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'Doomscrolling' breeds anxiety – how to stop the cycle

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Re: 'Doomscrolling' breeds anxiety – how to stop the cycle

#231

Post by closeparen »

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #15
countername wrote: post #4

Yeah reading hacker news since 4 hours and didn't even planned to open it. Now the world is more dangerous and don't know if people are commenting or GPT-3 bots. Any solutions to find sleep?

Put down your phone - stop staring at it at the gym, in line, on the toilet, at any time there's a lull in the activity - try just observing things around you. Read novels, especially before bed. Stop feeling like you have to be an informed and empowered member of society at all times on all issues. Develop hobbies that aren't related to tech - especially ones that force you to get outside and don't require high tech…

It’s going to be a few years before “interact with people” in real life is a reasonable thing to do.

Re: 'Doomscrolling' breeds anxiety – how to stop the cycle

#232

Post by dragonwriter »

bhupy wrote: post #208
dragonwriter wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thousands of school districts are integrating material into their curriculum that claims slavery was capitalist. Chattel slavery of the type practiced in the early US and elsewhere was part of the dominant Western system of the mid-19th century for which critics coined the term “capitalism”; what else would it be but capitalist?

A massive and obvious flaw in the "capitalism is slavery" argument is the fact that American agriculture became MORE profitable after slavery was abolished. After the Civil War ended, as soon as the labor costs had to be factored in, it became increasingly clear that cotton is a dumb crop to plant at the scale it was being planted. Planters moved to other crops that could be profitable. Slavery essentially held capit…

> A massive and obvious flaw in the "capitalism is slavery" argument is the fact that American agriculture became MORE profitable after slavery was abolished.

“Capitalism” and “maximizing systemic, aggregate profitability” aren't even related concepts, much less so intimately linked that not doing the latter proves that something is not an element of the former.

Re: 'Doomscrolling' breeds anxiety – how to stop the cycle

#233

Post by bjl »

ben_w wrote: post #206
mr_spothawk wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought we were supposed to decolonize our libraries?

These can both be true. As a simultaneous question and example, Kipling is often given as an example of a British Empire writer with condescending attitudes to the very people he wrote about. The names of Indian authors never reached me because my parents thought the Empire was unadulterated good, and they thought that because my grandparents were born near the peak of the Empire — one of my grandmothers was, for a p…

> That leads me to the question: can anyone here recommend a good Indian author from the same era as Kipling? (Yes I know Kipling was born in India).

While not a direct answer to your question, I think The Location of Culture by Homi Bhabha is relevant in the sense that it addresses why your question is difficult (perhaps impossible) to answer.

Re: 'Doomscrolling' breeds anxiety – how to stop the cycle

#234

Post by dingaling »

adsjhdashkj wrote: post #226
lostmsu wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I've been facing recently is that long form also turns out to be a waste of time after you go through the most informational/influential pieces. Lots of the articles thread the same water, dive into totally unnecessary details, or just tell a story that, while fascinating, does not really give you any important new information, or bury it in a few casual sentences, never elaborating on them. For books it…

Agreed about shallow articles. On that note, for someone seeking to browse current topics but with good, quality information sources - what news/etc sites do you enjoy? Eg, i actually like "current events", especially news. I want to know what my political actors are doing, good or bad - but only concrete information. Especially with the current administration. Rumors / weak leaks are wasted cycles in my brain.

Try The Economist, they aren't focused on breaking news and tend to be terse and with high informational density.

They also have a companion magazine, 1843, that dives into longer-form cultural articles.

Re: 'Doomscrolling' breeds anxiety – how to stop the cycle

#235

Post by dragonwriter »

rayiner wrote: post #195
dragonwriter wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production. No, capitalism is a particular real-world economic system that existed in a particular time and place; it is true that private ownership of the means of production is a central element of that system, but it's not it's only feature. Slavery was, in fact, an element of that system identified by the people who identified the system and coined the term ca…

People are gaslighting me by telling me resurgent Marxism isn’t a real thing, and yet here I am having people quote Marx at me to define capitalism.

> People are gaslighting me by telling me resurgent Marxism isn’t a real thing

Resurgent Marxism in the developed world is a real thing, largely due to the geberal collapse of state-backed Leninism.

Re: 'Doomscrolling' breeds anxiety – how to stop the cycle

#236

Post by clairity »

monoideism wrote: post #68
phs318u wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're extrapolating from the evidence of one event to all (or most) events. What you're calling "journalistic malpractice" is possibly an editor with a story in need of a picture (everything has to be visual to sell the story), asking the photog pool for a suitable image. This happens all the time. Timing matters though. In the instance you quote, if the original story was published before the police charged the att…

No, they had a narrative they wanted to push: "right-wing attackers victimize noble protesters", and since there were only a few examples available, they had to pull stories and footage from the many instances of when protesters attacked vehicles. I don't know you personally, but if you're like 99% of left-leaning urban professionals, you're not aware of those instances, because you're only exposed to a portion of wh…

> "NPR was the most neutral of any major news organization up until the past 2-3 years, when they've undergone major changes and now put out mostly ideologically-driven pieces like other outlets on the left."

it's been more like 5 years, at least since the snafu of the last presidential election. but even as i criticize npr, i expect them to change for the better, being "public" and certain shows/hosts providing valuable news without spin (at least not much intolerable spin).

certain hosts/shows on the other hand are basically unlistenable, like michael barbaro on nyt's the daily, with all of its melodramatic, self-righteous cynicism designed for the superiority-complex set. it's disgusting pandering.

Re: 'Doomscrolling' breeds anxiety – how to stop the cycle

#237

Post by bickeringyokel »

throwanem wrote: post #159
bickeringyokel wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production. The means of production is usually defined as tools, machinery or technology, not people.

Chattel slavery adds certain people, namely those owned as slaves, to the "means of production" column. It's not incompatible in any way with capitalism.

It's literally incompatible with the standard definition of the word capitalism.

The fact that slaves are not free means that exchanges couldn't possibly be voluntary.

Re: 'Doomscrolling' breeds anxiety – how to stop the cycle

#238

Post by jacobolus »

TMWNN wrote: post #139
jacobolus wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but sometimes the history involves a superpower teetering on the brink of fascist dictatorship, or a once-in-a-century pandemic wreaking havoc around the world. Events that will define the space of possibilities for decades to come. At those times it’s a bit more important to stay at least partially informed than when the biggest crisis is a new highway project going over budget or a political leader’s extramar…

>Sure, but sometimes the history involves a superpower teetering on the brink of fascist dictatorship Boy, did you miss the point of the article and discussion

In a nutshell, the article says that reading a lot of scary news causes anxiety, and if you listen to your therapist and steeply limit that reading and spend your time eating ice cream and watching cat videos instead, you can reduce that anxiety.

Sometimes anxiety (fear, rage) is well justified. Sometimes large-scale threats are real.

Re: 'Doomscrolling' breeds anxiety – how to stop the cycle

#239

Post by ben_w »

bjl wrote: post #233
ben_w wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These can both be true. As a simultaneous question and example, Kipling is often given as an example of a British Empire writer with condescending attitudes to the very people he wrote about. The names of Indian authors never reached me because my parents thought the Empire was unadulterated good, and they thought that because my grandparents were born near the peak of the Empire — one of my grandmothers was, for a p…

> That leads me to the question: can anyone here recommend a good Indian author from the same era as Kipling? (Yes I know Kipling was born in India). While not a direct answer to your question, I think The Location of Culture by Homi Bhabha is relevant in the sense that it addresses why your question is difficult (perhaps impossible) to answer.

Thanks, I’ll add that to my to-read list.

I suppose rather than asking for a “good” author (subjective, for example I’ve met an Oxbridge English Literature graduate who thought Shakespeare was overrated), I should have asked for a “famous” author from the same era.

The sort of author whose works a current-day Indian politician would have on their shelves, or perhaps quote from, to signal how cultured they are — in the same sort of way UK PM Johnson tried to show how cultured he was by quoting Kipling.

Re: 'Doomscrolling' breeds anxiety – how to stop the cycle

#240

Post by Ensorceled »

wry_discontent wrote: post #216
Ensorceled wrote: post #169

There are a lot of suggestions for "long form" and "books" here. Are none of you keeping up with this pandemic and what your country/state/city recommended behaviours, laws and bylaws are?

This is actually a lot of what I use Twitter for. I follow some local people in the business community and local government officials to get news about what's going on here. I follow a few journalists I trust to get info about the world. And I follow some tech ppl to get cool tech stuff.

That's pretty much my twitter feed, plus some authors like Cory Doctorow.
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