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Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not really comparing apples-to-apples though: a cable TV network aimed at the undereducated masses versus a prestigious broadsheet newspaper pitched at the educated classes There’s plenty of right-of-centre magazines and websites aimed at educated right-wingers: e.g. First Things, Commentary, The American Conservative, the Spectator

Fair point, but it was the OP who first mentioned Fox News and the NYT in the same sentence.

Right, but I think their point was that they are both biased just in opposite directions, and bringing the orthogonal difference in target audience education level into it is arguably confusing things

Maybe a better demonstration of their point might be comparing NYT/WaPo to the WSJ

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#292
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…

This is just the consequence of the API protests. Despite people claiming it had no lasting impact, admins coming in and making sweeping changes to mod teams replacing them with loyalists, alongside ramping up centralized feeds to serve more ads onto meant content quality took a nosedive. This is obvious in most subs if you actually look at who is submitting the threads (something the app and All/Popular pages hides in several views), most of these subs are dominated by a handful of accounts. It's a cycle too, because often they'll continue spamming subs in order to get on All/Popular, or make up weird stories to do so, effectively karma farming taken very seriously, with mods encouraging it because of the aforementioned loyalists.

It's all just driveby anger and reposts. Maybe some smaller subs with good communities here and there, but that often requires a mod team putting in substantial hours and remaining under the radar from All/Popular in any shape.

Forgot to mention, Reddit also started paying these accounts for posting. So a literal financial incentive to ragebait. It' called the "Contributor Program".

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#293

I don't have outrage fatigue. Outrages are outrages and they are what they are. Are there many exaggerations and fake outrages? Sure. But things like the USA's current constitutional crisis are real. What I struggle with isn't fatigue at outrage, it's knowing what to do about it. I think violence is going to become more common, but I don't particularly think it will be effective. So less so than outrage, it's the fee…

> I think violence is going to become more common

What kind and why?

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#294
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 "…

> It's unfortunate people expect you to have social media like a girl asks me if I have Instagram and I'm weird to not have one Outside of reddit/discord/hn, I haven't had any social media since roughly 2010, and I don't use reddit or discord for anything remotely "social media"-ish. While I still get the occasional look as if I'm wearing a tinfoil hat when I say "I don't have FB. No, no insta either. No... not snapc…

I wouldn't care a whole lot if someone told me they weren't in IG, FB, Snap, Twitter, etc. However, if someone told me they never bothered with Linkedin, it would be hard for me to resist bowing at their feet.

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#295

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…

Have more self respect and consume a better information diet of printed media.

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#296
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.

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…

Clear your history often. My youtube is actually incredible, massive variety and useful topics.

I clear it about once every 2 weeks or month depending on how many of the same topics I see.

It works really well in that if you ignore the content you saw before it forces the algorithm to find unique content because it thinks you don't like the stuff you've seen.

That and cleaning your subscription list. Easily the best platform I have as of now because of that.

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#297

I don't have outrage fatigue. Outrages are outrages and they are what they are. Are there many exaggerations and fake outrages? Sure. But things like the USA's current constitutional crisis are real. What I struggle with isn't fatigue at outrage, it's knowing what to do about it. I think violence is going to become more common, but I don't particularly think it will be effective. So less so than outrage, it's the fee…

> I think violence is going to become more common What kind and why?

Stuff like the Thompson or Abe assassinations.

That said, I think the why is more complicated. At least in the US I think there's a general sense that the world is backsliding, and that people feel like any bump on the road of life risks turning into a complete derailment. But this doesn't lead to any one particular ideology or course of action, so much as externalization of angst, whether against individuals, systems, or the "nobody pays attention to our angst let's burn it all down" attitude that's somewhat widespread.

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's unfortunate people expect you to have social media like a girl asks me if I have Instagram and I'm weird to not have one Outside of reddit/discord/hn, I haven't had any social media since roughly 2010, and I don't use reddit or discord for anything remotely "social media"-ish. While I still get the occasional look as if I'm wearing a tinfoil hat when I say "I don't have FB. No, no insta either. No... not snapc…

I wouldn't care a whole lot if someone told me they weren't in IG, FB, Snap, Twitter, etc. However, if someone told me they never bothered with Linkedin, it would be hard for me to resist bowing at their feet.

Out of all the social media I don't have, that's the one that has lost me the most job opportunities for sure. I probably would have caved and signed up if I didn't end up getting a job through some old-fashioned (face-to-face) networking.

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#299
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 "…

> It's unfortunate people expect you to have social media like a girl asks me if I have Instagram and I'm weird to not have one Outside of reddit/discord/hn, I haven't had any social media since roughly 2010, and I don't use reddit or discord for anything remotely "social media"-ish. While I still get the occasional look as if I'm wearing a tinfoil hat when I say "I don't have FB. No, no insta either. No... not snapc…

How did you miss out on job opportunities by not being on social media?

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#300

I don't have outrage fatigue. Outrages are outrages and they are what they are. Are there many exaggerations and fake outrages? Sure. But things like the USA's current constitutional crisis are real. What I struggle with isn't fatigue at outrage, it's knowing what to do about it. I think violence is going to become more common, but I don't particularly think it will be effective. So less so than outrage, it's the fee…

> So less so than outrage, it's the feeling that we're trapped in a real life doom loop with no clear off ramp that I struggle with.

Glad I'm not alone, but knowing that doesn't change the situation. Still unable to wake from the nightmare... :(

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