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I stopped following the news

mertbulan.com

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Re: I stopped following the news

#111

Post by afpx »

sjw987 wrote: post #4

I think it's important to keep reading the news occasionally. Personally, I, as a programmer, read the news in the same way as my grandad who was a farmer. I read a printed weekly publication (in my case The Economist) on Sunday morning. Outside of Sunday morning I don't read the news at all. I prefer printed news to media-supported news, because I think the imagery (I acknowledge The Economist still has images) and…

I talk to enough people to tell me when something is important enough to know. I assume that's how news used to be transferred.

Re: I stopped following the news

#112

Post by alamortsubite »

gyanchawdhary wrote: post #93
popalchemist wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sympathize, and the attitude may be annoying, but you've got to realize you can not bury your head in the sand about the global rise in fascism, nor the fact that what happens in America affects the entire world. Imagine if you were to transfer your comment back to WWII era, perhaps you're French and you're saying that you're tired of hearing about this little kerfuffle between Germany and Austria... well, clearly…

“global rise in fascism” implies a baseline ... when was fascism declining exactly? curious what point you're measuring this rise from

GP hinted at that if you read the rest of their comment, but it took a serious nose-dive during the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan, and kinda petered out with Franco.

Re: I stopped following the news

#113

Post by alamortsubite »

jwarden wrote: post #66
danmaz74 wrote: post #9

I completely understand why, but on the other hand democracy relies on citizens being informed about what's happening. The risk is that one day, you wake up and there is no democracy any more.

Reading the news and being informed are two separate things. Being an informed citizen, the kind that democracies need to survive, also requires 1) being informed of history and 2) understanding issues in depth. People who consume a lot of news tend to have very shallow understanding of a broad range of current events. Worse they tend to be passive receivers of news instead of active seekers of information with inten…

I'd like to get a little pedantic here and suggest it's not reading the news that's so problematic, it's 1) watching it, and 2) scrolling it. Not that print can't be effective propaganda, but it's less optimized to the task than 1 and 2. The passive pawns can't get enough of either.

Re: I stopped following the news

#114

Post by lippihom »

There's two kinds of news I read, both of which I've found give a "good enough" / "middle ground" picture of things.

1) Financial news, specifically the Financial Times - middle, Bloomberg - slightly left leaning, and the Economist, slightly right leaning. I've found that they have incentives to keep their news as close to just presenting the pure information as possible, as their readers are often making investment decisions based on the quality of the information, resulting in wanting zero "spin". This isn't the case for the NYT or WSJ, which have an incentive misalignment.

2) Anything that shows up on Hacker News. I trust that if something is important enough to get posted here (and make the front page), then I should probably be aware of it. The comments are for the most part measured, analytical, and thought-provoking.

Re: I stopped following the news

#115

Post by ruszki »

tmcz26 wrote: post #51
james-bcn wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Economist rocks. They also have a wonderful daily summary of the news that takes five mins to read.

Would that be this? Just checking: https://www.economist.com/the-world-in-brief

Yep, at least that’s what I know of. They refresh it several times per day, but it’s more than enough to check it once per day.

Re: I stopped following the news

#116

Post by RickJWagner »

The author of this piece has set himself on a course towards lower blood pressure, better world outlook, and better chances of longevity. If you meet him on the street, he will probably be smiling, this year or thirty years from now.

Smart guy.

Re: I stopped following the news

#117

Post by JKCalhoun »

nicbou wrote: post #59
kornaki wrote: post #18

I’ve had similar experiences. These days I only visit Hacker News to read some tech-related stuff. For me, not reading the news to the point where I ask my mom to turn off the TV when I visit is important, because I want to avoid hearing anything about wars, etc. As someone who lives in Poland, I followed so much news about the war in Ukraine in 2022 and 2023, and it was really bad for my well-being and my behavior.…

It’s unfortunate that American news slip into the HN feed, and that Americans get indignant when it gets flagged. I took so much flak for saying that I already know where to hear about US politics, and don’t need it forced into every unrelated forum.

Front page consists of 30 links. If one of those 30 is related to politics I don't see the problem. Just don't click on it.

Right now I see two posts about Rust (don't program in it, don't care), Kyber is hiring (retired, not interested in a job), etc. That's fine though, I just don't visit those links/comments.

Re: I stopped following the news

#118

Post by JKCalhoun »

tessierashpool9 wrote: post #105
nicbou wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s unfortunate that American news slip into the HN feed, and that Americans get indignant when it gets flagged. I took so much flak for saying that I already know where to hear about US politics, and don’t need it forced into every unrelated forum.

I second that and I think the HN moderation (@dang) here should do a better job keeping things on topic. That is actually super important because HN will eventually just be another reddit. Quality of conversation here has been deteriorating already significantly in the past years due to more and more people with insignificant curiosity about technology and science but all the more interest for engaging in pointless p…

Reddit is a shit platform for discussing politics. The users on this site have much more interesting things to say about politics from my experience.

Re: I stopped following the news

#119

Post by gyanchawdhary »

alamortsubite wrote: post #112
gyanchawdhary wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“global rise in fascism” implies a baseline ... when was fascism declining exactly? curious what point you're measuring this rise from

GP hinted at that if you read the rest of their comment, but it took a serious nose-dive during the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan, and kinda petered out with Franco.

That’s not an answer, it’s historical hand waving .. "global rise in fascism" it seems .. lol

Re: I stopped following the news

#120

Post by JKCalhoun »

gigatexal wrote: post #73
kornaki wrote: post #18

I’ve had similar experiences. These days I only visit Hacker News to read some tech-related stuff. For me, not reading the news to the point where I ask my mom to turn off the TV when I visit is important, because I want to avoid hearing anything about wars, etc. As someone who lives in Poland, I followed so much news about the war in Ukraine in 2022 and 2023, and it was really bad for my well-being and my behavior.…

> But I’m grateful for the people who do follow the news, read it, protest against the bullshit, and participate more in the democratic process than I do. This is a completely human response to the horrible things happening the world both domestic and abroad. It’s also history repeating itself: doing nothing when bad things are happening in our communities is what allows them to happen. Think what the villages around…

"doing nothing when bad things are happening in our communities is what allows them to happen…"

Sounds familiar. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." (Attribution appears to be a matter of debate.)

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