch, but this is no deeper than the pleasure I get from a refreshing drink on a hot day or a fun social interaction. But this doesn't admit of transcendent emotional, spiritual, or aesthetic experiences.
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