Things you notice when you quit the news (2016) • Hacker News Board

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

#681

Post by earthboundkid » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 3:01 PM UTC

baybal2 wrote: post #307

earthboundkid wrote: post #289

Today the supposedly liberal NYT has a news article about Jews in Ukraine in order to whip up pro-war hysteria. (The implied premise that Putin is Hitler is too absurd to rebut. This is “Iraqi nurses kill Kuwaiti babies” for 2022.) And they’re the best mainstream news source. :-( https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/21/world/europe/ukraine-jews...

FYI, Neonazis in Russia are fully in control of KGB https://editorial01.shutterstock.com/wm-preview-1500/7301783...

There are Neonazis supporting Russia, and Neonazis supporting Ukraine. It sucks, but there's nothing the West can do about it besides provide asylum to people who want to leave.

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

#682

Post by sumtechguy » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 3:04 PM UTC

vorpalhex wrote: post #293

sumtechguy wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a good method, another is actually studying the methods of advertising. The methods they have now are not much better than what they had 50 years ago. The only big differences are volume, intrusiveness, and rate. All of those have increased tremendously in the past few years. But learn about anchoring, A/B choice, timed choice, and so on. Helps quite a bit. So being conscious that most forms of video media ar…

I agree with most of your points but I strongly disagree here: > The methods they have now are not much better than what they had 50 years ago. The methods are much, much more refined and quite a bit better. You are being sold to and you may not realize it. Everything you interact with on social media (including reddit) has a good chance of being part of an advertising funnel. Even reviews and unboxings are usually a…

Fair point. However, if you read the literature of the time. You will see the exact same methods. The missing bit they could not do was mass targeting. It just was not feasible to do. They knew very well how to do it though. One on one sales where it was more feasible to do and more of what you see today. It is not refined per se, but more simpler to do. My father sold life insurance for years. One summer I was bored and took the advert classes on how to sell (mid 70s). It is all very familiar to what is done today.

Ragebait is not really new. You can see the exact same methods used in 'yellow journalism'. That is not a new term.

You can also read old magazines and see 'reviews'. When they are little more than thinly veiled adverts for that thing. Take the show 'computer chronicles'. Neat show, showed off tons of tech. But it was one giant advert for whatever they were showing off that week.

The only real big change is volume and cost of targeting has dropped to near 0. I could give that realtime A/B testing of campaigns is new.

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

#683

Post by jihadjihad » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 3:07 PM UTC

BeetleB wrote: post #221

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…

I too came to the same realization, and found this publication to be an effective antidote: https://www.slow-journalism.com/

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

#684

Post by mrkstu » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 3:09 PM UTC

drenvuk wrote: post #533

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…

The Atlantic. The New Yorker. The Economist. These are neutral to left facing. In a feeble effort to avoid being put in a different bubble, does anyone have something that an educated republican/conservative would read?

Realclearpolitics has started providing some original content to go with their aggregation. Tends to be non-reactionary 'traditional' Republican leaning.

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

#685

Post by FinTechLead » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 3:11 PM UTC

645 comments so far and no one has pointed out what struck me as obvious red flags:

1) This blog post is from 2016 and yet it is the hot story and discussion today on HN. The main argument is that following news is pointless and we are better off not doing so. 2) It has been upvoted and commented on 600+ times today, right as Russia is invading the sovereign nation of Ukraine. This is objectively news worth following. Russia has lost the debate across most of the mainstream english speaking internet regarding this invasion. 3) Russia is the main party that benefits at this time from convincing people to ignore the news.

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

#686

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 3:11 PM UTC

drenvuk wrote: post #533

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…

The Atlantic. The New Yorker. The Economist. These are neutral to left facing. In a feeble effort to avoid being put in a different bubble, does anyone have something that an educated republican/conservative would read?

> The Atlantic. The New Yorker. The Economist. These are neutral to left facing.

No, they aren’t, especially the Economist, which is aggressively center-right pro-capitalist.

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

#687

Post by redbar0n » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 3:15 PM UTC

gizzlon wrote: post #376

HiROTMetro wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome back! You might find these better uses of your news time. * The Conversation - https://theconversation.com/us * Ground News - https://ground.news * sumi.news - https://sumi.news * Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events If you find yourself reading too much this can help too * LeechBlock - https://www.proginosko.com/leechblock

Thanks :) My favorite is Delayed Gratification : A print magazine that writes about events after the fact. Deep dives into a few topics and great infographics "The world’s first Slow Journalism magazine. A beautiful quarterly publication which revisits the events of the last three months to offer in-depth, independent journalism in an increasingly frantic world." https://www.slow-journalism.com/

is there a sample of the magazine somewhere? not gonna sign up before I know if its any good…

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

#688

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 3:17 PM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #548

drenvuk wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Atlantic. The New Yorker. The Economist. These are neutral to left facing. In a feeble effort to avoid being put in a different bubble, does anyone have something that an educated republican/conservative would read?

That someone can honestly say with a straight face that "the Economist is left-facing" speaks volumes to the sad state of the Overton window.

> That someone can honestly say with a straight face that "the Economist is left-facing" speaks volumes to the sad state of the Overton window.

Or that they are viewing things entirely through the lens of American culture war dimension of politics (where the Economist might fit in the neutral to left-facing description), rather than the usual left-right economic spectrum, where it is agressively center-right.

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

#689

Post by z2h-a6n » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 3:18 PM UTC

marai2 wrote: post #446

mixedbit wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After one year of subscribing to the Economist I like it, but would prefer if it was a monthly newspaper with 1/4 of the content. Reading it throughout each week takes quite a lot of my reading time and I have a feeling that dedicating this time to books would be better. Monthly with well selected topics would be enough to stay informed of important current issues.

This is a question for the folks who have been reading the Economist regularly for a while. What do you guys feel like you get out of reading the Economist over time? This is meant as a genuine question. So for example, I consume my news only via my Google News feed, so basically just a fast scan of the headlines and maybe a few news articles in depth. Does the Economist provide more details, more nuance, more depth?…

Yojo's comment matches my feelings fairly well. I would add as a corollary to the better 'slow burn' coverage that they have less 'flash in the pan' coverage as well. I.e. the weekly format of their print edition tends to filter out the most ephemeral stories and gives them time to provide more in-depth coverage of the stories that still seem to matter a few days or weeks later. This, combined with the space constraints provided by their print edition gives me the impression that articles that make it to the print edition are probably worth my time to read, even in cases where I'm not particularly interested in the topic.

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

#690

Post by codyb » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 3:40 PM UTC

yojo wrote: post #54

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…

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've been doing the World News at 6:30PM with Brian Muir on whatever channel 7-1 is on my antenna, the NYTime's morning newsletter, and then I read the print New Yorker.

Then I come on HackerNews sometimes, but have dropped all social media and even my favorite news aggregator site Fark.com.

Mainly the big thing is just not looking at the news on my phone which can be an incredible time sink, and also not looking at comments for news related articles. Even here on HackerNews which I generally consider to be a "wheat, not chaff, comment section" can get pretty low grade on anything with a political slant unfortunately.

My opinion is, if I'm not going to do anything about it except yell at the people near me whether that's near me online, or near me in person, than there's no reason to get flustered about something.

If I'm going to start calling my reps again, and hitting the streets, then it's good to be informed so I can express my view points and understand what I'm fighting for. Otherwise, it's just negative energy. I'm not going to fix the entire world, and having negative emotions about every single negative thing that's happening in a brutal world is... just too much.