Stop. Enjoy life.
It's great. News polarizes people and gives them anxiety. It's stuff out of your control.
Spend time improving yourself and your life.
Hacker News, stop posting political crap.
Stop Reading News (2013)
91–100 of 213 posts
Re: Stop Reading News (2013)
#92Totally Agree. I think everyone should go through a 6-12 month period of not reading newspapers and see how you feel. I did that and I felt much happier, and more knowledgeable (instead reading science,math, literature).
The problem with newspapers (even high brow newspapers) is that they encourage negative emotions (anger, fear, envy), are irritatingly political / full of identity politics or are full of repetitive facts (another uniformed brexit article etc.) or plain old hot air gossip.
Instead of daily newspapers take a long term view and look at the news once every quarter or two from a quality publication such as the Economist/ financial times etc.
Newspapers are bunk
Re: Stop Reading News (2013)
#93For 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).
> (arguably like this one)
Your comment shows how conscious you are while skipping "irrelevant" stuff.
Re: Stop Reading News (2013)
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think the new generation is caught up in quizzes that stir up emotions, and psychological tests that determine whether a giraffe is your spirit animal. Given the activism they're showing in, eg, the US, I think if you read the news, you'd be surprised how wrong you are. > How can anyone justify reading news that only talk about negative things? To be aware of them in order to help fix them?
A lot of that activism is more performative than practical, judging by voter turnout.
How so?
The number of people who perform some kind of activism is way lower than voter turnout. What makes you think there are lots of people who are doing "performative" activism that isn't translating into them voting or otherwise participating in the system?
Re: Stop Reading News (2013)
#95Do not stop reading news. Be selective with your sources. Be a discerning news consumer. An uninformed populace is a malleable one. Controlling and limiting information has long been a strategy for despots or worse. > The point is, most of what you read online today is pointless Don't read that then. Read sources you believe are important to you and deliver information that is important. Be a discerning news consumer…
You can be informed without following news. Often reading books/articles produced some time after an event gives a more nuanced and in-depth analysis.
>some time after an event
Or before. I learnt more about 21st C USA by reading Tocqueville's Democracy in America (1835) than anything written since.
Re: Stop Reading News (2013)
#96Do not stop reading news. Be selective with your sources. Be a discerning news consumer. An uninformed populace is a malleable one. Controlling and limiting information has long been a strategy for despots or worse. > The point is, most of what you read online today is pointless Don't read that then. Read sources you believe are important to you and deliver information that is important. Be a discerning news consumer…
You seem to mean well, but your post is also a recipie for creating a personal bubble, no matter how well spoken.
The "bubble" expression I've only ever encountered used by people from a rightish perspective to complain that other people aren't listening to them and that their perspective isn't the completely dominant one. Whereas people of the opposite view always know what the opposing view is - it gets shouted at them a lot - they just don't agree with it.
Anti-vaxers and flat-earthers might be called "bubbles", but then so is the pro-vax round-world view. After all, if you only ever read round-world media, aren't you closing your mind to alternative facts? /s
Re: Stop Reading News (2013)
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot of that activism is more performative than practical, judging by voter turnout.
Didn't the last US election have the largest turnout in the past century? See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_United_States_elections
It did, the activists lost.
Re: Stop Reading News (2013)
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot of that activism is more performative than practical, judging by voter turnout.
How so? The number of people who perform some kind of activism is way lower than voter turnout. What makes you think there are lots of people who are doing "performative" activism that isn't translating into them voting or otherwise participating in the system?
> What makes you think there are lots of people who are doing "performative" activism that isn't translating into them voting
I don't think that. Activism isn't translating into non-activists voting, hence activism being performative.
Re: Stop Reading News (2013)
#99Do not stop reading news. Be selective with your sources. Be a discerning news consumer. An uninformed populace is a malleable one. Controlling and limiting information has long been a strategy for despots or worse. > The point is, most of what you read online today is pointless Don't read that then. Read sources you believe are important to you and deliver information that is important. Be a discerning news consumer…
Have you heard of the Murray Gellmann Amnesia Effect? How do you know the source you are reading is trustworthy? I've witnessed the Murray Gellmann effect in my area of specialty which is mathematics. It makes me wonder about articles in areas outside of my specialty.
I recently watched the Netflix documentary on the Fyre Festival. I also watched the one on Hulu. One of the documentaries was produced by a company involved in that whole mess but you wouldn't be able to tell by watching the documentary. Due to consolidation of media it seems to me that it is easier to spin and control a narrative. I don't think any of the popular sources of information are trustworthy.
Re: Stop Reading News (2013)
#100Do not stop reading news. Be selective with your sources. Be a discerning news consumer. An uninformed populace is a malleable one. Controlling and limiting information has long been a strategy for despots or worse. > The point is, most of what you read online today is pointless Don't read that then. Read sources you believe are important to you and deliver information that is important. Be a discerning news consumer…
Have you heard of the Murray Gellmann Amnesia Effect? How do you know the source you are reading is trustworthy? I've witnessed the Murray Gellmann effect in my area of specialty which is mathematics. It makes me wonder about articles in areas outside of my specialty. I recently watched the Netflix documentary on the Fyre Festival. I also watched the one on Hulu. One of the documentaries was produced by a company inv…
For those that don't know, here is Michael Crichton's speech where it comes from:
"Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”
Whole speech here: http://docdro.id/4wgVecr