Reading too much political news is bad for your well-being • Hacker News Board

Re: Reading too much political news is bad for your well-being

#291

Post by cynicalkane » Mon, Oct 19, 2020, 9:26 AM UTC

diego wrote: post #263

cynicalkane wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[1] sounds like a good quote, but keep in mind that the author of that quote was a tacit supporter of Leininsm and Stalinism, and initially supported East Germany's murderous repression of union labor. In practice many people who "hate politics" are, I think, at least partially motivated by not desiring to get into conversations with people who would call them "illiterate" and "imbecile" for, yanno, not supporting ev…

Also keep in mind that the quote is from a different time. Today if something important happens I will find out about it even if I don't want to. An acquaintance will text me, or it will be discussed somewhere (everywhere perhaps) online. You'd have to make a huge effort to be "politically illiterate" in the sense Brecht describes, well beyond not reading the news.

That may be true in many times and places, but to be German, in the East of the country, through the period of the 20th century in which he lived -- politics was rather thrust upon you. And the politically literate and illiterate alike had rather more to fear than "multinational companies".

Re: Reading too much political news is bad for your well-being

#292

Post by watwut » Mon, Oct 19, 2020, 9:31 AM UTC

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #190

watwut wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are those two garbage? I am not American and here local religious conservatives adopted Trump. Reading American radical evangelical writings, they are pro Trump too. Open support of Biden is superrare. And whether the Republicans become more radical is interesting question

It's not "news." Call it whatever you want, but it's definitely not that. No matter what your political stance.

Does Atlantic claims they are news?

Re: Reading too much political news is bad for your well-being

#293

Post by alickz » Mon, Oct 19, 2020, 11:05 AM UTC

Agentlien wrote: post #275

powersnail wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was living with a host family when I first saw American TV. I just couldn't tell when the actual show is on. The shows, the news, the ads, and whatever else there was, they all had the same "air". The same kind of music, the same kind of cadence, the same kind of tone, the same kind of fake laugh. TV is pretty shit everywhere; but I can't understand it in US. Confusingly, some of the greatest TV shows are US shows.…

I had a similar experience. I was a tourist in New York for a week and watched a bit of TV. It was like an exaggerated parody of itself. It felt positively dystopian. Nowadays I can't even watch swedish TV. I can't stand the ads.

What surprised me was the drug ads.

A friend used to stream basketball games live, and when I watched every ad break had an ad for a (prescription?) drug.

It felt like something I'd see in a movie/TV show mocking TV ads. A parody, like you said.

Re: Reading too much political news is bad for your well-being

#294

Post by Agentlien » Mon, Oct 19, 2020, 11:22 AM UTC

alickz wrote: post #293

Agentlien wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similar experience. I was a tourist in New York for a week and watched a bit of TV. It was like an exaggerated parody of itself. It felt positively dystopian. Nowadays I can't even watch swedish TV. I can't stand the ads.

What surprised me was the drug ads. A friend used to stream basketball games live, and when I watched every ad break had an ad for a (prescription?) drug. It felt like something I'd see in a movie/TV show mocking TV ads. A parody, like you said.

Those are crazy. I think in general what struck me was the sheer volume of heavy handed and often poorly produced ads quite bluntly stating "buy our product or you might DIE!"

Re: Reading too much political news is bad for your well-being

#295

Post by funnybeam » Mon, Oct 19, 2020, 12:10 PM UTC

sergeykish wrote: post #279

massysett wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it was true that he was uninformed about the candidates, but that's not a conclusion you can draw solely because he did not consume any news. There are many ways one can become informed about candidates: visit their websites, read Wikipedia articles, see who endorses them, etc. Some news sources, even "mainstream" ones, are so hopelessly biased that I think they're less informative than consuming candidate pr…

Such person would say that. Some people believe and response with offence if they can't support their believes, flat earth etc.

Of the cuff comment but it occurs to me that they may have been right.

I am pretty well informed politically and follow the news regularly, however, I still vote for the same party I voted for thirty years ago and always have done.

Knowing what is happening in the news has rarely changed my vote - pretty much whatever happens the parties are not going to substantially change relative to each other to the point where you would prefer a different party so following the news or not doesn’t really make a difference.

You may be in a bubble by thinking this is important when it really doesn’t matter as much as your bubble is telling you it does

Re: Reading too much political news is bad for your well-being

#296

Post by luckylion » Mon, Oct 19, 2020, 12:14 PM UTC

im3w1l wrote: post #271

diego wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also keep in mind that the quote is from a different time. Today if something important happens I will find out about it even if I don't want to. An acquaintance will text me, or it will be discussed somewhere (everywhere perhaps) online. You'd have to make a huge effort to be "politically illiterate" in the sense Brecht describes, well beyond not reading the news.

I'm not sure that is true. Even the illiterate can see the problems. But he will not know how they came to be, or how they could be resolved. That the politician promising to fix it all will just make it worse.

> Even the illiterate can see the problems. But he will not know how they came to be, or how they could be resolved.

Will the literate know? It seems similar to a sports fan saying what the coach should do. They absolutely know that if they'd just do X, they'd win. I have zero knowledge about professional sports. My guess is that neither I nor that kind of fan actually do know how to coach a professional sports team.

I believe it's similar in politics. If you don't become a subject matter expert -and I don't mean "politics expert", I mean a tiny field and literally expert, like seasonal effects on labor requirements in some specialized industry- you don't know how to fix "it" whether you watch 0 or 10 hours of news a week.

Re: Reading too much political news is bad for your well-being

#297

Post by zarkov99 » Mon, Oct 19, 2020, 12:43 PM UTC

aww_dang wrote: post #255

zarkov99 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that something cannot be done perfectly is not a valid excuse to do it poolry.

Agreed. However, it would be a good reason to hedge expectations accordingly. Everyone has a bias. Much of the current political acrimony could be avoided if both speakers and listeners acknowledged this. Instead we have appeals to 'truthiness' and 'fact-check' that defy the basic premises of human nature.

I am not sure admiting that there is a bias would make any difference. Its plain to see. I think the fundamental problem is that the bias is the main thing now. It trumps everything, including decency, respect for your fellow citizen or the profession. Activism has become the mission. The people who think this is OK seem to lack the imagination to realize how quickly the BS firehose can turn towards when unencumbered by the facts.

Re: Reading too much political news is bad for your well-being

#298

Post by loughnane » Mon, Oct 19, 2020, 12:49 PM UTC

fma wrote: post #145

baron816 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think more should adopt The Economist model. Yes, they definitely have an opinion, and they push it, but they're open about it and are fair to other sides. It's much better than feigning impartiality, or doing a half-hearted "both sides"ing.

I love the Economist. I used to pay for it but then ended up having a stack of unread magazines because I tried to read every page. I really should renew my subscription as their articles are in depth and I'm often amazed how can they crank out so many great articles within a week. Having said that - I see many tech people complain about pay walls even though many of us make $100k+. Pay walls on websites aren't that…

Honestly the biggest bummer about the cost is that it makes the content less accessible to many, and I’m unaware of any cheaper options of the same quality.

Re: Reading too much political news is bad for your well-being

#299

Post by loughnane » Mon, Oct 19, 2020, 12:53 PM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #173

sixstringtheory wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoy reading The Economist and I’m glad that I’m able to filter out their editorialism from the facts. I think it’s easy to do due to their combination of forthrightness and writing style, plus my own ability to cut through the BS that I’ve worked hard to sharpen over many years. The one thing I dislike about The Economist is their cover art. I grew to strongly dislike having some caricature of Trump or nuclear bl…

The problem is that most biased articles aren’t using outrageous headlines or pushing false and/or improbable facts. Most of the bias happens by simply omitting the facts that go against the narrative. No critical reading of the article will give you the missing facts. You kind of need to read away from biased newssources. Or read both sides on every topic.

Their letters section does a nice job at backstopping them in that regard.

I’d love to see some examples of flagrant omissions gone unchecked.

Re: Reading too much political news is bad for your well-being

#300

Post by sergeykish » Mon, Oct 19, 2020, 12:57 PM UTC

funnybeam wrote: post #295

sergeykish wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such person would say that. Some people believe and response with offence if they can't support their believes, flat earth etc.

Of the cuff comment but it occurs to me that they may have been right. I am pretty well informed politically and follow the news regularly, however, I still vote for the same party I voted for thirty years ago and always have done. Knowing what is happening in the news has rarely changed my vote - pretty much whatever happens the parties are not going to substantially change relative to each other to the point where…

Oh, my conclusion is not about politics

> This deeply offended him. He then accused ...

> I think his response was "Fuck off"

Unfortunately I've seen been in such situations. I've politely asked to act in good faith of each other or close the topic. Some people feel better after arguing, I don't.