News is bad for you • Hacker News Board

Re: News is bad for you

#231

Post by minusSeven » Fri, Dec 13, 2013, 6:23 AM UTC

This is article is very bad rip-off from the book "Art of thinking clearly". This book goes into each of bias that we face in everyday life. Knowing them can help you immensely. The articles just takes contents from the book to and try to infer that NEWS is bad for you.

It is very poor attempt. For every point discussed in the article present so many counter-arguments that are never discussed. Not just that some of the arguments are just contradictory. Not to mention there is hardly any research material pointed that made the author think that way.

Once it says that we don't think about news : "Unlike reading books and long magazine articles (which require thinking), we can swallow limitless quantities of news flashes,". This is ironic. The article itself is NEWS. Is it not making us think. Well if it not making us think this makes this NEWS itself is useless right?

The author just tried to create an article by combining things he read from the book. At the end he just presented HIS OPINION. This should not be NEWS !

Re: News is bad for you

#232

Post by mrweasel » Fri, Dec 13, 2013, 7:58 AM UTC

JeffJenkins wrote: post #8

For anyone who isn't ready to completely turn off the news spigot, consider switching to a weekly (or monthly) source of news. I get all of my (non-HN) news from The Economist's audio edition. It's released weekly and they have a section right at the start about big things happening in business/politics around the world in the last week. It's no more than a couple minutes to scan, and 10-20 in normal speed audio. The…

News media, such as The Economist, is also VERY different from what they talk about in the article:

>The media feeds us small bites of trivial matter, tidbits that don't really concern our lives and don't require thinking.

Most of the news stories aren't really what I would call news anyway. The type of news that is apparently bad for me, is the same type of news that embodies everything that is wrong with most news media. The topics of you evening news broadcast is about as relevant as the sports scores.

Re: News is bad for you

#233

Post by jerkywez » Fri, Dec 13, 2013, 9:17 AM UTC

News has its uses but at the end of the day its usually negative. Simple as that. Live happy, live longer ;)

Re: News is bad for you

#234

Post by gizzlon » Fri, Dec 13, 2013, 9:42 AM UTC

smtddr wrote: post #54

furyg3 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this only a soundcloud thing or is this available somewhere as an (offline) podcast? Soundcloud link: http://l.economist.com/204894&t=v1g49i1qmlsq6a25ld8r6j8u40

FWIW, I think all soundcloud stuff have download options. http://i.imgur.com/DzaoYSK.png

Not all, I believe whoever uploads it can turn it on and off...

Here's a direct link: https://soundcloud.com/theeconomist

Scroll down to "recent" and you'll see that many, but not all, of them have a download button.

Love the fact that they put it on soundcloud since I already use it

Re: News is bad for you

#235

Post by haukilup » Fri, Dec 13, 2013, 9:42 AM UTC

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #216

npsimons wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Some news is important, purely for social (not informational) reasons. When you show up to the office, you want to know why everyone's talking about Miley Cyrus! And you need to know who won the Superbowl, even if you have no interest. No, just no. Maybe I'll sound like a curmudgeon, but that information is totally worthless, and for people like me, is exactly the kind of thing that makes me depressed. "Oh, hey, s…

Recreated a pointless warfare act ... Man HN has a strong connection to the real world!

You are able to make the same point you are trying to make without over-generalizing.

Re: News is bad for you

#236

Post by gabemart » Fri, Dec 13, 2013, 2:41 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #101

nathan_long wrote: post #29

The biggest problem with news is that it's about newness and rarity. Whereas what we actually need to know is mostly not new. Eg, "man eaten by alligator" is a billion times less important than "decades of data say you will likely get heart disease." Another serious problem with news is its schedule. A daily paper must publish something every day, even if nothing important has happened. An hourly newscast is worse. M…

News in the UK has several problems. News papers are either horrible - I cannot describe just how vile much of the UK news press industry is. The decent newspapers have tiny distribution figures. The Guardian, for example, has a circulation of under 300,000 people. Obviously, more people read it, but still, that's a tiny figure. UK news allows the agenda[1] to be set by spin doctors. We frequently has stories about h…

    > 1) Return items that match some search terms I give. I'm
    > interested in news items about mental health, even if it's
    > poor coverage of a news item that mention MH in a
    > stigmatising way.

I have set this up for myself for other topics with a wide range of rss feeds plus some filtering through yahoo pipes. It's pretty simple to do. IIRC there are also some commercial services that offer rss feed filtering.

Re: News is bad for you

#237

Post by Karunamon » Fri, Dec 13, 2013, 3:14 PM UTC

ceol wrote: post #228

Karunamon wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the government wishes to make your life miserable and you have a credit card, they can call your credit card company and get your account frozen for reasons. When the government wishes to make your life miserable and you have a bitcoin wallet, they have to do a lot more work if they want those funds.

Because the government making your life miserable by freezing your account is just as common as someone stealing your credit card, right?

I bet people losing their bitcoin wallets to an intruder (or indeed any file on their computer) happens less often than credit card theft.

Re: News is bad for you

#238

Post by snth » Fri, Dec 13, 2013, 4:25 PM UTC

Karunamon wrote: post #237

ceol wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the government making your life miserable by freezing your account is just as common as someone stealing your credit card, right?

I bet people losing their bitcoin wallets to an intruder (or indeed any file on their computer) happens less often than credit card theft.

Well, credit cards are a lot more widely used than bitcoin. So base rate fallacy.

Re: News is bad for you

#239

Post by herdrick » Fri, Dec 13, 2013, 6:06 PM UTC

mrweasel wrote: post #232

JeffJenkins wrote: post #8

For anyone who isn't ready to completely turn off the news spigot, consider switching to a weekly (or monthly) source of news. I get all of my (non-HN) news from The Economist's audio edition. It's released weekly and they have a section right at the start about big things happening in business/politics around the world in the last week. It's no more than a couple minutes to scan, and 10-20 in normal speed audio. The…

News media, such as The Economist, is also VERY different from what they talk about in the article: >The media feeds us small bites of trivial matter, tidbits that don't really concern our lives and don't require thinking. Most of the news stories aren't really what I would call news anyway. The type of news that is apparently bad for me, is the same type of news that embodies everything that is wrong with most news…

I think you guys are missing the point. Most of these effects are caused by ALL news, even high quality sources like The Economist and HN.