Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Alternatives to The Economist?

news.ycombinator.com

271–280 of 320 posts

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to The Economist?

#271
post #235

Wall Street Journal (except the op-ed pages, which are comically extreme). Financial Times is also very good, I prefer WSJ. They provide actual reporting and not just narrative; WSJ reporting broke the news of the Theranos fraud for example.

I used to subscribe but at some point as a free market believer I have to put my money where my mouth is and not fund ANY Murdoch enterprises.

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to The Economist?

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the gell-mann effect

What he described is literally the opposite of Gell-Mann Amnesia, which is the phenomenon where such a reader will forget about all of the inaccuracies he noticed in the article on which he was an expert and continue believing other articles to be accurate.

It's called the why-am-i-paying-for-this effect.

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to The Economist?

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Literally, every year old people die because of cold weather and not being able to afford the proper heating. Yes, but the problem is not explaining that people aren't dying because of the cold itself. The way you wrote this and the way the media portrays the problem makes it sound like people will die from freezing to death, which is just not true. Pretty much all reporting forgets to add the nuance that deaths in…

> The way you wrote this and the way the media portrays the problem makes it sound like people will die from freezing to death, which is just not true. This is true. Old people freeze to death every year.

No post body was provided.

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to The Economist?

#274

Could you give examples of how quality has declined? I'm scared if a rag like Jacobin is in the running. When people say that the quality of a publication has declined they often mean they disagree with things that are published. Many also say that they seek out blogs and other sources that I assume they agree with. I read these publications because I often disagree with their opinion pieces. It's a value add. Why wo…

> When people say that the quality of a publication has declined they often mean they disagree with things that are published. > a rag like Jacobin

Jacobin isn't just biased, it's agenda-driven. They're cheering specific outcomes and jeering others. To the parent comments' point, Jacobin is just an echo chamber for Socialists who want to hear Socialist opinions from other Socialists. That's different from wanting to read factual news and rational analysis from sources who believe climate change is real.

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to The Economist?

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Economist has repeatedly and emphatically rejected the lie that the 2020 election was stolen. I'm really not seeing any "crazy leak in". Pretty much all "crazy" views I can think of the Economist rejects vigorously.

Then it's a good thing I didn't claim the Economist agreed with the Big Lie.

Then what is the "crazy leak[ing] in" you're referring to?

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to The Economist?

#276
Not quite a replacement given that it's quarterly, but the nascent Asterisk Mag seems like it would at least fill the long-form essay niche: https://asteriskmag.com/

I'm still a serious economist reader and podcast listener, especially for their special reports, but I've also started to rely more and more on a curated RSS feed of substacks & blogs.

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to The Economist?

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have a point... and, furthermore, declinism today is just about the same as it always has been.

I have to disagree. The quality of decline has really gone downhill in the last few years. Used to be that when things fell apart, they really fell apart (think revolution, collapse) but now they just peter out.

I agree. But I optimistically believe that decline will soon experience a renaissance.

We’re gonna start declining again. We’re gonna decline so much. We’re gonna decline at every level. We’re gonna decline economically. We’re gonna decline with the economy. We’re gonna decline with military. We’re gonna decline with healthcare and for our veterans. We’re gonna decline with every single facet.

We’re gonna decline so much you may even get tired of declining. And you’ll say “Please! Please! It’s too much declining! We can’t take it anymore. Mr President, it’s too much!”

And he’ll say “No it isn’t. We have to keep declining. We have to decline MORE! We’re gonna decline MORE! We’re gonna decline so much! I love you America. You’re gonna be so happy!”

Ahh yes. Soon. Soon.

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to The Economist?

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree with OP. Quality declined, I cancelled my subscription.

The exercise that was cancelling, including being hung up on twice during the process, is why I’d never go back.

I was considering subscribing until I read that you need to ring someone to cancel. That's a no-go.

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to The Economist?

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think its perspective. Drawing a parallel to Elon Musk. He says his political leanings haven't changed. Draw a line marked Far Left, Left, Sort of Left, Middle, Sort of Right, Right, Far Right. He says he was Left or Sort of Left, but somebody dragged the line way to the left. He is where he always was, but the line has moved.

Nah. We live in an age of asymmetric polarization. XKCD has a good rendering of the DW-NOMINATE data. Look especially at the US House since Reagan: https://xkcd.com/1127/ The right has moved far more than the left. Just looking at today's news, we find a prominent right-wing activist was convicted of plotting to overthrow the government: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63802649 The only area I think you coul…

You might note that XKCD stopped at 2012, so 10yrs of major change has happened since.

And 1/2 of the US has ideas that do not match the current left.

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to The Economist?

#280
It's really crazy to see that the infamous Rothschild family has a 25% stake in this magazine. Not to mention obscure European shell companies, holding God-knows-what else.

>Owners:

    Exor N.V. (43.40%)
    Rothschild
    Cadbury
    Schroder
    Layton[1]
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Group
Post reply on HN