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Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

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Re: Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

#221

Post by BeetleB »

One item he only tangentially refers to: Most developing stories are not worth reading.

At one point in my news addiction, I decided to stop following it on a daily basis but instead "catch up" on all the previous month's news once a month.

So when the new month began, I scrolled and caught up on all the news feeds in my RSS reader. And you'd then see this pattern: Breaking news story. Lots of follow up stories that day and the next few days. If you compare the information content at the tail end of these stories vs the early stories, you'll realize how much junk is in the early stories: Wrong information and filler information. By the end of the saga, it's mostly accurate - there's not much information churn.

So when I would read day to day, I'd read all those articles, and have my knowledge slowly get updated/amended as each day passes. Why go through that much trouble? Just wait towards the end. You'll get more information from reading 2-3 articles at the tail end than the 20-30 you may read throughout.

Re: Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

#222

Post by lotsofpulp »

rootusrootus wrote: post #185
lotsofpulp wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The president has a very significant impact on many people’s lives via judicial nominees. The biggest this year is expected to be the effects of the 3 Republican Supreme Court judges installed by Trump on many women’s access to abortions, but many other judges in the system are appointed by presidents as well that make decisions that affect many people’s lives.

I think your example just highlights my point. Currently abortion rights are enshrined at the federal level. The SCOTUS is not going to ban abortions. They are going to throw it right back down to the state level. If you lose access to abortions, it is because your local politicians decided to ban them. This is exactly why you don't put your faith in the federal government and pay more attention to local government.…

Your claim was the President has the lowest impact on one’s life. As I showed, it is a reality that the President’s actions have a significant impact on people’s lives, probably bigger than a mayor or state senator or state representative probably has in the recent past.

Whether the President should or should not is irrelevant. The salient fact is that if the presidential election results for 2016 were different, then abortion access for millions or tens of millions of women would not be on the chopping block.

> Their success at the national level is disproportionate to the size of their voting bloc because they know how to play the game.

This is a trivial fact when the game is designed such that certain voting blocs in certain arbitrarily drawn boundaries have more voting power than other same size or bigger voting blocs in other arbitrarily drawn boundaries. Unless you live in a place that can be flipped to your candidate or party, there is not much to do locally.

Re: Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

#223

Post by anthk »

galfarragem wrote: post #116
macksd wrote: post #4

I fully agree with this. Scanning Google News or a couple of the more professional international news services like BBC / Al Jazeera / Reuters I still feel pretty well informed (and confident that there's usually nothing of immediate consequence to me) but it doesn't grow into "expert analysis" or impact my feelings much. Here's another thing I noticed: how manipulated / manipulative it is. And not just news and I do…

The manipulative trivia flood of our times was exactly the reason I started my pet project[0]. For years I searched for something that could "solve" this but never found it. Eventually, I built something.. I want to be somehow informed: I didn't quit all news, I quit trivia. When I can/feel like I browse HN. When I find something relevant I post it there and try to make sense of it. This may mean once a week - but no…

Thanks, good link.

Also, 68k.news under Links+ or Lynx is heaven.

Re: Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

#224

Post by FiberBundle »

Five years ago or so I decided to study some history and I've been reading roughly 5-8 history books a year (mostly history since the industrialisation) and it has completely changed the way I read and contextualize news. I feel that I'm in a much better position to filter out the noise and to grasp the significance of some news that really contribute to major trends. This is on top of generally completely transforming my view of the world, can highly recommend anybody who wants a better understanding of our world to get into history.

Re: Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

#225

Post by dionian »

ROTMetro wrote: post #143
yojo wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a firm believer in quality over quantity when it comes to news. Google News has gotten increasingly annoying though, forcing me harder toward the "personalized" results, the kind of filter bubble I'm intentionally trying to avoid. What worked well for me was getting a print subscription to the Economist. They definitely have a bias (particularly in their editorials), but it's mostly of the "free trade" variety, w…

I used to find the Economist great, but with the corrosiveness of everything this last bit, they seem to sneak agenda into articles now days in a way I feel like this whole post is trying to move away from. Maybe as a lost Libertarian who can't stand the control everyone's lives progressives I feel that has crept quite a bit into the Economist. It's funny it bothers me as I have reached a point where I feel Libertari…

The Economist, like NPR, are good at sounding informed and unbiased, but wind up to be egregiously ideologically compromised

Re: Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

#226

Post by darkwizard42 »

flats wrote: post #83

I strongly agree with this. I would, however, like to call out one TV program here in the U.S. that I think comes much closer to approximating the experience of “reading a 5,000-word article”: PBS NewsHour. It’s great, completely free and available to watch online, and you can even get most of what you need from their podcast alone ( https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/segments ). It consists of fairly in…

Gosh, News Hour with Jim Lehrer was a STAPLE in my house growing up. Both parents would be back from work, cup of chai in hand, and you would hear the intro go and even I used to tune in as a teenager to get the news.

Re: Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

#227

Post by LordDragonfang »

damnyankees wrote: post #219
LordDragonfang wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Quoted post unavailable.

You are describing a behavior that is directly in violation of the Hacker News guidelines

>Throwaway accounts are ok for sensitive information, but please don't create accounts routinely. HN is a community—users should have an identity that others can relate to.

If your comment is so divisive that you think it would get your account deleted, it probably doesn't belong on HN.

>Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.

>Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

edit: If nothing else, I'm impressed by the sheer audacity of creating a second throwaway to continue this argument after your first got flagged, and then accusing me of being the flamer.

Re: Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

#228

Post by Jaruzel »

JacobThreeThree wrote: post #146
yojo wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a firm believer in quality over quantity when it comes to news. Google News has gotten increasingly annoying though, forcing me harder toward the "personalized" results, the kind of filter bubble I'm intentionally trying to avoid. What worked well for me was getting a print subscription to the Economist. They definitely have a bias (particularly in their editorials), but it's mostly of the "free trade" variety, w…

I prefer an RSS reader with a personally curated list of news outlets.

This is exclusively how I consume the news.

In fact, a good 50% of my feeds are 'World News' feeds from other countries. it's the best way to see alternate points of view I think, and then as a moderately intelligent[1] adult, I can form my own opinion on the current state of affairs.

---

[1] I'm not allowed to call myself 'smart' on HN, I got told off for it on a previous comment ;)

Re: Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

#229

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway09223 wrote: post #40
macksd wrote: post #4

I fully agree with this. Scanning Google News or a couple of the more professional international news services like BBC / Al Jazeera / Reuters I still feel pretty well informed (and confident that there's usually nothing of immediate consequence to me) but it doesn't grow into "expert analysis" or impact my feelings much. Here's another thing I noticed: how manipulated / manipulative it is. And not just news and I do…

About a decade ago I started reading law blogs instead of the news. They're written for other lawyers, so they're well composed, often without excessive hyperbole. The writing is far higher quality than typical journalism. They're actually informational in terms of describing the mechanisms behind power in our society. In terms of focus, if something is truly important there will always be a legal analysis. Celebrity…

[deleted]

Re: Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

#230

Post by giobox »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #211
giobox wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 99.9% of news isn't relevant or actionable for most people. This is what news is supposed to be though! To expect otherwise is the problem. Just because something isn't immediately actionable or entertaining that day in some measurable outcome is a poor test of "value" too, and would eliminate many other things people consider of "value". Continuing my previous single example, financial news can affect anyone who o…

>This is what news is supposed to be though! To expect otherwise is the problem. Just because something isn't immediately actionable or entertaining that day in some measurable outcome is a poor test of "value" too, and would eliminate many other things people consider of "value". Where do you think the value of news comes from, if not helping people take better actions to navigate their lives? >Continuing my previou…

The list of things that can affect me and many others and appear in the news is pretty much limitless; new legislation, interest rate changes, changes to my school district, tax rate adjustments, rebanding of my property, changes to what animals are allowed on a leash in local parks, road or business closures, the list goes on and on. We do not exist in a vacuum of one and decisions of others will from time to time affect even the most introverted of individuals.

All of these things can be actionable, and all of them require paying attention to a news source of some kind to take that action in time. That is the value! And yes, it means very often I have to flick through a paper that doesn't entertain or inform me at all, but that has always been the reality of the news.

There are even really positive things that enter my life too, it's not all misery; news of exhibitions or bands coming to town that I love for one. There are huge interests and hobbies I have only discovered because I read about them in a news article - there can be a "discovery cost" for many people to reading no news at all too. "Value" is a tricky concept and benefits are often indirect.

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