I stopped following the news

Post by jwarden » Thu, Jan 29, 2026, 8:14 AM UTC

alamortsubite wrote: post #113

jwarden wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Post by nicbou » Thu, Jan 29, 2026, 8:45 AM UTC

tomhow wrote: post #110

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.

> and that Americans get indignant when it gets flagged It's not exclusively (or mostly) U.S.A. residents who complain about contemporary politics topics getting flagged. We see plenty of complaints from Europe and elsewhere. We've long accepted that there is a large overlap between politics and technology. The Snowden leaks in 2013 were huge on HN, as were several other Wikileaks releases well before that. HN has ne…

Post by nicbou » Thu, Jan 29, 2026, 8:50 AM UTC

relaxing wrote: post #86

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 thought the question was about you reading the news, not about you preventing everyone else from reading the news . Surely the answer is, when you see news related keywords in an article title, to simply not click through. Same as when there’s so bit of technology or corporation that doesn’t interest you.

Post by Sammi » Thu, Jan 29, 2026, 9:48 AM UTC

sotix wrote: post #123

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…

If anyone is interested in keeping up with current events in a manner closer to "reading the history" rather than reading the news, check out Wikipedia's Current Events portal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events

Post by stressback » Thu, Jan 29, 2026, 10:43 AM UTC

oridentity wrote: post #76

keiferski wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that this is downvoted really says it all. "I don't read the news" is pretty much dependent on one's profession being insulated from changing events. Which is not surprising why it's a popular opinion amongst technocrats that would rather not have democracy in the first place.

> on one's profession being insulated Even this is privilege. Try "one's identity". Last year, legal immigrants were fine. Today, their kids are kidnapped and used as bait to take them to Alcatraz. And that's not even the identity I'm mostly referring to. Very cool stance OOP, thank you for identifying yourself as the type of centrist heaven will reject at the gate and angels will never get tired of the reaction to t…