211–220 of 980 posts
Google's attack on RSS has been quite successful. Not a single mention here in the 150+ comments. I would think the HN crowd would be savvy enough to recommend it on this subject.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're absolutely correct, but you're missing an important detail. I'm assuming you're more aligned politically with the left. If you're not, I apologize for the assumption. To someone who is more right-wing, the bias of e.g. NYT is just as blatant as Fox News is to you, and Fox may come off as "fair". This is because the propaganda is specifically intended to land with their own audience. It's tuned to your sensibil…
To someone who is more right-wing, the bias of e.g. NYT is just as blatant as Fox News is to you, and Fox may come off as "fair". This is because the propaganda is specifically intended to land with their own audience. It's tuned to your sensibilities. This isn't really a matter of subjective opinion, though. Objective surveys have consistently shown that Fox News viewers are worse-informed than people who don't pay…
After November I totally stopped looking at any and all news and social media with the exception of HN. My reasoning being that you are not actually getting informed by any of those sources. They are geared towards engagement which makes them entertainment. Also, I have absolutely no power to change anything happening right now so knowing about it is just going to make me upset. It's a lose lose IMO. A lot of folks h…
At the same time, I’m definitely less informed. Though I’m quite surprised how much still permeates despite me not “going looking”.
Generally, I think it’s more healthy to focus on what you can control and what you have agency over. You can choose what to be outraged over national/global events (and do nothing) or you can instead focus that energy on Doing Something closer to home that’s important to you. Which is the better trade?
I’m somewhat conflicted on being less informed esp with big changes happening. And even more conflicted about what kind of world we’d have if everyone chose this strategy. But, it’s not unprincipled. The principle is Focus on What You Can Control/Do and put all your energy into that.
Also Scientific American:
Science journal editor resigns after calling Gen X fascists over Trump win
Laura Helmuth leaves Scientific American following controversial social media posts in which she lashed out at ‘bigoted’ voters
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2024/11/15/laura-helmuth...
Why is it even important to stay informed? In virtually all cases, there's very little that I can do about anything, so I'm just wasting energy by looking at the news.
One of the reasons I love reading history is realizing the agency individual humans have when we get together. Individuals can't change much alone, but we don't have to do things alone.
You can choose not to use your agency, but that is still a choice to support the status quo.
Those of us in the west tend to forget that much of what we see is a form of propaganda, whether by governments or businesses, or even a large number of people. When you keep this in mind, everything you see becomes an opinion and your mind can comfortably (or at least not emotionally/hurriedly) form your own opinion over time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I was a director of the community team at deviantart (...) I used to have to actively check in on community members who we deemed addicted This sounds so interesting to me - was it your responsibility? How did you detect if someone was addicted? And most importantly, how did you scale it?
Well early deviantart was pretty small, and I don't think anyone building it was over 25y/o at the time, so we all had lots of free time to work on it. Deviantart was arranged in a way we all had communities we were responsible for, it changed a lot after it reached million+ users scale, but in the beginning at 100k or so users it was very manageable. Your responsibility per Scott Jarkoff who lead that team was "to l…
"Someone who cares about you on the internet"
instead of
"Something that prevents you from posting hate/snuff/nude on the internet"
Obviously lots of problems, tons of them, and 1984 vibes, but still, the basic idea. A bit more like humans were meant to interact?
Those of us in the west tend to forget that much of what we see is a form of propaganda, whether by governments or businesses, or even a large number of people. When you keep this in mind, everything you see becomes an opinion and your mind can comfortably (or at least not emotionally/hurriedly) form your own opinion over time.
I agree that most messaging is propaganda, but that doesn't really counter the real pain that is being inflicted upon large populations of people by these government (and corporate) moves, and being cheered on by pretty large masses of people. The propaganda is like environmental pollution -- hard not to breathe it in. That said, I have no answer here..
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Seriously, do you know who does repairs on the sewer lines where you live? No. Does that mean you’re so oblivious that you wouldn’t be concerned by seeing half a dozen young men without any safety gear or official logos digging a six foot trench across the road outside your house?
One thing to consider for those of us who are more sensitive to online outrage is to just quit social media all together. I’m technically gen z and I’ve been off of social media (aside from HN, WhatsApp and discord) for years and you wouldn’t believe how great it’s been for my overall state of mind. Reddit, instagram, X, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, Threads, etc are all the equivalent of digital junk food and I’d argu…