The power of ignoring mainstream news • Hacker News Board

Re: The power of ignoring mainstream news

#101

Post by mixmastamyk » Sun, Sep 16, 2012, 7:18 AM UTC

bpatrianakos wrote: post #83

ghshephard wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually did take the time to read your 852 word, eleven paragraph missive. The part that you didn't capture, is that, by and large, listening to the "news" is not actionable, and mostly serves the purposes of indoctrination, and entertainment. There is also a difference between having a bias towards the truth, and just being biased. Saying "Man landed on the moon" is biased towards the truth. Saying "Science is a…

Then maybe we're thinking about different versions of what the news is. Telling people to shut off the news is destructive because the news is not all indoctrination and entertainment. I'm not an idiot. I know what the news is in that sense. But when you put out a broad call to shut it all off that means shutting out the good stuff too. The better solution I'm talking about is knowing how to tell the difference. If y…

Your concerns seem well-intentioned but they miss the point of the post. The knuckle-draggers you worry about aren't searching out blog posts looking for reasons to stop participating. The fact of the matter is that it has been shown that people who watch TV news know less (or more false things) than those who do.

Re: The power of ignoring mainstream news

#102

Post by Firehed » Sun, Sep 16, 2012, 7:47 AM UTC

mixmastamyk wrote: post #97

pinaceae wrote: post #92

'ignorance is bliss'. go ahead, tune out the news. please stop voting though, democracy relies on the informed voter. and good luck in the capitalist economy, that one relies on information as well. as this is hn, let's focus on the founder's perspective. if you have no clue about what's going on in the world, how can you compete within it? if you have no clue about your target group's current situation? pick anythin…

Baffled because you think that "the news" == keeping informed. The two have little to do with each other. If you want to learn something, turn off the idiot box and pick up a book.

Books, by and large, are useless in keeping up on current events. The news, despite all it's faults, is current - which is what's meant by "informed" in this context.

That's not to say that you shouldn't read books nor that the news is the best way to stay informed, but saying that reading books is the best way to stay on top of current issues is provably wrong.

Re: The power of ignoring mainstream news

#103

Post by goggles99 » Sun, Sep 16, 2012, 9:24 AM UTC

News is sensationalized, augmented, agendized, skewed, propaganda, entertainmentized garbage.

Could not agree with the author more. Only pay attention to "the news" if you spend the necessary time online researching and finding out each real/complete story (facts and both sides of the story). Otherwise how can you not help being persuaded and shaped by the mainstream media?

Re: The power of ignoring mainstream news

#104

Post by goggles99 » Sun, Sep 16, 2012, 9:30 AM UTC

bpatrianakos wrote: post #46

This is terrible advice and not something I think people should be recommending to others. I love Joel's posts enough to subscribe to the rss feed (which I have never done for any site ever) but this post is something I strongly disagree with for many good reasons. The idea he puts forth is incredibly naive and has not been taken to its natural conclusion. He talks about the negative side of keeping up with the news…

Not following the news is what causes harm. We pay a price for ignorance and the bill is about due.

Following the biased and agendized mainstream news machine is even worse. If you only hear one side ever every story, your sense of reality and judgment will be warped (this is brainwashing). You will be out of touch with reality more so than if you did not follow the news at all because you will be biased based on what you have always heard.

Re: The power of ignoring mainstream news

#105

Post by mixmastamyk » Sun, Sep 16, 2012, 6:22 PM UTC

Firehed wrote: post #102

mixmastamyk wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Baffled because you think that "the news" == keeping informed. The two have little to do with each other. If you want to learn something, turn off the idiot box and pick up a book.

Books, by and large, are useless in keeping up on current events. The news, despite all it's faults, is current - which is what's meant by "informed" in this context. That's not to say that you shouldn't read books nor that the news is the best way to stay informed, but saying that reading books is the best way to stay on top of current issues is provably wrong.

No, keeping "informed" is not about knowing what happened in the last hour, or a sting of unrelated events over five years.

It is about the larger movements that shape humanity. These aren't discussed in any meaningful way on the TV news except at the fringe. Books, and long-form magazines are accessible, concentrated stores of knowledge, and you won't have to waste time on daily gossip, which is useless.

Re: The power of ignoring mainstream news

#106

Post by Roelven » Sun, Sep 16, 2012, 7:39 PM UTC

I strongly agree. I became happier once I stopped following whatever mainstream news channels. I consume new things via social circles (no G+ pun intended), meaning there's a sifter of curators picking stuff for me. I'm aware of the fact that this can put you in some sort of tunnelvision, but you can prevent that by sticking your head out now and then to sniff something new.

Re: The power of ignoring mainstream news

#107

Post by kiba » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 1:30 PM UTC

jberryman wrote: post #80

kiba wrote: post #35

One of the problem that the OP blog points out is that mainstream news dish out bad news that encourage an exaggerated and wraped fearful worldview. For example, when a mass murder incident happens, people talk a lot about gun violence and how it's gripping the country and we should do something about it. Of course, they forgot that 40K people die in car accidents, 600K more die of heart disease and about 500K more d…

You are aware that gun deaths are on course to exceed auto deaths this year? While the gov. has spent billions over decades to prevent auto deaths, cancer deaths, etc., effectively $0 have been spent to study and prevent gun deaths; how is it irrational to be concerned about that?

Gun death looks like a proximate cause. Guns are tools for suicide, or for killing people who you don't like. If you want to reduce gun related death, you should look into suicide research and criminology/sociology research. You could ban guns, but it's likely that people will kill each other with something else. There's no shortage of methods on way to kill somebody.

Anyway, do you have a citation? I have mine, which is http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

Re: The power of ignoring mainstream news

#108

Post by dromidas » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 5:46 PM UTC

The last time I saw any mainstream news that wasn't part of a youtube joke clip or actually important enough to make it to news sites like slashdot was... well... I think this one time in 5th grade around 1991 I was forced to read a news article of my choice to write an essay about. I don't remember what it was about or anything though these days.

So yeah, last time I saw a paper was 1991. Last time I saw a news TV thing was probably mid 90s as well, but I don't remember it since I have literally never seen a full news hour or however long it goes.