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Stop Reading News (2013)

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Re: Stop Reading News (2013)

#21

Post by icebraining »

m0zg wrote: post #7

“To read a newspaper is to refrain from reading something worthwhile. [....] The first discipline of education must therefore be to refuse resolutely to feed the mind with canned chatter.” ― Aleister Crowley

That comes as an explanation of the previous statements:

"Good God," I said to myself, "and this is merely New York! What must Mexico be like!" I supposed that I was experiencing normal conditions, whereas in point of fact I had landed at the climax of a heat wave which killed about a hundred people a day while it lasted. I should have discovered the truth if I had looked at a newspaper; but I did not read them.

In any case, that principle means we should probably refrain from reading HN too.

Re: Stop Reading News (2013)

#22

Post by Chazprime »

I don't like the binary choice to either read the news or ignore it. We just need to be mature enough to curate what we read, hopefully striking a healthy balance between our personal lives and what's going on in the world outside of that.

Re: Stop Reading News (2013)

#24

Post by rimliu »

There is an amazing book written in 1925: A Heaf of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov. And there is just as an amazing movie based on it. There is an exchange about not reading soviet newspapers if one cares about digestion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOE_3_Ws4y0&feature=youtu.be... (English subtitles are available).

Re: Stop Reading News (2013)

#25

Post by galfarragem »

jychang wrote: post #8

Ugh, why can't rational people see how this is an instance of "black and white thinking" cognitive distortions? Life isn't a binary black and white, as much as software engineers would like it to be. One side says "don't ever read the news, it causes negative moods" and the another side says "you should always read the news to keep up to date with the world". The proper way to approach the issue is to strike a balanc…

'Over-compensate to compensate'. To make a change, you have to be extreme.

https://sivers.org/compensate

Re: Stop Reading News (2013)

#26

Post by roenxi »

He could have written a much longer article on this if he wanted to; there are deeper issues related to this subject. The characterisation of this should be news-news (company releases a new wossname, generally not a problem) and politics-news where society decides what is happening and what should be done about it. The big question is really: How does "the societal discourse" handle complicated issues?

I don't see much evidence that society at large can take an interest in a subject and maintain a sophisticated position like "there isn't enough evidence here to form an opinion". The closest that seems to be achieved in practice is two interest groups completely at loggerheads, preventing any action due to their strident opposition of each other.

In game theory terms, is there a system where a consensus opinion and a focused group of crazies can coexist without compromising in the direction of the crazies? Because the power of a focused group of political extremists is so great that it distorts political action and has significant flow on effects to journalism as political forces vie for control of the public discourse. The type of discipline to deal with something like that is clearly beyond most citizens.

Re: Stop Reading News (2013)

#27

Post by lifeisstillgood »

skilled wrote: post #6

For the last 4-5 years, Hacker News has been pretty much my only source of any kind of news outside of the topics that I work with on a daily basis. This is true. Before that, I did not read newspapers or follow any kind of journalism. I still recall being around age 12 or 13 and making a conscious decision not to watch TV anymore. It has been around just as much time since I last saw a TV news report. Maybe it has s…

HN is my news feed for tech, but I have realised that my news feed for "rest of the world" has reduced down to radio / TV weekly comedy shows. Things like BBC news quiz or Mock The Week, (similar to US's John Oliver/ Steve Colbert) actually do a fairly good job of capturing the headlines and providing concise updates. As well as enough cynicism to keep me on my toes.

The only time it failed me was a few years back when a disgruntled Tory party donor spread rumours that the then PM David Cameron had put his dick in a pigs mouth as a university hazing ritual. As no mainstream media would ever dare print that, but people slowly got the right twitter link from friends, there were two weeks when a "oink oink" joke would cause half the country to convulse in laughter and the other half (me included) to wonder what the hell was going on.

Re: Stop Reading News (2013)

#28

Post by bloak »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #10

One piece of anecdata: I subscribed to the Economist briefly last year and it was one of the best things I've done as far as advancing myself as a person. While the vast majority of what written about wasn't immediately relevant to me (compared even to a random programming-related blog post), it did a lot to enlighten me on the value of good journalism and broaden my world view as well as keeping me reasonably inform…

It is hard to find time to read The Economist from cover to cover. I try to at least look at each article, and read at least half of them. Even The Economist has some articles that seem ephemeral: for example, a discussion of whether a particular merger will or won't happen.

Re: Stop Reading News (2013)

#29

Post by avip »

skilled wrote: post #6

For the last 4-5 years, Hacker News has been pretty much my only source of any kind of news outside of the topics that I work with on a daily basis. This is true. Before that, I did not read newspapers or follow any kind of journalism. I still recall being around age 12 or 13 and making a conscious decision not to watch TV anymore. It has been around just as much time since I last saw a TV news report. Maybe it has s…

Same. HN is the only stream of "news" I consume. And I kind of miss the older HN where non-tech "news" was immediately flagged to oblivion. So now I have to consciously skip irrelevant stuff (arguably like this one).

Re: Stop Reading News (2013)

#30

Post by samdoidge »

skilled wrote: post #6

For the last 4-5 years, Hacker News has been pretty much my only source of any kind of news outside of the topics that I work with on a daily basis. This is true. Before that, I did not read newspapers or follow any kind of journalism. I still recall being around age 12 or 13 and making a conscious decision not to watch TV anymore. It has been around just as much time since I last saw a TV news report. Maybe it has s…

> I know the system is broken, corrupt, beyond repair -- why remind me about it every day?

Perhaps only having Hacker News as your source of news has led to that mentality. That's not to say it isn't broken, or there isn't corruption, but I don't think things are beyond repair, and they can certainly be worse.

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