Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–378 of 378 posts

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#371

Post by thirdsun »

stcredzero wrote: post #363
thirdsun wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a lot of manipulation and outright falsities in news, and almost no research or fact checking in the twitter sphere. I think it's pretty safe to assume that he's the one benefitting the most from the lack of fact checking.

I think it's pretty safe to assume that he's the one benefitting the most from the lack of fact checking. Not safe at all. (Covington Kids, for one thing.) The groupthink among the left-leaning media, particularly the news, is pretty egregious. The degree to which they communicate with each other using electronic networks and create their thought bubbles is well documented at this point. If you "follow the money," to…

I wasn't going to dive into far right conspiracy theories. SO isntead let's keep it simple: Take all the live footage and public statements by Donald Trump during his presidency - from rallies, in front of the white house, or even the rare press events - and have his claims analyzed by fact checkers. I'm not sure if he'd make it even remotely to a 50% truth-score. Countless obvious, easily disprovable lies on a daily basis.

That's what I meant by "benefitting the most". You might dismiss it as the left-leaning media you mentioned, but this should be a good starting point to keep track of Trump's false claims: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claim...

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#372

Post by wavepruner »

intertextuality wrote: post #284
bilbo0s wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just took a look at my main "Go to", the BBC. It's difficult to tell, because the front page of BBC has so many more articles on it than the front page of HN, but the "outrage porn" proportion seems about equal to me. Right around 1/4 or 1/5 of the articles I would classify that way. Seems about the same as HN. Just for context, at the moment on HN, I'd say these are the "news"-y and "outrage porn"-y posts on the fro…

For starters, I think you're being extremely cynical. Second, unlike other news sources, HN tends to have moderate to high quality discussion. I come to HN because I tend to learn things and grow here. That's not to say that it's perfect of course, but I think you're being more than a bit dishonest when you compare HN to mainstream media news.

I think most of the political discussions on HN have a clear side that the commenters take. To disagree with the consensus invites down-votes into oblivion, so almost no one disagrees with the consensus.

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#373

Post by tracker1 »

thirdsun wrote: post #320
tracker1 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too true... I can't stand Trump on a personal level... but he's right about one thing. There's a lot of manipulation and outright falsities in news, and almost no research or fact checking in the twitter sphere.

> There's a lot of manipulation and outright falsities in news, and almost no research or fact checking in the twitter sphere. I think it's pretty safe to assume that he's the one benefitting the most from the lack of fact checking.

Two wrongs don't make a right... it's generally considered the media/news organizations that are supposed to fact check and limit bias. They absolutely don't right now, and that is a huge problem when the news media becomes more about pushing an agenda, than any single politician that should get fact checked (even the cheeto in chief).

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#374

Post by clydethefrog »

dangravell wrote: post #334
Animats wrote: post #6

That's what the Economist is for.

The Economist is good, but I find it still a little too frequent for me, especially considering it costs about £5 a week. This for me is a little too much for something I probably won't get through every week. I tend to just buy it when I go on holiday when I know I have the time to get through it. I'd prefer a digest version once a month, the same size as the weekly version, with "more important" news and the same c…

Le Monde Diplomatique is a monthly newspaper that focuses on international reporting. I find their reporting very good, although they are outspoken about their leftist position (just as the Economist is outspoken liberal).

https://mondediplo.com/about

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#375

Post by rexpop »

malvosenior wrote: post #184
rexpop wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Politics aren’t the only way to change the status quo. The status quo is a political arrangement. It's just a way of referring to the state of power's distribution across institutions and people. That's political. There is literally, definitionally nothing apolitical that affects the status quo. Changing the status quo is--inescapably, apodictically--political. Uber and AirBnB are highly political institutions.

By this definition literally every interaction with the outside world is political. Is a definition that broad really useful? When people talk about politics they’re almost always talking about interfacing with the government. Taking an Uber is definitely not a political statement in most people’s minds.

It may not be a political _statement_, but it has political _consequences_.

Ignoring nth-order consequences doesn't make them go away.

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#376

Post by byproxy »

stcredzero wrote: post #91
gipp wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sunlight is the best disinfectant, after all. So, I had never heard this phrase until maybe a year or so ago. Now it seems like (on this site particularly) someone parrots this exact sentence in any thread at all related to news and/or social media. Where is this coming from? Especially since it is... Emphatically untrue. It's just another one of those turns of phrase that asks you to believe it purely because it's…

Especially since it is... Emphatically untrue. Citation? As far as I can see, people like the KKK and other White Supremacists have been and still are thoroughly discredited. The only countervailing force to that in 2019 is outrage driven media, produced by other extremist counterparts. If one's business is based on outrage, then you want an enemy to play off of, to generate a vicious circle of outrage and reaction a…

Wow, I had no idea that the "Ok" hand sign was supposedly co-opted as a white-power sign until you mentioned it here. I guess I'm still in the shadows, thankfully!

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#377

Post by stebann »

This is a harsh truth everywhere. News are being killed, as the reality, information and the data associated with it, all have been broken, categorized and used to manipulate people so that they can not conceive another reality and views. Many people is just looking through the lenses that paints better their own egocentric conception of the world or just the cases they need to rationalize what is happening on this confusing times. News regulation has been labeled as "useless" or "censorship" too soon. The problem is the same with other industries that have some mind-shaping power, people should have some freedom to "control" the industry and the way the information flows through their processes and from/to the society in general. This is not a trivial problem and the fact that people is vulnerable to be manipulated and their biases harnessed in some non-obvious way makes it more difficult. Also we have the problem that we haven't been educated into metacognition, structured and critical thinking. Education systems should prepared people for information overload and into processes to derive the truth even when they face an adverse and hostile environment.

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#378

Post by rexpop »

yourbandsucks wrote: post #190
rexpop wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowledge about the Individual Mandate matters a lot to lower income folks. We have to follow the news to learn about such things, whereas the privileged techie does not.

Can you explain your tax planning situation around the individual mandate? Like, did you, as a low income hacker news reader, read something on the news that you used to save money when filing your own taxes?

Yes: I decided to avoid the penalty. Had I not known about the penalty, I would have owed it in ignorance.
Post reply on HN