71–80 of 139 posts
I find PBS, Propublica, and other similar organizations to rely less on entertainment and fluff, and to report more on what matters to actual human beings who aren't their sponsors.
> If that’s the case, what’re you actually getting from the news? Aggravated? Wound up? Certainly not informed about anything important. This seems like the author is explicitly arguing for the tragedy of the commons. Yes, any one individual getting 'wound up' doesn't accomplish much, but the public 'at large' getting wound up can and does effect real change sometimes. Like, it's very easy to point to a variety of to…
"It’s perfectly fine to say, “I don’t know enough about it, and I really don’t care to.”" This guy must be loads of fun at dinner parties ;)... i'd say stopping at "i don't know enough about it." would be the perfectly fine thing to say.
> This guy must be loads of fun at dinner parties ;) There's nothing wrong with saying "I have no interest in participating in the outrage circus with you". The whole point is that that cycle is not fun, dinner party or not.
In the case you describe, you're passing judgement on the other person.
People who pass judgement on other people are unlikely to be much fun to talk to at dinner parties.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
secret to reddit is to not go with the flow and only watch a small number of high quality subs
I only go to my homepage which contains about 20 subs I actually care about - and nothing related to news/politics etc. Once I stopped going on r/popular or r/all my mood when using the site improved drastically
Ever seen a news broadcast that said "well, nothing really important happened today, so we're not doing a show - instead here's an hour of cat videos instead"? This is 24 times worse with the proliferation of dedicated news channels. At the same time, the recipe for click-bait has been perfected, and that's bled over into TV news as well. Sensationalism and outrage sell. It also seems like there's a strong culture th…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but what's the ratio where harm was done there, vs where the public outrage was entirely reasonable and good? Public outrage is one check on societal institutions. The police are a check on general lawlessness and disorder, and the fact that sometimes they kill someone they really shouldn't have doesn't make us think, "well just get rid of the police then altogether I suppose". Why would we get rid of public out…
I would guess the ratio isn't much below 1:1, which I don't find acceptable. If a friend told me shocking stories about my coworkers, and 50% of them or even 25% of them were wrong, I'd stop listening to her. As I mentioned in another comment thread, I don't think the author objects (and I certainly don't object) to in-depth investigations of national or global issues. That's a vanishingly small portion of what the n…
https://www.alaindebotton.com/news-users-manual/
It talks about how to responsibly consume news in these modern times
> If that’s the case, what’re you actually getting from the news? Aggravated? Wound up? Certainly not informed about anything important. This seems like the author is explicitly arguing for the tragedy of the commons. Yes, any one individual getting 'wound up' doesn't accomplish much, but the public 'at large' getting wound up can and does effect real change sometimes. Like, it's very easy to point to a variety of to…
There are many similar cases where the outrage was wrong , the facts of the case weren't as originally reported, and the resulting outrage couldn't be rolled back or productively channeled. My heart breaks at the idea of a guy being murdered with no consequences, but that can't mean that we embrace anything and everything which delivers those consequences.
TV was bad enough, but now the internet is everywhere. It is time for a universal time management and distraction mitigation API that gives control back to the user. This API should connect to most major digital services, and it should work on most devices. We cannot rely on media companies or digital platforms to become less distracting, since their profits are on the line. We should create an API for them to plug into and say "your turn." If they refuse to play nice, go to the government and ask for laws to make it mandatory. Human beings have not evolved to deal with all this noise. Hard controls are necessary.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My understanding is that the Arbery murder became widely known because of Twitter, not the "news." The news reported on it after it became a phenomenon, not as the original source. And this is where the "conversation" piece may come in with a 21st century twist. Enough folks highlighted it as the "most important thing" to make it widely known via retweets and likes.
Given the angle the author is taking here, I can hardly believe that he'd be saying "yeah but spending your time on Twitter is good and productive", considering its reputation as a source of constant outrage seems even worse than for internet or TV news. So, the same reasoning applies. You could also look at something covered more by regular news sources, like how the GOP's attempted repeal of Obamacare was blocked b…
I don't think that the author point at all. He is arguing that the news in their modern form have mostly become a form of entertainment.
I will hasard that someone who would forever stop following the news but actually engaged in any form of local actions connected to their outrage of choice even in the most sporadical of manners would have a disproportionally larger impact on society than a well informed individual. Heck, any kind of local engagement, be it the knitting club or kids soccer, will probably have a larger impact. The news is thankfully not the only source of news.