181–190 of 203 posts
Just stop watching tv and listening to radio. Cold turkey. I quit on 2011. We need campaigns like the "quit smoking" or "keep america beautiful" (anti trash): no tv and no radio I always intended to write a summary on my transition from media junkie to my present state. I don't need to know about a person I have never met or a place I will never go. BUT with the internet I can (on my terms) find out about said person…
I think some of the fear is justified. Climate change is a very real threat and it's justifiably scary. Our government, in the last 8 years, used remotely operated drones to carry out extrajudicial killings of American citizens -- including a teenage boy. Our security state now engages in mass surveillance of us in a time when our government is engaging in extraordinary rendition of suspected "terrorists" in secret w…
What's unique about this time in history is the degree of transparency and information we have available... > Our government, in the last 8 years, used remotely operated drones to carry out extrajudicial killings of American citizens -- including a teenage boy. Governments have done all manner of terrible things to their own people and others throughout history. What's new in this era is it's becoming harder and hard…
I'm by no means advocating a lack of transparency but ignorance is bliss.
We live in the age of fear because the hose of information that floods us is constantly opened further: Letters → Telegram → Telephone → Radio → TV → Internet → Mobile Internet. Human beings need time to manage their emotions. Time spent waiting. Time being bored. Time when NO new information, not even positive, is arriving. We are constantly distracted and thus increasingly unable to sort out our feelings. That is t…
Yes, this is very spot on. I try to unplug as much as I can every Sunday. Get outdoors, go visit a museum, or spend a chunk of the day read a good book. I also think unplugging for an entire week or more every year is healthy. Go camping for a week, or go somewhere remote, and get the hell away from the computer and phone.
I have asked no less than 10 people why they listen to talk radio when it is clearly propaganda. The response is strangely always almost verbatim "I like to stay informed". It amazes me that they always say the same thing in response. I have found a similar thing when I mention I have no Facebook account...the response is almost always "I just like to keep in touch with people"...but they never seem to point out thes…
I have the same experience when I ask people why they read The New York Times.
Perhaps Rolling Stone would like a little introspection given their fear mongering and false reporting about the University of Virginia. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/17/business/media/rolling-sto...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you willing to give "Rolling Stone" a second chance? They've been quite apologetic about that incident. Op's piece seems pretty good to me.
Nope, since frankly, I wasn't giving them a chance before the incident. They had their heyday, but they are just another outrage press now. Their Boston Bombing cover was reprehensible. Its just another data point of a trend line.
According to [some survey], Americans are most afraid of corruption of government officials... This is so rational (obviously corruption is common) and long-term-focused (corruption will eventually destroy the state, but it will take a really long time) that I'm a bit impressed by my fellow citizens...
I suspect that it's the opposite of what you might hope it would be. I suspect that the fear of corruption of government officials is almost entirely based on accusations of corruption from their political opponents, and that those same Americans don't believe that "their" politicians are equally corrupt. I do think there is actual corruption on all sides, simply because of the fact that money and campaign donations…
Is incessant fear-mongering manipulation the inevitable dystopian end of a society that is always connected to channels of mass communication? This is the result of the race to the bottom for eyeballs and attention - the appeal to fear. Does this ever resolve? We spend so much time lamenting the demise of journalism, the sensationalization of media, the fear-mongering, etc... But it's not like distinct "bad choices"…
I think the problem resides in the west's insistence on spreading the ideas of equality. Watching a youtube video from buzzfeed is (in the minds of many) a legitimate way to learn about things like group conflict or any other social phenomenon. Mass communication has indirectly given rise to mass access to bad information. However, that alone would not be a problem. What makes it a problem is once you are told that y…
Advice is different. Facts are different. Some opinions are worth listening to. That to me is the trickiest part
As a 23 year old I can only imagine what it was like to live through the cold war with the colossal fear of nuclear annihilation soaking into every activity/decision. I feel like it must have been so overwhelming yet intangible - in some ways a nuclear holocaust is much less painful than losing a loved one in a car accident or seeing your country splinter into violent factions. A nuclear holocaust is a quick, binary…
> As a 23 year old I can only imagine what it was like to live through the cold war with the colossal fear of nuclear annihilation soaking into every activity/decision. If they had Facebook back in the days of the cold war, the country would have gone insane with fear in less than 1 year. Social media is an amplifier for base, brutish emotions.
[0] http://www.cubanmissilecrisis.org/background/frequently-aske...
If Facebook was around then i doubt the outcome would have been the same.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is no feasible way for me to agree more with this. I very much belong to those negatively affected by this phenomenon. I'd wager many a HN commenter is. My RSS feeds are a carefully crafted web of information, as much of a not-echo chamber I can create. From stuff I don't agree with on almost anything - Breitbart and its national counterparts, neocon blogs, libertarian thinktanks - to sources I think of as pret…
> But it does something to you, doesn't it? I feel like my view of this world has darkened over the years. I'm only thirty years old now and I feel like we're headed for disaster on a dozen different concurrent tracks. My view of man has become shrouded in a perpetual gloom, my idea of a future a cycnical dystopia. Mirror, is that you? > My RSS feeds are a carefully crafted web of information, as much of a not-echo c…