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Stop Reading News (2013)

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Re: Stop Reading News (2013)

#121

Post by thosakwe »

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…

> Is the new generation reading news? I highly doubt it. 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.

I think that you would know more about the information habits of the new generation if you actually researched it, instead of relying on HN as your only news source...

This community definitely has a lot of biases of its own, no matter how much it tries to deny it, so really, I think that for anyone, getting news from multiple sources makes it easier to come up with a more holistic interpretation of current events.

Re: Stop Reading News (2013)

#122

Post by douglaswlance »

nkozyra wrote: post #70

Do 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…

News media does not inform, it purposefully misinforms. You are being shaped by the media. You are the malleable one.

The line between opinion and actual reporting is gone. It no longer exists. All reporting is activism.

Read books to be informed. Specifically the books that have stood the test of time and shaped history.

Our media is owned by the most powerful people in the world. You are conceding your most critical faculties, the power to think for yourself, to the most powerful people in the world.

And they've gaslit you into believing that the exact opposite is true.

Re: Stop Reading News (2013)

#124

Post by gowld »

nemild wrote: post #4

Ezra Taft Benson: "One must select wisely a source of news; otherwise it would be better to be uninformed than misinformed." My own view is that you should reduce consumption dramatically, but still read some publications. And realize that in software, we have our own form of “news” that this missive applies to. Here’s my media literacy guide: https://github.com/nemild/hack-the-media/blob/master/README.... And one ju…

That's a great article about how toxic media is. I skimmed but didn't see the part that helps me find good media, just a guide that will help me reject bad media (which is all the media I can find)

Re: Stop Reading News (2013)

#125

Post by koonsolo »

nkozyra wrote: post #70

Do 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…

> But rejecting information from the media is a concession to power.

Mainstream news is not information, it's entertainment. The sooner your realize it the better.

Journalists have nor the time, nor the expertise or the means to write a purely accurate objective articles (that nobody wants to read because it's purely informational). I cannot count the times I read articles about my field of expertise, that are laughably inaccurate or pain false.

Journalists crunch out quick stories that are exaggerated or come from one angle, so that people would read it after seeing the headline, and get agitated enough to share it. Remark that this is not the fault of the journalists, but just how that whole system works.

You should read "Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator" by Ryan Holiday, and see how fragile that whole system is. And because of its fragility, can be easily manipulated on top of it.

If you want to get informed, either read books written by experts (like suggested), read the original scientific paper and draw your own conclusions, or stay ahead of your game by getting news from sources other than media. That last part will show you that by the time it's covered by main stream news, it's already old news (think bitcoin etc.)

When I read something, first thing I check is "who is this person?". If it's an expert on the subject, or has his own experience and tells the story, I'm happy to read it. If it's a journalist that is crunching out stories every week, I skip it.

Re: Stop Reading News (2013)

#126

Post by prossercj »

birksherty wrote: post #101
nkozyra wrote: post #70

Do 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…

I don't read news, don't use social media. I find it working fine. Although hacker news kind of works like a news source to me. I find almost everything in news noise now. Don't following any of that on purpose makes me feel calm. Now if there is something that I should really know, it comes to me. I meet people all the time and then they tell me if something important is going on. I don't have to go after news. I ad…

This quote from Thomas Jefferson seems relevant:

"I have given up newspapers in exchange for Tacitus & Thucydides, for Newton & Euclid; & I find myself much the happier." [0]

[0] http://tjrs.monticello.org/letter/280

Re: Stop Reading News (2013)

#127

Post by afarrell »

cagenut wrote: post #117
birksherty wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't read news, don't use social media. I find it working fine. Although hacker news kind of works like a news source to me. I find almost everything in news noise now. Don't following any of that on purpose makes me feel calm. Now if there is something that I should really know, it comes to me. I meet people all the time and then they tell me if something important is going on. I don't have to go after news. I ad…

this is a fundamentally conservative to the point of bordering on reactionary practice. you have the privilege of not reading the news presumably because you're not a government worker so the shutdown didn't matter to you, and/or you're not a recipient of various aid programs so their cuts don't matter to you, etc etc. checking out is a luxury only the well off can afford.

"X is only available to you as a result of privilege" seems like a very weak argument not to do X. I cook most of my food at home, which is really only an option available to me because I have the privilege of being able to afford a flat with a kitchen and a short commute to work. It is still a good idea for me to do so. I go to the gym most days, which requires a monthly payment of money -- but it is still a good idea for my focus and mental health.

Re: Stop Reading News (2013)

#128

Post by nkozyra »

koonsolo wrote: post #125
nkozyra wrote: post #70

Do 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…

> But rejecting information from the media is a concession to power. Mainstream news is not information, it's entertainment. The sooner your realize it the better. Journalists have nor the time, nor the expertise or the means to write a purely accurate objective articles (that nobody wants to read because it's purely informational). I cannot count the times I read articles about my field of expertise, that are laugha…

> Mainstream news is not information, it's entertainment. The sooner your realize it the better.

A gross generalization. I've been in the biggest newsrooms in the country, seen the autonomy of editorial up front and personal.

You're conflating the bad with the good. You're not alone.

Re: Stop Reading News (2013)

#129

Post by zimpenfish »

casefields wrote: post #100
skh wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pres…

> 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

Surely that only works if the same combination of journalists and subeditors work on all the stories? Just because Margaret has written some pop-sci junk about robots doesn't suddenly make Malcolm's commentary on Botswana any less valid.

Re: Stop Reading News (2013)

#130

Post by hirundo »

justtopost wrote: post #78
nkozyra wrote: post #70

Do 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.

It's not clear to me that living in a personal bubble should be seen as derogatory. Since there's more media than any of us can consume, and none of us surf randomly over all of it, we all live in such a bubble. To acknowledge that is a start on improving its quality. For instance we can steel-man our bubbles by consciously including the highest quality perspectives from the tribes we oppose.

We can think of that in terms of know-your-enemy, but often the effect of hearing from the best of those enemies is to find the ways in which they are either allies, or at least to learn to empathize with their positions. If we had no bubble, and just took in the loudest most amplified opinions at random, we'd be more likely to inaccurately conclude that those positions had no steel-man positions to learn from. So a well curated bubble is better than the illusion of none at all.

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