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Why I Disappeared – My week with minimal internet in a remote island chain

kenklippenstein.com

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Re: Why I Disappeared – My week with minimal internet in a remote island chain

#21

Post by its_ethan »

XorNot wrote: post #14
lapcat wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Privilege isn't just about wealth. Which poor people exactly do you consider privileged, and why? > The point is that although anyone can ignore the news, the news won't necessarily ignore them! What can they do about the news, though? I specifically said, "they may feel powerless to change anything".

We live in democracies. The price of entry is a citizenry informed enough to choose how they want many issues of state handled. The alternative is worse, and the result of an uninformed citizenry can be disasterous and a regression towards non-democracy.

The price of entry is actually just being born in the country (or at least that's all that's required in most democracies).

You personally might have the expectation that when you vote, you should be informed about what you're voting on/for - but that is entirely optional.

edit: I'd love to hear about some of your proposed solutions to solving this problem ;)

Re: Why I Disappeared – My week with minimal internet in a remote island chain

#25

Post by phantasmish »

XorNot wrote: post #14
lapcat wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Privilege isn't just about wealth. Which poor people exactly do you consider privileged, and why? > The point is that although anyone can ignore the news, the news won't necessarily ignore them! What can they do about the news, though? I specifically said, "they may feel powerless to change anything".

We live in democracies. The price of entry is a citizenry informed enough to choose how they want many issues of state handled. The alternative is worse, and the result of an uninformed citizenry can be disasterous and a regression towards non-democracy.

99.9% of people would be better voters if they put five hours a week toward reading about and better understanding shit from an undergrad liberal arts program (history, political philosophy, statistics, media studies, basic physical science, economics) and five hours a year into catching up on the news, than vice versa.

Re: Why I Disappeared – My week with minimal internet in a remote island chain

#26

Post by Eisenstein »

kadir1234 wrote: post #13
sallveburrpi wrote: post #3

Escaping the internet on a luxury trip doesn’t disprove political conflict… it just shows how privilege can opt out of reality and sell the experience as clickbaity insight.

Not "privilege" per se, I think that's the wrong word. Republican or Democrat, left or right, rich or very very rich - there is a lot of self-selection bias in judging the world from a pool of people who decided to go on vacation to the Galapagos...

Is it beneficial to be imposing a purity test before taking the meaning of any lesson?

Re: Why I Disappeared – My week with minimal internet in a remote island chain

#27

Post by ryandrake »

slyall wrote: post #19
truculent wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Privilege isn't just about wealth. The point is that although anyone can ignore the news, the news won't necessarily ignore them!

The point is that 90% of the news is unimportant. Often you can read a weekly and that is enough A politician said something and other politicians reacted. Usually unimportant unless it was backed by a law or something. If it was important then the weekly will cover it. Main Character of the day on Social media. unimportant A crime happened nearby. Unimportant A celeb did something. Unimportant Something happened to…

I think OP's point is that if your life is so blessed that "90% of the news is unimportant to you" then that itself is a great, fortunate privilege.

For example, I can tell you that if you are an immigrant in the USA from one of the (now many) targeted countries, even one with legal residency, news about ICE's actions is very relevant and very important to you.

Re: Why I Disappeared – My week with minimal internet in a remote island chain

#28

Post by zhivota »

Ignoring the obvious contradictory nature of the post (a trip to a place that is generally so expensive and time consuming that only the wealthy leisure class can access it yields polite people), what is the alternative to the fast news cycle?

I've been toying with different solutions over the years but haven't found anything great. Magazine subscription to something like the Economist? Weekly Sunday paper subscription?

How to keep up on the news without being jerked around by the engagement machine?

Re: Why I Disappeared – My week with minimal internet in a remote island chain

#29

Post by Eisenstein »

ropetin wrote: post #17

> Contrary to the national security threat machine’s picture of a country at war with itself, we all got along so swimmingly that the idea of a civil war or anything like it struck me as laughable, as did the notion that the statistically insignificant number of politically-motivated killings, though real, said anything at all about the vast majority of real-world Americans. This line of thinking drives me crazy, esp…

I think what he is trying to say is that if we all sit down with each other and stop requiring that people agree with our worldview before engaging in good faith, we would find that we actually get along peacefully. He is saying that it isn't as bad as he thought it was before he experienced a situation where that happened.

Re: Why I Disappeared – My week with minimal internet in a remote island chain

#30

Post by websiteapi »

zhivota wrote: post #28

Ignoring the obvious contradictory nature of the post (a trip to a place that is generally so expensive and time consuming that only the wealthy leisure class can access it yields polite people), what is the alternative to the fast news cycle? I've been toying with different solutions over the years but haven't found anything great. Magazine subscription to something like the Economist? Weekly Sunday paper subscripti…

you don't need to keep up on the news. reject the premise and be free. honestly we wish we could be more ignorant. how do you stop learning about the news when it is everywhere?
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