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Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

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Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#121

Post by tyu1000 »

the_clarence wrote: post #32
soneca wrote: post #20

His post "I hate the news" (0) was(is) very influential for me personally. It was seminal in what become a rather significant change in my habits and view of the world. I am now very conscious that news are entertainment, purely and simply. With the goods and bads of any other entertainment form. From time to time, while explaining my position to others (often seen as kind of radical), I refer this post. I hope it co…

What is a good source of information? By that I mean: - not about daily information (which are usually as fast as possible and don’t take the time to really understand the situation) - not biased - not about juicy news, but world topics that are ~objectively important I feel like there should be a subreddit for that.

I like business news in general. You make money in finance by being right and people in the industry will gravitate towards accurate sources by definition. In general, business news tends to have the best qualified hosts as well, who can actually understand macroeconomic concepts.

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#122

Post by DSingularity »

dhimes wrote: post #117
capulate89 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what's wrong with that argument? Democracy and voting aren't unquestionable goods. Just look at what became of most of the non-democratic countries that the US decided to "liberate" via forcing them to adopt democracy over the years.

With apologies to Pascal[1] You assume your vote doesn't matter. Then If you are correct and you vote, nothing happens. If you are correct and you don't vote, nothing happens. If you are wrong but you vote, you help make change. If you are wrong and you don't vote, you enable bad things to come about. Game theory says to vote. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager

Actually this might be the best argument I've read against this line of reasoning. Thank you.

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#123

Post by paulcole »

chickenfries wrote: post #116
syn0byte wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big pink elephant; In a lot of cases this is a rational, factual argument with the current system (In the US.) Feel free to refute the argument's validity with empirical data. I would genuinely love to see it. I've seen apologetic researchers offer reasons for why their data isn't as damning as it seems, but never seen anything remotely close to proof of validity.

This last presidential election was decided by several thousand votes in a few states. There were even closer local elections this year. One persons vote doesn’t ever decide things, but if you can’t see the absurdity of everyone taking that position, I don’t know what to say.

Isn't it more absurd to say that "everyone" would take that position?

Plus consider that if you increased the number of voters by the margin of victory, what are the odds that 100% of those new voters would vote alike and swing the election?

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#124

Post by norealidea »

syn0byte wrote: post #114
chickenfries wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this post is literally the same argument as “my vote has never changed the outcome of an election so why vote?”

The big pink elephant; In a lot of cases this is a rational, factual argument with the current system (In the US.) Feel free to refute the argument's validity with empirical data. I would genuinely love to see it. I've seen apologetic researchers offer reasons for why their data isn't as damning as it seems, but never seen anything remotely close to proof of validity.

1) That's not how the burden of proof works. 2) This is not a factual or rational thought in the current system. every time the Libertarian or third party does well in an election(like in the last election of 2016), it shows those in power the ideals that are looked at when choosing a candidate. The problem does not inherently lie in the system, it lies in the people telling each other that voting third party is a waste. That train of thought is what is ruining this country(USA), because it's a slippery slope to complete apathy of the system.

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#125

Post by choxi »

josefresco wrote: post #77
soneca wrote: post #20

His post "I hate the news" (0) was(is) very influential for me personally. It was seminal in what become a rather significant change in my habits and view of the world. I am now very conscious that news are entertainment, purely and simply. With the goods and bads of any other entertainment form. From time to time, while explaining my position to others (often seen as kind of radical), I refer this post. I hope it co…

While I like and respect who Aaron was and what he did for us all, I cringed when reading "I Hate the News" because it came across as very naive. It's the same logic young people use to justify not voting, also the same logic my fellow parents use as reason for not attending town meeting. Find new sources, find your news. While today's news doesn't effect you directly, it might tomorrow, or it might effect your frien…

> It's the same logic young people use to justify not voting

He provides some pretty good reasoning that ignoring the news and doing candidate research might be make you a more informed voter.

Could you give an example of something you learned or read in the news that had a practical effect on your life?

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#126

Post by Vraxx »

dhimes wrote: post #117
capulate89 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what's wrong with that argument? Democracy and voting aren't unquestionable goods. Just look at what became of most of the non-democratic countries that the US decided to "liberate" via forcing them to adopt democracy over the years.

With apologies to Pascal[1] You assume your vote doesn't matter. Then If you are correct and you vote, nothing happens. If you are correct and you don't vote, nothing happens. If you are wrong but you vote, you help make change. If you are wrong and you don't vote, you enable bad things to come about. Game theory says to vote. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager

Not to mention with all of the recent events in the US related to voter suppression, my question to people who espouse the opinion of "my vote doesn't matter", my question is this. Then why are those in power actively seeking to undermine this ability that is "useless". If it truly was useless I doubt they'd be scared enough to act against it.

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#128

Post by csallen »

dhimes wrote: post #117
capulate89 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what's wrong with that argument? Democracy and voting aren't unquestionable goods. Just look at what became of most of the non-democratic countries that the US decided to "liberate" via forcing them to adopt democracy over the years.

With apologies to Pascal[1] You assume your vote doesn't matter. Then If you are correct and you vote, nothing happens. If you are correct and you don't vote, nothing happens. If you are wrong but you vote, you help make change. If you are wrong and you don't vote, you enable bad things to come about. Game theory says to vote. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager

The better framework for decision-making is the trusty cost-benefit analysis. For starters, it always reminds you that decisions have costs:

> If you are correct and you vote, nothing happens.

Not true. If you vote, something does happen — you take time out of your day to vote. You're also likely to spend a lot of time researching candidates and issues, following along with the results, telling everyone else that you voted, etc. That investment of time, emotion, and energy comes at a cost. Most importantly, there's the opportunity cost: you could direct those resources to other things, e.g. reading a book, volunteering at a shelter, improving your career, getting extra sleep, etc.

Voting is only worthwhile (at an individual level) if the benefits end up being worth the costs, just like any other decision or course of action.

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#129

Post by nikisweeting »

I have several of his pages and posts saved in my personal Bookmark Archiver archive as well:

https://archive.sweeting.me/archive/1528683804/aaronsw.com/i...

Including his list of saved articles on Pinboard:

https://archive.sweeting.me/archive/1528683819/pinboard.in/u...

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#130

Post by ptero »

josefresco wrote: post #77
soneca wrote: post #20

His post "I hate the news" (0) was(is) very influential for me personally. It was seminal in what become a rather significant change in my habits and view of the world. I am now very conscious that news are entertainment, purely and simply. With the goods and bads of any other entertainment form. From time to time, while explaining my position to others (often seen as kind of radical), I refer this post. I hope it co…

While I like and respect who Aaron was and what he did for us all, I cringed when reading "I Hate the News" because it came across as very naive. It's the same logic young people use to justify not voting, also the same logic my fellow parents use as reason for not attending town meeting. Find new sources, find your news. While today's news doesn't effect you directly, it might tomorrow, or it might effect your frien…

We frequently need to update our mental model of the world (e.g., how are things in country X? what can I do there? is it reasonably safe to visit? what happened yesterday at place Y?). However, mainstream news usually gives me little information and whatever it gives is skewed by that channel/journalist political affiliation. I do not know of a general solution. Sometimes it is talking to neighbors; sometimes doing your own research; sometimes reading three sources at war with each other. But to be useful I have to start with specific questions, not open my brain to random sources peddling outrage.

This "updating the world model" can still include reading news, but for me those should be level headed overviews and not emotional appeals. And they do not need to be real-time: reading news 2 weeks later works just as well and cuts down on "you would not BELIEVE what just happened" type of coverage.

> I cringed when reading "I Hate the News" because it came across as very naive.

To me, this is simple, might be a bit simplistic, rather than naive. Which is good -- erring on the side of simplicity is better than giving such a "nuanced" approach that one cannot get any actionable advice from reading something. I may agree or disagree, but I prefer opinion posts to have clear advice (maybe this is just my preference).

> It's the same logic young people use to justify not voting

I see no problem there. When voting offers two choices, both of which unattractive, it is OK in my book to abstain. I grew up in a place practicing one-candidate votes (i.e., you choose between "in favor" that in the end will show 95+% and "against" with no alternatives) so acquired immunity to "citizen votes solve all problems" mentality.

> Find new sources, find your news. While today's news doesn't effect you directly, it might tomorrow, or it might effect your friend, loved one or neighbor.

The news should not affect my family or friends. Change in the real world could; but I think "news" is not a great source of information to detecting such changes. Just my 2c.

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