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

Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

laphamsquarterly.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 346 posts

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

#321

Post by 8ytecoder »

fsloth wrote: post #249
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…

"Are there any good general global news sources that don't try to manipulate my emotions as I read them? Paid or free" I enjoy the Economist. There is some delay as it's a weekly publication but to me that's only a bonus. I'm not an investor or a public policy figure. I can wait for a few days for my news if it means it's higher quality. That said, Economist has a pretty strong political voice - but they don't try to…

Also, Financial Times.

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

#322

Post by QAPereo »

nowarninglabel wrote: post #27
QAPereo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think people crave fear, they crave stimulation. Joy is much harder to manufacture than dread, and dread makes people act in a predictable, often-profitable manner. In other words, people don't want to be bored more than anything else, and the rest is just about the most stimulating things on offer.

>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).

I wouldn't even know where to begin, to make you feel joy. Dread though? That would be easy, just sincere threats of violence would make any rational person feel dread. I think for joy I'd have to offer you something significant, or know you very very well. The triggers to make you feel awful are probably much more universal: fear of death, injury, penury, ostracism, failure, catastrophe.

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

#323

Post by pnathan »

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 pay for New Yorker and NY Times. WaPost is pretty ok.

I also read BBC and Deutche Welle, as well as scrabbling through bits of Le Monde and the francosphere.

generally if it's free, you're getting what you paid for.

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

#324

Post by taurath »

tertius wrote: post #273
taurath wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They tend to demonstrate what I've been calling the conspiracy funnel - they may have some worthy criticisms at first, but to be worthy to be on their show everything they air must have a huge slant they can fight against, or else they won't talk about it. They end up talking about mostly conspiracies and propaganda, leaving out the idea that a lot of journalism in the US is biased but more or less above board.

> they may have some worthy criticisms at first, but to be worthy to be on their show everything they air must have a huge slant they can fight against, or else they won't talk about it. They call themselves "media analysts" so by definition they only talk about whatever nonsense the media is spewing this week. By that very nature they focus on the things you mention. That's they're goal.

Why yes - but you also replied to someone complaining that the news had become so editorialized. I don't feel like they are a good example of how one can get non-editorialized news!

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

#325

Post by taurath »

Kroniker wrote: post #266
bobbygoodlatte wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While entertaining, No Agenda is far too conspiracy-theory laden to be taken seriously. They frequently talk about "chemtrails" and mock scientists who believe in climate change. Not too far off from Alex Jones.

I can see how a new listener might be thrown off, but they really aren't conspiracy nuts. Yes, they frequently joke about chemtrails, but it is within a context of a joke, or as a punchline. Yes, they mock scientists that advocate for global climate change- not because of the actual phenomena, but because of the low quality of the papers that promote it, the corrupt method by which grants are only given to those that…

All they talk about is conspiracies. Even if they didn't believe in any of them, I'd still call them conspiracy nuts. There's always the sense of "something more is going on here" whenever they talk about just about anything - and its far far past the point of ironic humor, its the main pull of the show. I can see after a while a frequent listener can feel they're vaccinated against it, but to a new listener it is just conspiracy theories all day, which should tell you something. At some point, you're just as "in on the joke" as a Rush Limbaugh listener.

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

#326

Post by smallnamespace »

mikeash wrote: post #307
smallnamespace wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because that part's easy to ignore. He may have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but he doesn't have class . He acts like the boorish nouveau riche who upends all the upper crust's social and political conventions. The more elites (regardless of party) are offended and publish long screeds about how he will destroy the Republic, the more the base love him.

That's pretty much my problem. Every attempt to understand why someone would support Trump eventually comes down to either "his supporters are complete idiots" or comparisons to Hitler. Express either one and people jump down my throat saying I need to be more open-minded, respect people's opinions, occasionally consume news that doesn't just conform to my biases, etc.

I don't think they're idiots. I think they feel justifiably desperate and are acting rationally within that framework.

Who do you trust more -- coastal and city elites who think your religion is hogwash, your values are garbage, your biggest problems are that you're ignorant, racist, and white?

A Republican Party that says they're for you, and then turns around and nakedly passes legislation that will gut your communities and keep shipping jobs off shore?

Or an untried, loud-mouth demagogue who promises everything to you, but at least he's not part of the same system that's been screwing you over for the past 30 years?

When you feel your back's against the wall and you've nothing to lose, you roll the dice.

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

#327

Post by mikeash »

smallnamespace wrote: post #326
mikeash wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty much my problem. Every attempt to understand why someone would support Trump eventually comes down to either "his supporters are complete idiots" or comparisons to Hitler. Express either one and people jump down my throat saying I need to be more open-minded, respect people's opinions, occasionally consume news that doesn't just conform to my biases, etc.

I don't think they're idiots. I think they feel justifiably desperate and are acting rationally within that framework. Who do you trust more -- coastal and city elites who think your religion is hogwash, your values are garbage, your biggest problems are that you're ignorant, racist, and white? A Republican Party that says they're for you, and then turns around and nakedly passes legislation that will gut your commun…

But Trump is a coastal, city elite who thinks their religion is hogwash, their values are garbage, and that they're ignorant. OK, he probably doesn't have a problem with racism or whiteness, but it seems like the rest are close enough. And he absolutely is part of the same system. To believe differently you'd have to be, well, an idiot.

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

#328

Post by boona »

pnathan wrote: post #323
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 pay for New Yorker and NY Times. WaPost is pretty ok. I also read BBC and Deutche Welle, as well as scrabbling through bits of Le Monde and the francosphere. generally if it's free, you're getting what you paid for.

I would suggest that you're only getting the facts that align their chosen narrative, and the facts are being presented through a lens that limits your understanding of the world.

An example I like to use is minimum wage. The very term "minimum wage" on it's own pulls you towards a certain conclusions. Who the heck doesn't want minimum wage? But what if I asked you "Should it be against the law for low skilled workers to get jobs?" you would likely say something like "Hell no!", but they are both the same policy but presented through a different lens. If you're only getting your news from left wing sources, then you would almost have to conclude that conservatives are heartless. But if you read from both sides, you might conclude that maybe there should be a minimum wage, but we have to be careful not to exclude too many people at the margins, or find a way to help those at the margins.

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

#329

Post by jxramos »

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…

I was thinking about that comparison of inanimate risks to animate risks and I think the key difference is that one has the power to increase in frequency by sheer will. The other not so much. One creates a victim, another prey as I've read recently @ https://www.city-journal.org/html/lightning-bathtubs-and-ban...

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

#330

Post by vacri »

humanrebar wrote: post #240
axaxs wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They exist, and you don't know it. Just as a middle easterner who wants death to gay people, a gay christian fundamentalist, and a black kkk member. Yes, I jest. Sorta. That's what I love about HN, typically. It has a very diverse community that typically leaves religion and politics at the door. And even if we all met, we may kill each other, we get along here in the sake of tech and interesting sciences.

> It has a very diverse community that typically leaves religion and politics at the door. The fact that it leaves religion at the door means it's not as inclusive as it thinks it is. Just because a discussion contains a religious component doesn't mean it's argumentative or something. > ...we get along here in the sake of tech and interesting sciences. Honestly, the earnest religious are a minority in this kind of c…

Religious people tend to keep their heads down in STEM communities anyway, because if they make too much noise, they'll be asked to provide evidence, which is antithetical to the very premise of religions. It's a STEM-community thing, not an HN thing.

> I could say that the growth is fear correlates (as described in the article) with decreased engagement in organized religion. How would that go over? Would people appreciate a new kind of thought and a new diverse perspective? Or would they groan and roll their eyes?

Well, you're begging the question there by framing that concept as 'new diverse perspective'. It's not that at all, but a tired, conservative perspective. The idea that people have lost their way because they've lost their faith and are now suffering for it is not even remotely new or diverse. So you would get groans and eye-rolls, which you would interpret as being against 'new, diverse', but which was actually against beating a tired old nag.

Post reply on HN