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The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

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261–270 of 378 posts

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#261
post #157

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.

Does it necessarily originate from privilege?

Or simply support the status quo privledge over alternate privilege?

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#262
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what you are intending to mean with your first point. Yes, you can change a word in my comment to a word with a different meaning and it will change the meaning of what I said. That doesn't mean what I said isn't true. Healthcare is really too big and broad of an issue to really highlight what I am saying here. There is no way not to at least be aware of it if not interact with it and it has been one of…

> I don't know what you are intending to mean with your first point. > Yes, you can change a word in my comment to a word with a different > meaning and it will change the meaning of what I said. > That doesn't mean what I said isn't true. By using the inflammatory vocabulary, you've re-framed the issue as a class conflict, pushing the proposed solution (ignoring the news) out of scope. This is a classic move straigh…

I really don't know what to say to you if you think "status quo" is inflammatory vocabulary. And I never said anything about suggestions from the media. You are mixing fact based news with opinion based news. You can be informed by ignoring opinion based news, but you still need fact based news to have an educated opinion on an issue.

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#263
post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did the same thing about 4 years ago and haven’t looked back. I find though that a lot of people are actually offended by it since I have no clue what thing they and everyone else is outraged about. I get accused of not caring, being disengaged, blah blah blah. It’s difficult to explain to people who are still deep in outrage mode, so I mostly avoid taking about it. My life is so much better since cutting out the new…

How do you know whom to vote for? I understand the US doesn't have a lot of choice on the ballot, political news is highly polarized and latest/developing news is probably not worth following. But somewhat keeping up with what your government does so you can hold it accountable seems like a civic duty to me. And what better way to do this than news?

When it comes time to vote I research each candidate and ballot measure and make an informed decision with the information that I find. I don't need to be plugged into to every daily scandal to know that I fundamentally disagree with Trump's policies, a few minutes of research will tell me that just fine.

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#264
I would really like a big news service. These focuses might be a little morbid, but like major catastrophes (e.g. Idai), a single pre election explaining the stances, a post election on the results. Right now articles are being written on one person saying something about an event of interest. You can read 10 paragraphs a day on the Mueller report when nothing has really progressed on that front. I would love something that just lets me know when big stuff actually happens (e.g. wake me up when the report is out).

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#265
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did the same thing about 4 years ago and haven’t looked back. I find though that a lot of people are actually offended by it since I have no clue what thing they and everyone else is outraged about. I get accused of not caring, being disengaged, blah blah blah. It’s difficult to explain to people who are still deep in outrage mode, so I mostly avoid taking about it. My life is so much better since cutting out the new…

Honest question, how do you turn off your empathy for the suffering of your fellow countrymen? Which is what ignoring their plight would require (at least, it would for me).

Who said anything about ignoring the plight of others? The news does nothing at all to aid me in helping other people. Indeed, most of the time it distracts me and keeps me from being aware of all the myriad ways I can give back to the community.

I volunteer lots of my time with various organizations and I didn't need anyone in the news media to tell me that what I'ma doing is important and valuable.

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#267
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't know what you are intending to mean with your first point. Yes, you can change a word in my comment to a word with a different meaning and it will change the meaning of what I said. That doesn't mean what I said isn't true. Healthcare is really too big and broad of an issue to really highlight what I am saying here. There is no way not to at least be aware of it if not interact with it and it has been one of…

OP is primarily talking about clickbait. How does this help the disadvantaged exactly?

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#268
post #127
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember someone coined a concept recently that when you read about a problem in the world that you can help alleviate then you become morally responsible. It’s liks quantum entanglement but with ethics. Found it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10949572 What about that? Coming upon news where you can make a difference right now, by sending money to NGOs with workers on the ground.

That is an impractical argument. Say there is a situation that Alfred have the power to effect. To reliably cause change for the good Alfred must: (1) Identify a problem and its root cause (2) Change the root cause (3) Confirm that the problem is solved. There are people who claim you can leap straight to (2) and skip (3). These are people who (if they ever honestly checked) would discover that they are not responsib…

Someone else may have already been working to help the people. You just need to provide the money. The question is -- will you? Like Doctors without Borders or whatever.

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#269
A big source of the author's complaints actually is that there is a lot of news that comes out that opposes his worldview.

To me that area is more the problem. Most of what's counted as news comes from one somewhat extreme worldview or another. Usually it depends on the organization. Certain publications consistently come from the left and others consistently from the right and maybe there is a third category which is coming from a different direction. And actually left/right are not exact, but it seems as though people are polarized into two or maybe three camps, with often completely different worldviews in each of them.

It's actually like people are living in completely different universes. Each group is convinced that theirs is the true universe and the other is almost entirely false.

More in-depth articles could theoretically help by creating more opportunities for supplying factual detail and nuance. However, almost all of the in depth articles I see are clearly coming from one of the extreme worldviews.

I guess tests might be, can what you are reporting be verified in anyway, and would someone with a different worldview be able to gain information from it? Does it seem impartial.

To some degree it's an almost impossible task because even basic perception is tinted by worldview. But news can try to stick to uncontroversial facts and avoid assuming that other worldviews have no validity.

The other aspect is that the monetary incentives push them towards feeding a particular worldview rather than taking a chance of contradicting it with something too nuanced.

My guess right now is that there may be a way to improve the availability of truly primary sources of information by taking advantage if the internet. That can eliminate the bias that many news outlets would take on interpreting events.

Politics seems to be the most difficult case but also the most important.

Maybe it would help for people to realize that they are occupying parallel universes.

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#270

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…

I find comments like this unhelpful. You have made a point, without any real counterpoint. If you wanted to be helpful, instead of doing your own little "You can find them, that is if you are actually interested in being informed" virtue signal posturing, why not post the name of a single such source which you find valuable?

I would sincerely be interested in knowing the sources of some great news, so please share. Until then all your comment amounts to is an insult, without any substance.

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