Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807) • Hacker News Board

Re: Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)

#201

Post by minimuffins » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 8:32 PM UTC

neonate wrote: post #162

minimuffins wrote: post #117

The feeling that it's just completely impossible to know what's going on in the world is really debilitating. I spend probably an hour a day reading headlines from major outlets with a bunch of different political alignments, and to be honest, I don't really know why I even do it. By the end of it, all I really have is a vague silhouette of a picture of what might have happened, according to a handful of corporations…

What if it was always impossible, and we're just now finally realizing it? In that case this may be a positive development. But we're just at the beginning of learning how to adapt to it.

Yeah, that is a kind of postmodern take on the situation that I have some sympathy for. I do think this attitude could lead to a kind of quietism about a problem we could actually make a dent in though, if we did some things differently.

I think we should think about the destruction of traditional journalism not as some inevitable natural evolution, like the tide coming in washing away our sand castle, but instead as a historical, political development with high stakes, winners and losers. We should fight against it, not just passievly "adapt."

That doesn't mean replicate exactly what was there before, but I don't think we have to just acquiesce before a now permanently incomprehensible world and give up on ever understanding it, either.

Re: Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)

#202

Post by dependenttypes » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 8:36 PM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #125

blhack wrote: post #78

It's just so sad. The biggest one lately for me has been watching the riots which are happening all over the US. The really crazy thing is that all of these things are livestreamed usually by 10s of people in every city, who are standing a few feet from the people burning buildings and attacking people. You can virtually attend all of these things from your office. To watch buildings burning, people chanting that the…

Don't think that just because you're your own editor you can't be deceived by editing. You're feeding yourself with the material that you're seeking out. edit: just spend a day only looking up the millions peacefully marching, rather than the 10s of right-wing livestreams. (Also, give me some information about the people you've seen attacking and burning private residences, because I don't know of a single example of…

> rather than the 10s of right-wing livestreams

What? Are you seriously claiming that all of the livestreams that display riots are from right wind people? And even if they were, would it mean that they are fake or what?

Anyway, you can just go and see some of the aftermath images that the media publish.

Re: Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)

#203

Post by minimuffins » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 8:45 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #191

minimuffins wrote: post #117

The feeling that it's just completely impossible to know what's going on in the world is really debilitating. I spend probably an hour a day reading headlines from major outlets with a bunch of different political alignments, and to be honest, I don't really know why I even do it. By the end of it, all I really have is a vague silhouette of a picture of what might have happened, according to a handful of corporations…

I think that the best thing, which is really hard to do with the internet, is to let time pass. If you're 1-2 weeks, 1 month behind the news, you will probably get only the important news. Following daily news is madness and useless unless you're making money out of it. As someone I know said when I mentioned a new revolutionary battery technology has been discovered: I'll believe it when the researchers get the Nobe…

This is good advice but I want to clarify that the problem I'm trying to highlight here is structural - historical and political, and we should be thinking about it that way too, as well trying to figure out how to cope with the situation as individuals.

Re: Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)

#204

Post by sixstringtheory » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 8:47 PM UTC

simonsarris wrote: post #86

loughnane wrote: post #58

This dovetails with something I've been thinking much about recently: providing a classical education, or at least a dose of it, to my kids. Jefferson was a big proponent of this as well [0] My reasoning is that there are few other venues that young people, in their formative years, encounter such examples of deep critical thinking. I used to think it snobbery to reference Socrates/Plato/Aristotle, etc. But reading t…

A classical and a mythological education are both important and missing today. I wrote recently: > A mythological education is distinct from the common school subjects. It builds in the mind intuition for second-order effects, for the first lesson a child learns from one hundred stories is that every thing you do will have unintended consequences, something years of schoolwork fails to teach. Myths give us shared art…

I think this is very insightful, and is touched on quite a bit in Harari's Sapiens, which is alluded to in a sibling to parent post, which also mentions Jefferson: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24364993

I picked up an old copy of Grimm's Tales on a whim and read some every now and then before bedtime. Also Aesop's fables just to refresh my memory of them. I enjoy them both and think it's a worthwhile format.

Re: Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)

#205

Post by blueridge » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 8:50 PM UTC

Good books to read on the subject:

1) Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle

2) Daniel Boorstin, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America

3) Jacques Elull, Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes

Re: Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)

#206

Post by Wohlf » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 8:52 PM UTC

crispyporkbites wrote: post #194

tines wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thankfully we live in the safest period of human history. Thankfully many smart people want to focus their time on doing good things. The obvious counter is "but you learned this from headlines" (assuming you're not like Hitchens with a bunch of intercontinental friends to be your eyes and ears.

No the headlines state the opposite. You learn this by reading history and looking at recent events through reasonable sources. And yes this is the safest period in human history, and it continues to get safer by the day.

My personal favorite example to get some perspective is from the book Days of Rage. During the 1970s domestic bombings were a daily occurrence, and at the peak there were over 2000 a year. Even the massive amount of violence in modern day Chicago is nothing in comparison to what was happening as recently as the 90s.

Re: Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)

#207

Post by ardy42 » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 8:52 PM UTC

ycombinete wrote: post #189

minimuffins wrote: post #117

The feeling that it's just completely impossible to know what's going on in the world is really debilitating. I spend probably an hour a day reading headlines from major outlets with a bunch of different political alignments, and to be honest, I don't really know why I even do it. By the end of it, all I really have is a vague silhouette of a picture of what might have happened, according to a handful of corporations…

Sounds good. Those close to us are the most likely to have news that has actual significance to us. And are probably the most trustworthy.

> Sounds good. Those close to us are the most likely to have news that has actual significance to us. And are probably the most trustworthy.

So third-hand information from my InfoWars-reading brother and workplace rumors (or even worse, official workplace corporate communications)?

Re: Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)

#208

Post by eindiran » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 8:56 PM UTC

deadalus wrote: post #17

mrfusion wrote: post #8

As an exercise, go read the front page of cnn.com right now. Do you still believe all of it?

I get very frustrated, sad and emotional when I read CNN or any of the major news sites. So I avoid it. Instead I use Wikipedia once a month : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:August_2020_events

I have taken to using the current events portal, perhaps once a week: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events

The once-per-month approach is an interesting one, which I would imagine removes even more of the lingering "urgency" to keep up with the news treadmill. How long have you been doing it?

Re: Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)

#209

Post by swagasaurus-rex » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 8:56 PM UTC

clairity wrote: post #51

smolder wrote: post #29

This of course has echoes in the present. I think the public may not be better informed/closer to the truth than 20 years ago, but not much worse either. A lot of things probably just weren't widely reported or could stay under the radar before the internet and social media took over. Now when "undesirable news" inevitably gets out, it has to be countered with contradictory narratives and misinformation. It's gotten…

> "It's gotten to the point that aligning yourself politically one way or the other implies you must adopt a volume of their favored fiction in addition to a shared interpretation of the real facts." being truly independent is a lonely row to hoe in my experience. nobody likes or trusts you, because you're not all in on their side. despite this very real cost, more and more people are adopting an indepedent stance, w…

Those that adopt an independent stance are often much more agreeable to get along with.

After all, they aren't usually the ones interjecting political nonsense into discussions every chance they get.

Re: Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)

#210

Post by burkaman » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 9:03 PM UTC

busterarm wrote: post #122

loughnane wrote: post #58

This dovetails with something I've been thinking much about recently: providing a classical education, or at least a dose of it, to my kids. Jefferson was a big proponent of this as well [0] My reasoning is that there are few other venues that young people, in their formative years, encounter such examples of deep critical thinking. I used to think it snobbery to reference Socrates/Plato/Aristotle, etc. But reading t…

Unschooling/Home-schooling + https://www.sjc.edu/ (if they want to) IMO

Looking at https://www.sjc.edu/academic-programs/undergraduate/great-bo..., this is definitely a good list of "foundational texts of Western civilization" as they say, but the world is a lot more interconnected than it was in 1696, and this curriculum leaves out most of it. There's nothing wrong with studying one part of the world or one community of ideas as long as you're open about it, but I don't think I would be comfortable calling this a well rounded education in the modern world.

The about page says "students study the works of history’s greatest thinkers." I mean, come on. There's not a single "great thinker" in all of history outside of Europe, the Roman Empire, and the US? How are you supposed to defend the ideas of Western Civilization if you have no idea what the alternatives are?

It reminds me a little of some culinary schools where the whole curriculum is based on French cooking, and you take like one class on "global cuisine" that covers the entire rest of the world. You can't pick one focus area and claim it's all you need for a full education.