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I Hate the News (2006)

aaronsw.com

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Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#71

Post by kragen »

Kye wrote: post #58
Barrin92 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

avoidance behavior is a bad response to mental issues. Even if it works temporarily, in the long run it shrinks your world and reduces your confidence. It's why people with panic disorders are taught to confront stressors and learn to adapt, not lock themselves in their house. Regarding the news, a practical issue is of course that it doesn't always work. If you're privileged, self-employed or what have you, you can…

Reading the NYT would make me less informed on the issues that affect me and people I care about.[0][1] That's the point, I think. "The News" most people consume is a pale imitation of information. A version of this article with 10 years of growth might modify the suggestion toward finding better sources of information. Less New York Times, Fox News, and MSNBC. More ProPublica, NewsHour, and advocacy orgs staffed wit…

your criticism could hardly be worse directed

the article does recommend finding better sources of information

> to become an informed voter all one needs to do is read a short guide about the candidates and issues before the election. There’s no need to have to suffer through the daily back-and-forth of allegations and counter-allegations, of scurrilous lies and their refutations. Indeed, reading a voter’s guide is much better: there’s no recency bias (where you only remember the crimes reported in the past couple months), you get to hear both sides of the story after the investigation has died down, you can actually think about the issues instead of worrying about the politics. ...

> Most people’s major life changes don’t come from reading an article in the newspaper; they come from reading longer-form essays or thoughtful books, which are much more convincing and detailed.

the article also links to harper's weekly review

he also regularly posted reviews on his blog of the books he found to be good sources of information (as well as some he didn't); in 02006 he read 120 books http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/books2006 and in 02007 he read 70 http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/books2007. many of his other blog posts were about one or another such book

a couple years later i worked with aaron on watchdog.net, an effort to collate and make easily available politically relevant information on politicians; we got a lot of information online and well organized, but voters didn't really care, and other people were doing a better job of providing that information

aaron was easily in the top 0.1% of the world population when it came to helping people find better sources of information

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#72

Post by stOneskull »

kweingar wrote: post #60
Danjoe4 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not aware of any recent laws that restrict the rights of LGBT individuals, could you please name them?

Just one example: Tennessee has recently passed a law banning “male or female impersonators” from performing in public places. Tennessee also does not alter sex on birth certificates for trans people. Arguably this means that Tennessee banned trans people from performing in public in any capacity.

seems to be about the Ts rather than about the Ls, Gs, and Bs.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#73

Post by city41 »

chrisco255 wrote: post #10
Kye wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you'll need to worry about how he feels about you not following him on Twitter considering he died 10 years ago.

I guess for context I'll add this is Aaron Swartz, a cofounder of Reddit, and fierce advocate for free speech. He was federally prosecuted for wire fraud in 2013 for downloading academic journals from MIT, faced up to 30 years in prison, and committed suicide just before his trial. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz

Aaron is often said to be a reddit founder but I dont think that is true. His Wikipedia page goes into the details. He founded infogami and created web.py as part of that. He later joined up with reddit and helped port reddit from lisp to python. The article states "As a result, Swartz was given the title of co-founder of Reddit." Which sounds retroactive/honorary to me.

Not to put down Aaron in any way. Just interested in what really happened.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#74

Post by kortilla »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #12
dryanau wrote: post #8

It's alright for one person to think this way, but if everyone did we'd be in a bit of trouble as a society. I think the reality is in the middle anyway, i.e. very few people are desperately gripped to each and every story, and if you think you're supposed to care about every story then you're missing the point of the news. Chances are enough people will care about each story to make it worthwhile running, even when…

Exactly. Nobody should be watching 24/7 news, but you also probably shouldn't be avoiding every news publication ever. 10 minutes a day skimming your news sources of choice for topics relevant to you combined with hearing things from your friends/family/coworkers goes a long way.

10 mins a day is still way too much. It’s 99.99% absofuckinguseless.

I say this as someone who read it for decades. It’s all caricatures of the truth designed to push some other narrative.

Every single time I thought I was informed and chatted with someone who had even a small notional bit of first hand information, it became immediately apparent how I was both extremely ignorant and how my false sense of knowledge made it worse.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#75

Post by awb »

> Let us look at the front page of today’s New York Times, the gold standard in news. In the top spot there is a story about Republicans feuding among themselves. There is a photo of soldiers in Iraq. A stock exchange chief must return $100M. There is a concern about some doctors over-selling a nerve testing system. There is a threat from China against North Korea. There is a report that violence in Iraq is rising. And there is concern about virtual science classes replacing real ones.

> None of these stories have relevance to my life.

The Tea Party, Iraq war and excessive for-profit medical care ended up having a massive impact in the US. Not every day is going to cover decade-defining events but this day in retrospect seems pretty relevant in understanding the following 10 years of US politics (2006-2016).

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#76

Post by kortilla »

kweingar wrote: post #60
Danjoe4 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not aware of any recent laws that restrict the rights of LGBT individuals, could you please name them?

Just one example: Tennessee has recently passed a law banning “male or female impersonators” from performing in public places. Tennessee also does not alter sex on birth certificates for trans people. Arguably this means that Tennessee banned trans people from performing in public in any capacity.

You do know that LGBTQ refers to 5+ different things, right?

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#77

Post by Meekro »

awb wrote: post #75

> Let us look at the front page of today’s New York Times, the gold standard in news. In the top spot there is a story about Republicans feuding among themselves. There is a photo of soldiers in Iraq. A stock exchange chief must return $100M. There is a concern about some doctors over-selling a nerve testing system. There is a threat from China against North Korea. There is a report that violence in Iraq is rising. A…

Maybe we should distinguish the impact of the story itself from the impact of people reacting to the story after they read the news? The Tea Party talked a lot about taxes and got a bunch of people elected to Congress, but if you simply ignored the news you'd be none the wiser (and totally unaffected). Same is true for the Iraq War -- it surely had major impact for Iraqis, but for most people in the U.S. it may as well have been a non-event. President Bush either lied about WMDs or didn't (depending on who you ask) and we invaded and killed a bunch of people and changed the government. If you ignored the news, you'd be blindsided by people who want to talk about the war or change their vote because of it, but the Iraq War itself probably wouldn't affect you. It didn't affect me, anyway.

Most things in the news are like that. But then again, a lot of things they teach you in school are like that, too. Knowing that humans came from monkeys or that WW2 began in 1939 doesn't really affect my life, but there's a certain kind of shared knowledge that makes it easier to have a community. So maybe following the news is a bit like following Game of Thrones? If all your buddies are going to talk about it on Monday morning, you wouldn't want to be the only one who doesn't know what's going on.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#78

Post by chrisco255 »

city41 wrote: post #73
chrisco255 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess for context I'll add this is Aaron Swartz, a cofounder of Reddit, and fierce advocate for free speech. He was federally prosecuted for wire fraud in 2013 for downloading academic journals from MIT, faced up to 30 years in prison, and committed suicide just before his trial. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz

Aaron is often said to be a reddit founder but I dont think that is true. His Wikipedia page goes into the details. He founded infogami and created web.py as part of that. He later joined up with reddit and helped port reddit from lisp to python. The article states "As a result, Swartz was given the title of co-founder of Reddit." Which sounds retroactive/honorary to me. Not to put down Aaron in any way. Just interes…

You don't have to be at a company at literally the moment of inception in order to be classified as a founder. Basically, did he invest key talent and resources early in the company's lifespan, before it hit product-market fit? Yes.

Infogami (Aaron's company) merged with Reddit 6 months in. Reddit was still largely unknown when infogami merged with it in 2005. Swartz was given equal shares so clearly Ohanian and Huffman valued this merger highly.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#79

Post by Meekro »

jmcgough wrote: post #27

As a queer person watching a slew of recent anti-LGBT laws pass, I wish I could have the luxury of just ignoring the news and not caring. Aaron was 20 when he wrote this and it shows.

What, specifically, would have happened to you if you simply ignored it all? Would you have accidentally violated one of these new laws (in the place where you live) because of not reading the news?

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#80

Post by [deleted] »

kragen wrote: post #71
Kye wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading the NYT would make me less informed on the issues that affect me and people I care about.[0][1] That's the point, I think. "The News" most people consume is a pale imitation of information. A version of this article with 10 years of growth might modify the suggestion toward finding better sources of information. Less New York Times, Fox News, and MSNBC. More ProPublica, NewsHour, and advocacy orgs staffed wit…

your criticism could hardly be worse directed the article does recommend finding better sources of information > to become an informed voter all one needs to do is read a short guide about the candidates and issues before the election. There’s no need to have to suffer through the daily back-and-forth of allegations and counter-allegations, of scurrilous lies and their refutations. Indeed, reading a voter’s guide is…

[deleted]
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