The Bullshit
walterkirn.substack.com
The Bullshit
1–10 of 214 posts
Re: The Bullshit
#2I'll try not to be an ass, but it's hard to not count any of the time I spend reading this as "bullshit time," as he might put it.
Re: The Bullshit
#3I feel a bit privileged, and in a dangerous way, because feeling like you're special can be an illusion that is easily shattered.
Here's what I mean. If I was born earlier, like say a baby boomer, I'd have less education in critical thinking, but I'd also be more protected by the news media than the time when gen Z grew up. By that I mean most of the stuff in the paper at the time was down the middle, somewhat bland but serious, and the editors took it upon themselves to keep things balanced. They'd acknowledge other viewpoints and think properly about how to fit in their own perspectives.
If I was a gen Z kid, it was and is all a blur. Just loads of crap mixed in with everything. Chaos, no particular authority is obvious. More time spent in education but also more noise. Fewer cultural lighthouses since everyone is watching different things (both news and wider culture) and able to stay within whatever they already believe.
When I grew up I had a leg in each era. I still think some papers are better than others. But I also see the cacophony of crap for what it is.
Boomers have ended up in this world too and it's horrifying. My university educated in laws in the UK are doubting the outcome of elections in the US. They come up with crazy things from time to time, like they're missing a critical thinking inoculation.
Re: The Bullshit
#4TLDR: modern news media is the bullshit and a time-suck.
Some neat anecdotes in there tho.
Re: The Bullshit
#5This was a rare gem of well-measured prose here. I laughed out loud a couple of times and had to go back and read it over again. Thanks.
Re: The Bullshit
#6> but it isn’t the news and it hasn’t been for ages.
I have a better idea. The news has always been shit.
There's this weird fetish with "freedom of the press" that distorts the fact that news is still a business, run by free market forces, with the same distributions of incompetence and corruption as any free market.
It used to be the "nightly news", but we now have a 24/7 always-on consumption culture and news orgs have adapted to fill in all those remaining hours. Consolidation hasn't helped, but I can look at any news clipping from the early 20th century and see the same level of bullshit I see today.
Re: The Bullshit
#7Dude needs an editor. If mainstream news is bullshit, at least it's readable bullshit.
Re: The Bullshit
#8I feel a bit privileged, and in a dangerous way, because feeling like you're special can be an illusion that is easily shattered. Here's what I mean. If I was born earlier, like say a baby boomer, I'd have less education in critical thinking, but I'd also be more protected by the news media than the time when gen Z grew up. By that I mean most of the stuff in the paper at the time was down the middle, somewhat bland…
Writing off an entire generation of people as lacking critical thinking skills seems a bit short-sighted.
Re: The Bullshit
#9I feel a bit privileged, and in a dangerous way, because feeling like you're special can be an illusion that is easily shattered. Here's what I mean. If I was born earlier, like say a baby boomer, I'd have less education in critical thinking, but I'd also be more protected by the news media than the time when gen Z grew up. By that I mean most of the stuff in the paper at the time was down the middle, somewhat bland…
Writing off an entire generation of people as lacking critical thinking skills seems a bit short-sighted.
No generation in History thus far has demonstrated general possession of this skill.
Re: The Bullshit
#10These recent substack articles which have been posted to HN are interesting. Not because the people who write the articles are intelligent and serious thinkers, because if they are, they definitely aren't showing it via their prose.
They're interesting because they show exactly the sort of vacuous garbage one can expect when an amateur is is trying to make a name for themselves as a writer and has no editor to slap their hand or even ask for some sort of coherence.