Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I Hate the News (2006)

aaronsw.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 192 posts

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#31

Post by talmand »

bkurtz13 wrote: post #21

He uses voting as an example. Which begs the question: why vote? If you're living within a corrupt, self-serving political system (we are), then naturally the only people who run for office will be products of that system. If a candidate who genuinely wants to change the status quo somehow manages to slip in, they will be prevented from achieving anything meaningful once inside. No matter what, none of these people h…

"I have solved this political dilemma in a very direct way: I don't vote. On Election Day, I stay home. I firmly believe that if you vote, you have no right to complain. Now, some people like to twist that around. They say, 'If you don't vote, you have no right to complain,' but where's the logic in that? If you vote, and you elect dishonest, incompetent politicians, and they get into office and screw everything up, you are responsible for what they have done. You voted them in. You caused the problem. You have no right to complain. I, on the other hand, who did not vote -- who did not even leave the house on Election Day -- am in no way responsible for that these politicians have done and have every right to complain about the mess that you created."

-George Carlin

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#32

Post by bsdpython »

jheriko wrote: post #15

News does serve at least one basic function, even if many other things can do the same: It gives you something to talk about and ask opinions on.

This is true of sports as well. I can't talk to the average person (and family members) about asynchronous job queues but I can talk about how much the Knicks suck.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#33

Post by _bfhp »

How would Lawrence Lessig feel about this article? Lessig obviously believes that the U.S. political parties' activities are consequential to everyone's lives.

Aaron seems to reject the notion of the implicit involvement, in a democracy, of every citizen in the affairs of their government. We supposedly elect (a significant portion of) the government, we pay for its activities, so we should care about what it has done and continues to do in Iraq. Virtually every extremist who has attacked the U.S. and lived to be captured and give statements in trial has cited U.S. foreign policy as a chief motivation for their actions. This alone should have us caring about U.S. foreign policy.

I agree that news covers too many topics to report on any of them consistently well (or guard against interested parties shaping the news into propaganda). I think there's a Poe's-Law-type meme about that.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#34

Post by slau »

austenallred wrote: post #8

I, strangely enough, agree with Most of what Aaron says. And I'm the founder of a news company. I worry about this attitude on a macro scale, but it's hard to argue with on a micro one. I spend most of my day following what's going on in the world, and it hasn't added much value to my life. But I worry about everyone not caring. Not because that would kill my company (I started it because I hate news in its current f…

It's apparently not possible to use a space in the password. Please don't limit the characters or length of a password. Thanks.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#35

Post by TeMPOraL »

INTPenis wrote: post #2

I couldn't agree more with Aaron on that. A lot of people have started turning a blind eye to the TV, but very often they replace it with constant news coverage online. So they really have made no significant change in their lives. They're still spoonfed with something that has never had any impact on them, and most likely never will. Anything with a significant impact, and unfortunately many things without it, are r…

That's why I limited my news to Hacker News. Whenever there is an event that actually matters - like a war or a cataclysm - it will be here, upvoted and with comments made by people who know what they're talking about. I don't mind missing the 99% of the typical news sites content.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#36

Post by Toenex »

bkurtz13 wrote: post #21

He uses voting as an example. Which begs the question: why vote? If you're living within a corrupt, self-serving political system (we are), then naturally the only people who run for office will be products of that system. If a candidate who genuinely wants to change the status quo somehow manages to slip in, they will be prevented from achieving anything meaningful once inside. No matter what, none of these people h…

Because otherwise you leave the decision to those that do.

Vote. Spoil your ballot paper if you must (these get counted, at least in the UK) but take part in the process. Otherwise you are indistinguishable from those that couldn't be bothered or didn't care.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#37

Post by talmand »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #20
detaro wrote: post #16

I know the feeling, but I worry about the consequences. There are news I think as many people as possible should process. How is democracy or any discussion as a society supposed to work if people don't know about the issues going on? It is a problem that seemingly all news channels use "wrong" selection criteria about what to report, including a lot of things that are not directly important, leading to fatigue and n…

> How is democracy or any discussion as a society supposed to work if people don't know about the issues going on? It's not supposed to work. Democracy makes us fell like we have a say in politics, but we really don't. If we did, there wouldn't be mass surveillance, governments wouldn't be taking away our rights, and criminalizing entire segments of the population. But hey, at least we can vote once every few years,…

Well, true democracy is a serious problem for many people right from the start. Which is why true democracy in the world is very rare.

But, once a government reaches the point of what you describe, that is no longer a government of the people and has become something else. Which, according to history, is almost certainly inevitable.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#38

Post by chez17 »

bkurtz13 wrote: post #21

He uses voting as an example. Which begs the question: why vote? If you're living within a corrupt, self-serving political system (we are), then naturally the only people who run for office will be products of that system. If a candidate who genuinely wants to change the status quo somehow manages to slip in, they will be prevented from achieving anything meaningful once inside. No matter what, none of these people h…

Well the majority of people aren't voting and our system is clearly going to shit on a major level. The point is that it's your civic duty to vote, people fought and died for your right to vote, and it's the best non-violent way for you to impact your world. It boggles my mind when people advocate for others not to vote. You know that's what the power structure wants right? An apathetic population. How on earth can people look at our current situation, where the majority don't vote, and say it's working? How can people look at that and say the solution for more people to not vote? I'll never understand it.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#39

Post by karmacondon »

This misunderstands the point of news. People read it to have common subjects of conversation, filtered through the same perspective. It's actually important to human discourse within society. So that when two people are making small talk, one can say "Did you see what happened with Hilary Clinton/LeBron James/Kanye West?" It's pointless, but pointless communication has a role as a social lubricant. It lets people build up to weightier topics, or just politely pass the time together. And common knowledge of news subjects is a part of that system.

Ultimately, news is a form of entertainment. Now more than ever. People don't watch Fox News or MSNBC to be more informed voters or to take personal action. Many of them want to hear what Personality X has to say about Event Y. Same with twitter or facebook or the opinion section of the local newspaper. And that's cool. If that's what someone finds interesting or entertaining, then so be it.

In general, all of the arguments in this post could be applied to anything that people read, watch, play or listen to. From reality tv to Shakespeare. "It doesn't involve me and isn't useful in my daily life" and "I've lived without it for a long time and my life is no less rich" are generic statements that would be equally valid discussing pretty much any form of diversion. Part of maturity is realizing that the world is full of things that you don't like, and that belittling those things or questioning their value doesn't do any good. We all get to decide how to waste our time. Let people have their news.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#40

Post by svdree »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #20
detaro wrote: post #16

I know the feeling, but I worry about the consequences. There are news I think as many people as possible should process. How is democracy or any discussion as a society supposed to work if people don't know about the issues going on? It is a problem that seemingly all news channels use "wrong" selection criteria about what to report, including a lot of things that are not directly important, leading to fatigue and n…

> How is democracy or any discussion as a society supposed to work if people don't know about the issues going on? It's not supposed to work. Democracy makes us fell like we have a say in politics, but we really don't. If we did, there wouldn't be mass surveillance, governments wouldn't be taking away our rights, and criminalizing entire segments of the population. But hey, at least we can vote once every few years,…

> If we did, there wouldn't be mass surveillance

Are you sure? Outside of this little bubble we live in, there are lots of people willing to give up every last bit of privacy ("nothing to hide"), in exchange for the government giving them the feeling of "safety".

Post reply on HN