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Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

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Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#271

Post by jkubicek »

arp242 wrote: post #259
crispyambulance wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had used ublock-origin on youtube to disable the right-hand sidebar of "recommended" videos so that I could just view the stuff in my subscriptions. A couple of years ago, they started detecting and blocking ublock-origin, so I stopped using it (ublock). It's not really the ads that bother me. It's the "recommended videos". Is there a way to customize my view of youtube to avoid the shit I don't need to see? The th…

It's so disappointing, because "recommended" used to be brilliant to find stuff similar-ish to what you're watching. But these days half of it is outrage bait, ranging from "WOKE LIBTARD GETS DESTROYED" to "TRUMP LOSES HIS MIND", or malicious clickbait like "you won't believe what the cast if $tv_show looks like now" with some AI generated thing of one cast member being horribly maimed. Even on stuff that has nothing…

> But these days half of it is outrage bait, ranging from "WOKE LIBTARD GETS DESTROYED" to "TRUMP LOSES HIS MIND", or malicious clickbait like "you won't believe what the cast if $tv_show looks like now" with some AI generated thing of one cast member being horribly maimed. Even on stuff that has nothing to do with any of that, like some music video.

I don't know what I'm doing differently than you, but I don't see ANY of that. The worst, most clickbaity Youtube content I see is poorly done rip-offs of Primitive Technology.

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#272

Post by concordDance »

ge96 wrote: post #123
joshdavham wrote: post #42

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…

I quit reddit too recently, I still look at it for info but I'm not logged in/scrolling through it I find myself reaching for something when I have YouTube/chilling at my desk at the end of the day, can't code anymore/make something just on till I sleep. Sometimes have the desire to play a video game (I have a gaming rig too funny how that works) I've been trying to read HN or IEEE, TechCrunch stuff like that as my "…

One unfortunate aspect of this phenomena is that as reddit "evaporatively cools" (ala https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZQG9cwKbct2LtmL3p/evaporativ... ) as the more level headed people leave reddit gets even more radical.

It's even possible the places that people then move to (such as HN) also get more radical if the leavers have higher levels of radicalism than the place they join.

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#273

Post by input_sh »

niceice wrote: post #234
ge96 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I quit reddit too recently, I still look at it for info but I'm not logged in/scrolling through it I find myself reaching for something when I have YouTube/chilling at my desk at the end of the day, can't code anymore/make something just on till I sleep. Sometimes have the desire to play a video game (I have a gaming rig too funny how that works) I've been trying to read HN or IEEE, TechCrunch stuff like that as my "…

I checked reddit recently for the first time in a while, and I was shocked by how radicalized its become. An echo chamber of hateful people and perhaps GPTs that are agitating the big subreddits. The contrast is stark with all the "no place for hate" in the rules and endless banning of microaggressions. I saw dozens of death threats. Even an explicit death threat thread with over 40,000 upvotes before reddit stepped…

That particular subreddit isn't shut down, it was temporarily suspended as the moderators simply got overwhelmed. There's no indication of bad faith from either the mod team nor the reddit admins, the floodgate was just too much for them to handle. It pretty much says so in the ban message, admins are gonna help them take back control and it will be up within a couple of days.

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#274

Post by MetaWhirledPeas »

> Feltman: Yeah, and what is it about outrage that helps misinformation spread?

> Lewis: So I think part of it is the fact that it’s more engaging. It, you know, activates your emotions, and so people are more primed to respond to that.

This is why upvote-style forums, like Hacker News, need to be treated with heavy scrutiny. They are hard-wired to bubble out of control when an opinion is the right combination of popular and passionate.

One way we can improve this situation, as contributors, is to try to stick to more logical, dispassionate responses. This is difficult to do because we all feel like what we are writing is the most important thing in the world and everyone else needs to read it.

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#275

Post by matwood »

jordanpg wrote: post #159
ge96 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I quit reddit too recently, I still look at it for info but I'm not logged in/scrolling through it I find myself reaching for something when I have YouTube/chilling at my desk at the end of the day, can't code anymore/make something just on till I sleep. Sometimes have the desire to play a video game (I have a gaming rig too funny how that works) I've been trying to read HN or IEEE, TechCrunch stuff like that as my "…

One healthy way to consume Reddit that I recently learned about is creating a "custom feed" (see left margin of new UI). You can just add subs that are of interest that lack the torrent of bad news and only ever visit that custom feed. It doesn't ever algorithmically add posts from subs you don't manually include, as far as I've seen.

> You can just add subs that are of interest that lack the torrent of bad news and only ever visit that custom feed.

I still use old.reddit and this is the only way I've ever used Reddit. My homepage only shows me posts from Reddits I follow and nothing else. I don't see all the craziness people here are talking about.

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#276

Post by fransje26 »

nineplay wrote: post #112

Been there, done that. I've tried to stay informed but not outraged for the last 8 years and it didn't make a damn bit of difference. I got involved in local issues, I phone banked, I tried to put my money where it would do the most good. I'm out. I'm hiding away and hoping nothing affects me personally, and if it does I'm not going to think there's anything I could have done about it. We're not in control anymore. N…

> Not unless there are any tech billionaires lurking on HN, and they don't give a shit about us.

If I understand correctly, they are mostly busy taking over the country at the moment. No time for HN..

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#277

Post by sneak »

joshdavham wrote: post #42

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…

Discord suffers from the same problems; censorship platforms in general have the same cancer everywhere.

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#278

Post by Epa095 »

yowayb wrote: post #9

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.

This reminds me of two quotes:

"The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth." -Garry Kasparov.

And

"This constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore." This latter quote is, rather ironically, a false quote! (falsely attributed to Hannah Arendt). But I still think it contains truth.

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#280

Post by lordfrito »

lawn wrote: post #258
lordfrito wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If everything I read online [that I don't pay for] is a form of propaganda, then the only choice I have is to either: 1) weight all information equally 2) bias information based on [personal beliefs XYZ] I'm trying hard to do #1, mainly because #2 is confirmation bias (and reinforces it). What other options are there?

You could for instance consider actual facts? Because 100% of what you read online is in fact not propaganda. Then you might find that some sources are filled with lies and others contain a lot more facts. Then you'd naturally weight facts from the more trustworthy source higher. The next step is a "web of trust" where a new source will be more trustworthy if it's linked to by other trustworthy sources. So in the end…

> Because 100% of what you read online is in fact not propaganda.

This isn't even close to true. Facts are facts, and stories are propaganda. What we call "news" is largely just "stories" (opinion/editorials) about facts -- the story is the propaganda - the story weaves the facts together in a narrative, the narrative tells us how to feel and think. Stories cost $$$, and those promoting them are absolutely promoting some stories over others. They have a message to send -- that message is propaganda.

You mention a comment from a "random redditor" is low value -- I'm suggesting that nearly every "major" narrative spun on Reddit has been largely placed there by forces with deep pockets and axes to grind, and the true believers and other useful idiots that follow blindly. It's all astroturfing, and Reddit is an absolute garbage dump of discussion. Anyone that goes there thinking they're getting an accurate picture of the world around them is seriously deluded. I'm convinced those that run Reddit do this by design. We know who runs Twitter, and Facebook. No one talks about who is running Reddit.

A "comment on physics by a renowned physicist" is still just a comment -- there are facts in physics, and theories. Even renowned physicists can be wrong when it comes to the theories they back. And honestly [coming back to the point of the article] that's not what's causing people to feel outrage -- they're not doom scrolling physics forums outraged about dark matter or a theory of everything -- they're doom scrolling an endless stream of political/cultural propaganda designed to outrage them and keep them addicted.

The world isn't nearly as black and white as the internet would have you believe it is.

Point me to a source of political/cultural news that you believe is full of fact and not just another site full of opinions pieces and editorializing around the facts.

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