I stopped following the news • Hacker News Board

Re: I stopped following the news

#141

Post by popalchemist » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 8:37 PM UTC

switchers wrote: post #122

popalchemist wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the world is on fire and people are suffering, we have a moral obligation to be aware of it and take part in the healing. To turn off your access to the media is a temporary solution that may well be justified in the short term, but you do not have the luxury of forgoing your part in this world, because if you do, it will burn all the way to your doorstep. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXgWZyb_HgE

If you already have a prepared list then fair enough, but what are you personally doing to take part in the healing of society that consuming mainstream news media helps with? The person you're replying to hasn't said they live as a hermit and don't engage in any part of their local society. I fully agree that it all seems fucked and there is no point in following anything other than specific tech stuff I'm intereste…

I'm not necessarily advocating for "consuming mainstream news," more for "not unplugging from discourse." Those can go together, but they don't have to. We still have a responsibility to know what's going on in the world even if we reject certain means of receiving that information.

Re: I stopped following the news

#142

Post by mvdtnz » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 8:57 PM UTC

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #85

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.

OK well, it's been my experience that even well informed people from around the world do not understand a lot of American news, so cutting down on it probably doesn't help the nuance building. Aside from that there are a lot of Americans on HN, it's reasonable that they expect to be able to discuss what effects them. I haven't really noticed politics of other countries get flagged that much, does it? Other than stuff…

> it's been my experience that even well informed people from around the world do not understand a lot of American news

I do not care to understand American news. I don't give a fuck. I follow your politics in the same way I watch a circus, but I do not need to "understand" it.

Re: I stopped following the news

#143

Post by amanaplanacanal » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 9:31 PM UTC

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

If you are really interested in data, you might check out the Freedom House website. They have been rating countries around the world on things like free elections and civil rights since 1973, and their take is that things have been going downhill since about 2006, with countries becoming more autocratic.

Re: I stopped following the news

#144

Post by watwut » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 9:39 PM UTC

leadingthenet wrote: post #132

JKCalhoun wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If the last couple of weeks are anything to go by, I'd strongly argue the quality of discourse on any ICE/Trump/Tariffs-related topics have been at exactly Reddit-level, along with the most upvoted opinions mirroring those on Reddit almost to a tee. I vaguely remember checking one of those ICE posts out the other day, and there was not a single comment going against the grain that was neither flagged nor heavily down…

Nuanced understanding of a thing does not necessary ends up with opinion in the middle. Sometimes, understanding the nuance will make you walk away with "yep, this is bad and dangerous" conclusion.

Overwhelming majority of people concluding that shooting protesters to back or head is a bad thing does not imply lack of nuance or low quality of the discussion. Overwhelming majority of people concluding that political repressions and fear based government are bad thing does not not imply lack of nuance or low quality of the discussion either.

The both sides and truth in the middle knee jerk is does not represent nuance or meaningful discussion. It frequently muddles nuances, creates false equivalences and makes the discussion loose the substance.

Re: I stopped following the news

#145

Post by watwut » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 9:47 PM UTC

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…

> Think what the villages around the concentration camps must have known and yet did nothing.

If you mean extermination camps, they knew. They were also part of occupied, conquered and heavily terrorized lands. They occasionally did something, terrorist attack against Germans here and there, usually retaliated against by killing a lot of random citizens. Usually motivated by plight of own people.

Extermination camps were located in Poland - German plans involved moving away and killing all Polish, so that they can be replaced by Germans. Germans seen Jews as primary danger to be exterminated fast, Slavic as secondary lower value being to be exterminated slowly in time. Polish army lost the war. And random villagers were not in position to do anything about the highly violent occupying army.

(And yes, Jews were at danger of being denounced by anti semitic locals too. Turned out one could be subject of racial oppression and being oppressor himself).

Re: I stopped following the news

#146

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 10:12 PM UTC

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…

"Outside of Sunday morning I don't read the news at all."

Excerpt from comment submitted to Hacker News, an online news aggregator

On Wednesday

Is Hacker News news

Re: I stopped following the news

#147

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 10:15 PM UTC

6bb32646d83d wrote: post #139

nialv7 wrote: post #47

What a privilege, what a luxury, to be able to turn a blind eye to all the injustice that's currently happening in the world... Sure, do what you want, ignore news if that makes you feel better, but do realise for many, they are not afforded this kind of luxury.

I keep reading this point of view, that not being glued to the news is "privilege". I completely disagree. Refreshing your feed all day long, getting angry at all the news, does not make someone superior. I'm not going to travel to support the iranian uprising, or going hide illegal immigrants in a Minneapolis basement, and it is likely that neither are you. So the end result is the same, except the person consuming…

[deleted]

Re: I stopped following the news

#148

Post by bigstrat2003 » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 10:54 PM UTC

leadingthenet wrote: post #132

JKCalhoun wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If the last couple of weeks are anything to go by, I'd strongly argue the quality of discourse on any ICE/Trump/Tariffs-related topics have been at exactly Reddit-level, along with the most upvoted opinions mirroring those on Reddit almost to a tee. I vaguely remember checking one of those ICE posts out the other day, and there was not a single comment going against the grain that was neither flagged nor heavily down…

Agreed. HN has proven time and time again that it is incapable of having a good discussion on politics, or at least American politics. The threads are always chock full of flamebait, outgroup-bashing, and unwillingness to consider other points of view. I flag every single post I see about American politics at this point because they are always, without fail, extremely low quality threads.

Re: I stopped following the news

#149

Post by bigstrat2003 » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 10:56 PM UTC

popalchemist wrote: post #80

defrost wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read their comment and at no point did I get the impression they were burying their head in the sand. They explicitly stated they knew where to read / hear about US politics and did not see the need to have that news domain echoed across every forum.

They may be aware of it, but others who frequent this particular forum may have HN as THEIR source. When someone like the above commenter tries to gatekeep areas where discussion, particularly of things like fascism or other forms of oppression, takes place, it only serves and furthers the goals of the oppressor. There is no domain of life which is not intrinsically political. When we act like there is -- such as whe…

> There is no domain of life which is not intrinsically political.

There are a great many such domains, and the insistence that everything is political is one of the chief problems with modern society. We can, and should, be able to enjoy some things together without bringing up bickering and strife. If you drag politics into a politics free zone you aren't taking responsibility for anything, you are just being a jerk.

Re: I stopped following the news

#150

Post by h4kunamata » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 10:57 PM UTC

YouTube is the new news and TV replacement altogether.

It is not hard to filter out AI slop, stick with channels known for being true and unbiased, specially stick with independent journalists channel and known podcast.

Everything else is a lost cause, main stream media?? Suuuuuure

Social media, the more time spent at it, the more depressed and brain washed you get, just bad news after bad news. Ditch those and follow YouTube to notice a positive response, you keep up to date without feeling like WW3 is happening tomorrow.