Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

scientificamerican.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

461–470 of 980 posts

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#461

Post by claar »

hansonkd wrote: post #321
seneca wrote: post #110

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…

> NYT is just as blatant as Fox News is to you After this past election cycle I don't see how people can make that comment with a straight face. Media in general is very right leaning. Some like CNN and NYT are maybe slightly more left than far right fox news, but there aren't many "left leaning" mass market news sources that are essentially felating one party for millions of people. NYT and CNN, etc are all very cri…

"media is in general is very right leaning"

Wow. You don't need to be very right leaning to feel the complete opposite. I'm simply amazed someone could feel that way, as nearly all media is very left-leaning (to my perspective).

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#462

Post by josh_p »

Glyptodon wrote: post #290

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 one of the best things you can do now is to be available in your local communities. You don’t have to be a leader there, but showing up, lending a bit of your time, or just making yourself known as an ally, especially to groups that are being targeted by this administration is helpful.

If things do get bad (job loss, no money, food scarcity) you’ll be able to fall back on the community you’re a part of.

Check out your local library for a jumping off point. Local pride centers would be happy to have you around.

I was feeling similar things (do I need go buy a gun?! No, I don’t.) and I decided that investing time in local communities is better.

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#463

Post by youainti »

ge96 wrote: post #127
su8898 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if you’ve intentionally omitted it but I would also include YouTube in this list. YouTube can be very addictive with all the clickbait thumbnails etc.

haha yeah that's where you inject custom CSS on the page to hide thumbnails, come to YouTube to see something? no thumbnails to distract your original intent

do you have a link to instructions on how to do that? It sounds really nice.

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#464

Post by returningfory2 »

andy_ppp wrote: post #392
palmotea wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've earmarked 3% of my income every month for a list of selected charities that currently includes the ACLU, the HRC, and a short list of smaller ones. I don't think that's a good investment, considering how badly those organizations failed in order to bring us to today.

How did these organisations make people vote for Donald Trump?

By successfully pressuring Democratic politicians like Kamala Harris to publicly adopt progressive positions that are unpopular, but highly favored by the kind of people who donate to and operate organizations like the ACLU.

For example, the (unfortunately very successful) Trump ad “Harris is for they/them, Trump is for you” ultimately originates with the ACLU. In 2019 they successfully got Harris to pledge government funding for gender affirming care for people in e.g. immigration detention [1]. It is totally insane that the ACLU thought it was important and worthwhile to get a pledge on this edge case. In general this advocacy was way out of touch with the country at large, has totally backfired, and now landed us with an anti-trans administration.

[1] question 14 here https://www.aclu.org/documents/aclu-rights-for-all-candidate...

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#465

Post by nsonha »

Funny this is a thing that people in some country need to work through. Personally, I have to fight the feeling of sadness and guilt every time I read about things going on around me that I should but do not do something to help. For the things that I am powerless against, honestly I have zero emotion, much less outrage.

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#466

Post by WesternWind »

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…

Eh I wouldn't have known a friend died if I didn't occasionally log into FB.

I wouldn't have known that my best friend from middle school lost her house.

I wouldn't have known that a family member was pregnant.

But yeah, I feel like news stuff is better curated elsewhere, because outrage keeps eyeballs viewing, so algorithmic feeds tend to highlight it.

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#467

Post by _DeadFred_ »

taurknaut wrote: post #459
_DeadFred_ wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The concern is understandable, I suppose. It's just a convenient way to see clips from both sides of the conflict, and it's the best source for combat footage clips anywhere. I do have a working brain and can use it to identify when people have a polemic. I prefer it to telegram, which is the alternative. The comments are indeed... uh, very strident in their support for either side. So I'm not sure if it's "propagand…

Propaganda is big on mixing just enough 'both sides' to lend legitimacy. Again, if I'm remembering correctly this dude was called out on another sub and ended up creating this one specifically to continue his propaganda narrative. There's a lot better subs to work with on Reddit than that sub

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#468

Post by burgerrito »

crispyambulance wrote: post #47
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.

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…

There's a Firefox add-on called Distraction free YouTube I used in the past. Maybe try that one

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#469

Post by RIMR »

UberFly wrote: post #182

I have a New Yorker (I think that's where it's from) cartoon on my wall. It's a man and woman walking down the street and she's saying "My desire to be well-informed is currently at odds with my desire to remain sane." It's a good daily reminder for me.

This one: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/how-to-st...
Post reply on HN