The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News • Hacker News Board

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#201

Post by yourbandsucks » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 1:21 AM UTC

old-gregg wrote: post #191

slg wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It needs to be pointed out that this is an option that originates from privilege. Ignoring the news means ignoring politics. Ignoring politics is tacit support of the status quo. The status quo does not put everyone on equal footing. Disadvantaged people would therefore suffer more from disengaging with the news than people of privilege.

I disagree. News != politics. In fact, if I replace the "status quo" in your statement with "reality", the meaning will change significantly. I don't need a journalist to tell me that the healthcare situation (to pick an example) is absurd, or that taxation (fed+state) in some states is already at European levels, yet without any healthcare or education benefits. It's easy to be aware of these facts, you just have to…

If I were the illuminati, I'd find it hard to beat the current system of keeping everyone tied up in a culture war while I picked their pockets.

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#202

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 1:22 AM UTC

AWildC182 wrote: post #187

mixmastamyk wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"News" in its most common form has little to do with being an informed citizen. The library would be a better bet.

So we should just never read any news again because someone wrote a click-bait article? I don't know if you've been to a library...but they usually have newspapers .

[deleted]

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#203

Post by simonsarris » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 1:24 AM UTC

eaurouge wrote: post #98

I see a number of comments celebrating the choice to live in a bubble uninformed and blissfully unaware of local and global events. Admittedly, a number of news sources are quite bad at actually reporting the news. But there still are quite a number of news organizations and news reporters that take their roles seriously. You can find them, that is if you are actually interested in being informed. I'm sure there's so…

It seems odd that you would call a lack of news reading ignorance. (What do you call a lack of fake news reading? How do you know what's fake news until the facts are borne out?)

IMO if you want to be ignorant, read the news. If you want to be informed, read last week's or last year's news, which should cure one of a few delusions. If you want to learn something, perhaps read history instead.

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#204

Post by alehul » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 1:25 AM UTC

Personally, I found it helpful to view information consumption like this:

All information has a time horizon over which it is likely to be valuable. For some outrage news stories, it's just a few hours, while for more thoughtful political analyses, it's a year or two.

Even if you read voraciously, if you're consuming information with a short time horizon of value, you're going to be facing a constant downward momentum of useful knowledge, as the information you know becomes outdated or irrelevant.

Focus as much as you can on reading content that will be valuable for the foreseeable future, and you can avoid that downward momentum of information 'expiring'.

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#205

Post by clay_the_ripper » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 1:32 AM UTC

joe-collins wrote: post #76

steelframe wrote: post #14

I stopped reading the news about a year ago. I felt like my emotions were being manipulated by a sharply-honed system built precisely to invoke outrage and draw you in to read more and more of it. I've been able to direct my focus and energy to much more productive tasks since I disconnected. Of course I entirely missed that whole Supreme Court thing until after it was over, and I have no idea what people around me a…

At the risk of sounding glib, your presence on this site would seem to imply that you've not, in fact, stopped reading the news.

True. Hacker news is the only news I read. Because it mostly filters out the stuff I don’t care about. Pretty much every “traditional news” headline basically says to me:

“This horrible thing happened somewhere that has no bearing on your life!”

That’s the kind of “news” I try to avoid.

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#206

Post by SmirkingRevenge » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 1:32 AM UTC

_cs2017_ wrote: post #36

The article and the comments express the desire for news to be an effective tool to inform and educate the public. While appealing, this idea has never worked in the past, and there's no evidence that it can work in the near future. The reason is not that the media or the journalists do something wrong. Rather, the vast majority of the public is simply not interested in being educated or informed. You can send the be…

The problem might even be more fundamental than public interest. Even if we had the best possible news organizations, with the best possible journalists, only honest, upright politicians and interest groups, and the best possible news consumers that were interested in the right things, it still might be impossible for most people to be truly knowledgeable about anything but very, very narrow slices of the world, most of the time.

We sort of assume that there's some possible combination of headlines, articles, books, tweets etc that can make us informed and wise about the current state of things in the world, that matter. But what if that isn't true? I think it probably isn't.

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#207

Post by rayiner » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 1:33 AM UTC

AWildC182 wrote: post #187

mixmastamyk wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"News" in its most common form has little to do with being an informed citizen. The library would be a better bet.

So we should just never read any news again because someone wrote a click-bait article? I don't know if you've been to a library...but they usually have newspapers .

Most articles are little better than click bait. Journalists writing about X usually aren’t trained in X and usually have little time to build expertise in X. They are by training writers, so for the most part they’re reduced to parroting the narratives peddled by this or that group or political party. It’s very rare I read a general news article within my areas of subject matter knowledge and think “oh, this writer really understands and has highlighted the important issues.” I have to assume the same is true for subject matter I’m not familiar with, like tax policy. In reality, for a lot of these subjects, nobody knows the answers, not even the “experts.” For those things, journalists have neither the space, time, or education to even do a good job raising the relevant issues, much less elucidating the answers.

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#208

Post by musicale » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 1:35 AM UTC

Much of internet news seems to follow the TV news model: lurid "breaking stories" interrupts and soundbites designed to capture your interest and trick you into watching advertising and vapid commentary. The important information is usually summarized quite adequately in a couple of headlines or sentences the next day, and it's usually easy to dig up more information if you really care.

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#209

Post by rayiner » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 1:38 AM UTC

enumjorge wrote: post #131

GordonS wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did the same 1-2 years ago, and haven't regretted it. Interestingly, I've experienced the same thing where others seem offended by decision, and I also get accused of being insular and "living in my own little bubble". I just don't get this though - what exactly am I losing out on?

I do agree that paying too much attention to the crazy that’s going on is not constructive or healthy. But you can definitely overcorrect. If you completely disconnect you have no data with which to make your decisions come election time. A lot of what’s happening in politics does affect you directly. Changes to tax code, the budget, deregulation of industries (e.g. net neutrality). And some of it may not affect you…

Do you really need to read the news to know who to vote for given your views on those issues?

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#210

Post by clay_the_ripper » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 1:39 AM UTC

slg wrote: post #157

steelframe wrote: post #14

I stopped reading the news about a year ago. I felt like my emotions were being manipulated by a sharply-honed system built precisely to invoke outrage and draw you in to read more and more of it. I've been able to direct my focus and energy to much more productive tasks since I disconnected. Of course I entirely missed that whole Supreme Court thing until after it was over, and I have no idea what people around me a…

It needs to be pointed out that this is an option that originates from privilege. Ignoring the news means ignoring politics. Ignoring politics is tacit support of the status quo. The status quo does not put everyone on equal footing. Disadvantaged people would therefore suffer more from disengaging with the news than people of privilege.

People point this out all the time. I think it’s used as a non-sequiteur argument to invalidate people’s opinions who have privilege.

Just because someone was born into privilege does not mean they can’t have opinions or that those opinions are incorrect.

I also think ignoring the news has nothing to do with privilege. So, you’re saying that if I did not have privilege then somehow reading the news is going to change anything?

99% of “news” is absolute garbage and a distraction from actual issues.