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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)

#431

Post by themacguffinman »

brightball wrote: post #158
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…

Even the streaming stuff will include it subtly though. I was watching a show on Netflix with my wife the other day, Sweet Magnolia’s and it seemed about as controversial as a Hallmark channel show. But these days I notice whenever specific catch phrases or expressions are getting used across multiple news outlets and it puts me a little bit on guard if a suddenly notice a phrase being used excessively…as if the poin…

News channels, especially many local news channels that are owned by the same company, can and do explicitly coordinate their messaging. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fHfgU8oMSo

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

#432

Post by nervousvarun »

ROTMetro wrote: post #415
spywaregorilla wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure things were just as shitty in 2017

Maybe sites like Twitter were, but it wasn't EVERYTHING like it is now. There just wasn't so much hateful speaking. There wasn't so much tribalization, otherization. Sure Reddit sucked but it wasn't hateful. Now it seems everything is full of unnecessary snide comments about whomever is perceived as the out group or other tribe with no self awareness of the ugliness of the comments. Educated conservative university p…

Agreed...The Joe Rogan thing is crazy (assuming this is what you're talking about).

He gets lumped in with Conservatives because EVERYONE must be lumped in to the left or the right these days.

You can't be in the middle anymore.

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

#433

Post by ceejayoz »

throwaway09223 wrote: post #60
SpringDrive wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any suggestions for blogs that you like? Would be interested in adding some to my info diet.

I used to mostly read on my commute and it's been a few years, but the most approachable is probably https://abovethelaw.com/ . It has quite a bit of fluff and humor mixed in. Popehat is usually quite good, especially when there's some kind of nonsense narrative going around. Good debunking explainers https://www.popehat.com/ Volokh conspiracy has very good analysis of current events as well: https://reason.com/volok…

Popehat's Twitter is a really good source for "is legal issue x actually a big deal?" sanity checks on breaking news.

Sometimes it's "yes, this is actually quite big"; other times it's "this is a breathless depiction of something that happens 20 times a day and is entirely normal procedure".

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

#434

Post by jimmyjazz14 »

joshstrange wrote: post #139
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…

PBS Newshour is a gem for sure and one of the few sources I trust almost fully. NPR is also high on my list.

I feel like NPR has changed over the last few years though or maybe I'm the one that changed either way I kinda stopped enjoying it as much lately.

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

#435

Post by wolverine876 »

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…

> And then they were watching a kids show at a hotel once and the ads came on and the effect it had on them was crazy. They suddenly desperately needed all the toys in the commercials and were repeating catch phrases from ads after only seeing them a couple of times. The contrast in their behavior was insane. And they HAD to keep watching it like I hadn't seen before. I spent a week off-grid with my parents a while back and it was great. We came home and my Mom put on the news suddenly everything was terrible and she was angry, but she had to keep watching.

The comparison between childrens' responses to toy ads and adults' responses to cable news is insightful. We all think we're too smart to be fooled, but we're all children at the core.

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." (Richard Feynman, Cargo Cult Science)

Research shows, IIRC the details, that people who think they are smarter are easier to fool. But don't worry, you and I can comfort ourselves that it wouldn't apply to us. :)

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

#436

Post by simondotau »

pklausler wrote: post #355
ff317 wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal favorite recommendation in this vein is The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/ . They've got some great writers and editors and often deliver pretty unique insights. Their articles tend towards long-ish-form, but not nearly as long as e.g. the New Yorker. They're a little less world-focused and more US-centric, but not completely. There is some bias (isn't there always?), but I've seen them cover a si…

I loved the Atlantic until they started sponsoring "happiness" seminars with Deepak Chopra.

Really? That's disappointing for an organisation with so many intelligent columnists.

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

#437

Post by jazzyjackson »

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…

In the fourth grade my history teacher was idly passing back tests and sang the first half of a phone number melody in a commercial, some portion of the class felt obliged to complete the phone-number-melody and my teacher laughed and muttered, “and they say the kids aren’t being programmed by TV”

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

#438

Post by wolverine876 »

cnelsenmilt wrote: post #380
ROTMetro wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I have reached a point where I feel Libertarianism just isn't compatible with the realities of the modern world as much as this child of hippies wishes it was You may have interest in the writings of the Niskanen Center https://www.niskanencenter.org/ They work from a similar position. For example, I was hugely impressed by this essay https://www.niskanencenter.org/what-the-pandemic-revealed/ I don't know a regular…

How did you find them? Do you know who reads them or where they are popular? I came across them recently and was both impressed and puzzled that I'd never heard of them and never head anyone discuss them.

I haven't read that particular essay, but maybe submit it?

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

#439

Post by wolverine876 »

Justin_K wrote: post #205
andi999 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you try the financial times? I sometimes find them shockingly unbiased.

In college we were required to get a subscription to FT and I found it quite liberal. As was the professor who required the subscription.

Hmmm ... they are certainly right of center afaict. If they are quite liberal, what do you call the vast landscape to the left of them? Who is a centrist?

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

#440

Post by trophycase »

valachio wrote: post #339
mattlondon wrote: post #317

There are things that happen in the news that may affect your day to day life. Apart from the obvious things such as covid, there are a lot of things going on all the time that may influence your voting decisions (not just in the run up, but the entire time someone is in office), purchasing decisions, where you go on vacation, who you want to work for, how you get to work today etc. I guess if that is fine for you, t…

I agree with your assessment. To completely quit news is not a good idea, unless you want to live under a rock, metaphorically speaking. Fact of the matter is, day-to-day events affect each one of us who live in a modern society. You don't want to be the guy who has no mask and 0 preparation for a pandemic when it hits. You don't want to be the guy who keeps buying/using a product when there's news circulating that i…

This is how the media and media addicted people convince you that you absolutely need to keep tuning into the madness. You can hear 99% of the news that will actually affect your life simply through interacting with friends and doing activities.
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