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The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

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Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#131

Post by enumjorge »

GordonS wrote: post #89
clay_the_ripper wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did the same thing about 4 years ago and haven’t looked back. I find though that a lot of people are actually offended by it since I have no clue what thing they and everyone else is outraged about. I get accused of not caring, being disengaged, blah blah blah. It’s difficult to explain to people who are still deep in outrage mode, so I mostly avoid taking about it. My life is so much better since cutting out the new…

I did the same 1-2 years ago, and haven't regretted it. Interestingly, I've experienced the same thing where others seem offended by decision, and I also get accused of being insular and "living in my own little bubble". I just don't get this though - what exactly am I losing out on?

I do agree that paying too much attention to the crazy that’s going on is not constructive or healthy. But you can definitely overcorrect.

If you completely disconnect you have no data with which to make your decisions come election time. A lot of what’s happening in politics does affect you directly. Changes to tax code, the budget, deregulation of industries (e.g. net neutrality).

And some of it may not affect you directly but affects people in the communities you live in. A Supreme Court nominee had allegations of sexual assault and gambling problems brought against him. Regardless of what you believe, it behooves you to be aware that this is happening. If the accusations were true don’t you want to know? It affects the women in your life to have someone like that be given a lifelong appointment to the most powerful court of the land. If the accusations weren’t, wouldn’t that be important too?

If you’re taking a break to maintain sanity I can understand that. But if you’re simply shrugging your shoulders at what’s happening simply because it doesn’t affect you right now—and trust me, some of the policies this administration is adopting are having a big impact on some—then I think that’s a pretty shitty, selfish attitude to have.

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#132

Post by [deleted] »

steelframe wrote: post #14

I stopped reading the news about a year ago. I felt like my emotions were being manipulated by a sharply-honed system built precisely to invoke outrage and draw you in to read more and more of it. I've been able to direct my focus and energy to much more productive tasks since I disconnected. Of course I entirely missed that whole Supreme Court thing until after it was over, and I have no idea what people around me a…

[deleted]

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#133

Post by s_y_n_t_a_x »

tombert wrote: post #48
stcredzero wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the worst offenders of this are Fox News, but it's not like CNN or MSNBC are blameless. I remember being disgusted at Fox News, especially during the WMD debacle. I was right there with Jon Stewart when he criticized it as "Faux News." Certainly, "it's not like CNN or MSNBC are blameless." In recent years, they've become every bit as bad. there's this bizarre, us-against-them, almost-conspiratorial vibe to a…

I still don't think CNN or MSNBC are as bad as Fox News yet. Sean Hannity is basically Alex Jones-lite, and Tucker Carlson is pretty much completely disingenuous (and if you want to talk about us-versus-them, I recommend counting the number of times he says "elites" during his show). Plus, Fox and Friends is pretty much just an elaborate propaganda program for the president at this point. Even if you agree with Trump…

Fox is the only mainstream cable news that shows the other side. The two programs you mentioned are opinion segments. The daily programming is much more balanced.

IMO the daily segments at Fox have been much more fair in the recent years than CNN or MSNBC have been.

Disclaimer: I am conservative. It's hard to watch left-leaning cable news. It's also hard watching hard right wing segments like Hannity. I do watch one segment of Fox (The Five). I like the 5 panel dynamic.

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#134

Post by malvosenior »

enumjorge wrote: post #131
GordonS wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did the same 1-2 years ago, and haven't regretted it. Interestingly, I've experienced the same thing where others seem offended by decision, and I also get accused of being insular and "living in my own little bubble". I just don't get this though - what exactly am I losing out on?

I do agree that paying too much attention to the crazy that’s going on is not constructive or healthy. But you can definitely overcorrect. If you completely disconnect you have no data with which to make your decisions come election time. A lot of what’s happening in politics does affect you directly. Changes to tax code, the budget, deregulation of industries (e.g. net neutrality). And some of it may not affect you…

> And some of it may not affect you directly but affects people in the communities you live in. A Supreme Court nominee had allegations of sexual assault and gambling problems brought against him. Regardless of what you believe, it behooves you to be aware that this is happening. If the accusations were true don’t you want to know? It affects the women in your life to have someone like that be given a lifelong appointment to the most powerful court of the land. If the accusations weren’t, wouldn’t that be important too?

This example is exactly why someone should ignore the news. This was pure partisan bickering and mud slinging. Not once during the whole episode were Kavanaugh's actual positions discussed. Just rumors, gossip, fighting and soundbites. No one came out ahead paying attention to this story.

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#135

Post by leftyted »

irq wrote: post #58
clay_the_ripper wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did the same thing about 4 years ago and haven’t looked back. I find though that a lot of people are actually offended by it since I have no clue what thing they and everyone else is outraged about. I get accused of not caring, being disengaged, blah blah blah. It’s difficult to explain to people who are still deep in outrage mode, so I mostly avoid taking about it. My life is so much better since cutting out the new…

Honest question, how do you turn off your empathy for the suffering of your fellow countrymen? Which is what ignoring their plight would require (at least, it would for me).

I don't experience this kind of empathy very often.

For example, I don't get upset when a plane crashes or there's a mass shooting. I can imagine myself in the position of the victims. I can imagine if someone I loved died in a situation like that and I can simulate some of the grief and anger I think I'd feel. But that exercise seems sort of selfish to me. In general, these kind of tragic events don't affect my mood.

I do sometimes experience this kind of empathy when I'm reading history or a human-interest story about some tragic or unfair situation.

It seems to me that many people assume that all good behavior flows from empathy. I don't think this is true. I use various philosophical viewpoints to justify (or rationalize) my behavior: sometimes utilitarianism, sometimes the categorical imperative, and often a vague sort of humanism.

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#136

Post by bilbo0s »

GordonS wrote: post #89
clay_the_ripper wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did the same thing about 4 years ago and haven’t looked back. I find though that a lot of people are actually offended by it since I have no clue what thing they and everyone else is outraged about. I get accused of not caring, being disengaged, blah blah blah. It’s difficult to explain to people who are still deep in outrage mode, so I mostly avoid taking about it. My life is so much better since cutting out the new…

I did the same 1-2 years ago, and haven't regretted it. Interestingly, I've experienced the same thing where others seem offended by decision, and I also get accused of being insular and "living in my own little bubble". I just don't get this though - what exactly am I losing out on?

Well, the good news is that you guys aren't losing out on it!

You're on HN. Which means you get your daily dose of "outrage porn" like anyone else. I think many people don't think of HN as, basically, a "News" site. With a large percentage of the front page dedicated to "outrage porn". "Big Tech Helping China." "US Workers Highly Taxed." Etc etc etc. And those are just the more, kind of, moderate examples. I think yesterday's: "San Francisco's Slow Motion Suicide" was an example that went a bit further. And there have been discussions on here that just tend to devolve into extremism relatively quickly. (I guess the San Fran post from yesterday devolved into extremism relatively quickly as well. But I suppose I'm talking about discussions that tend to devolve right away.)

At any rate, yeah, if we're on HN, we can't realistically claim to have sworn off news, or "outrage porn". We're just, kind of, comfortable with the "outrage porn" that we get from Hacker News. So much so that some of us, apparently, don't even recognize it as news, or "outrage porn".

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#137

Post by asark »

smolder wrote: post #57
edpichler wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be careful about what kind of news you ignore. The punishment to who ignore politics, per example, is being governed by who cares.

That seems like it should hold true, generally. However, it doesn't seem to hold true in present day US politics. Most people who pay attention aren't any less punished than those who don't. Very little of the political news has to do with policy or issues that are up for meaningful debate, and when it does it lacks nuance. Sometimes when unpopular legislation is in the pipeline there's not even an adequate descripti…

> There's evidence to suggest voters preferences don't really impact policy in the long term, such as the Princeton study.

The dirty little (open) secret of US politics: nothing, nothing an individual does really matters unless they put in tons of time (time doing things, not reading Twitter), tons of money, or both. And even then it's a crapshoot unless you've got serious cash.

Less true at a very local level. Definitely true of anything past the county level or so.

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#138

Post by Pharmakon »

steelframe wrote: post #14

I stopped reading the news about a year ago. I felt like my emotions were being manipulated by a sharply-honed system built precisely to invoke outrage and draw you in to read more and more of it. I've been able to direct my focus and energy to much more productive tasks since I disconnected. Of course I entirely missed that whole Supreme Court thing until after it was over, and I have no idea what people around me a…

Have you ever read the Financial Times? More broadly, in addition to FT I try to get a multitude of perspectives without straying too far into extremes (so no Fox News, no CNN) and I try to rely on single-topic sites. FT, NYT, Jerusalem Post, AlJazeera, Aviation Week, BBC, SkyNews, a handful of science and tech journals, HN, and some others. You can get a fairly balanced (not perfect) perspective without the kind of moral panicking and clickbait you’d often find. BBC and Sky being exceptions, but that’s my local news.

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#139

Post by 0xDEFC0DE »

stcredzero wrote: post #124
0xDEFC0DE wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Citation? 'Sunlight' from the press doesn't necessarily do anything in a court of law, which is the actual thing that is supposed to disinfect society. A bomb-shell story which drags a corporation or white collar criminal through the mud won't necessarily lead to successful prosecution. And using sunlight to simply damage a reputation has been used as well. It depends if you believe it's sunlight or not, so we just…

And using sunlight to simply damage a reputation has been used as well. It depends if you believe it's sunlight or not, so we just go back to old-hat media problems. So let there be a "Free Marketplace of Ideas." This is again, precisely why we need Free Speech! It's when our society lets someone be the arbiter of what's allowed to be said and heard, that we run into problems.

Well, we can't uninvent the technology of the day, so that's likely to end up like unregulated social media, but we know there are issues with disinformation easily reaching a large number of people (again, old-hat propaganda, just we don't have to throw pamphlets out of planes now).

This isn't an easy problem to solve and I certainly don't have the answers.

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#140

Post by stcredzero »

fwip wrote: post #125
stcredzero wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quillette has proven to be of consistent poor quality, IMO. (and further, I've found it dishonest) I've found them willing to take unpopular positions for the sake of truth. What have they done which is dishonest? https://quillette.com/2019/04/08/what-explains-the-resistanc...

Being unpopular doesn't mean you're right. Looking up a few articles, it seems that they're just racists in lab coats.

Please provide a citation. As far as I can tell, you're just engaging in namecalling.
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