191–200 of 205 posts
I completely understand why, but on the other hand democracy relies on citizens being informed about what's happening. The risk is that one day, you wake up and there is no democracy any more.
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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…
Do you also believe you should discuss every other topic under the sun in the belief that not discussing it is "ceding ground" to a viewpoint or action of others? It would seem that in your view, we should be discussing all things at all times due to this "oppressor" mindset. This simply cannot be true.
If you disagree with that, be explicit about exactly what part.
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 follo…
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I wonder what one agenda in posting that right now would be, ehh? And to think Americans used to take pride in being nation of freedom.
To be fair, not everything is someone's agenda. Indifference, ignorance and stupidity exist by their own. But hostile forces do like to multiply them. You may not follow the news right until they start knocking on your door, or just obliterate your house in a rocket strike.
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> Nuance/dissent wasn't even vaguely on the cards. Not all topics are nuanced when discussed by an educated, well-intended audience. Is the world flat? Does evolution lead to speciation? Dissent is for the sake of dissent, and nothing else.
I've largely stopped commenting here because I feel the community is broken. There's definitely truth to what you say, that an educated audience can have a consensus. But one thing makes the HN community (and many Reddit communities) particularly bad: A lot of these threads have repetitive comments with insults or silly name calling get upvoted. Even if consensus is around the earth being round, there's no need to pe…
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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.
Excerpt from link: For the rest of the news, I am considering subscribing to a magazine that covers important events in Germany, the EU, or the world every few months. This kind of format filters out short-term noise and fear-driven stories. Elections happen even less frequently than this. If your democracy disintegrates with less than a few months of warning, you were probably invaded and noticed even without the ne…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 jer…
Get it? Bad people in power = you don't get to do the things you love, at some point.
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…
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.…
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
The problem is that the world is always on fire and people are always suffering.
Especially so because now we hear about the whole world’s problems, and no matter how peaceful a state the world is in there’s always a war or something happening somewhere. It’s been like that for all of human history and I don’t expect it to change any time soon.
I don’t think it’s healthy to live your whole live hearing about these problems that you have no ability to affect at all. In my experience it only has negative effects on your life and whether you’re tapped into the real time news feed or not, it doesn’t actually change these events in any way.