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I Hate the News (2006)

aaronsw.com

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Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#51

Post by lordbusiness »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #35
INTPenis wrote: post #2

I couldn't agree more with Aaron on that. A lot of people have started turning a blind eye to the TV, but very often they replace it with constant news coverage online. So they really have made no significant change in their lives. They're still spoonfed with something that has never had any impact on them, and most likely never will. Anything with a significant impact, and unfortunately many things without it, are r…

That's why I limited my news to Hacker News. Whenever there is an event that actually matters - like a war or a cataclysm - it will be here, upvoted and with comments made by people who know what they're talking about. I don't mind missing the 99% of the typical news sites content.

I've been running an experiment for the past several months to outsource relevant news curation.

It's super simple and super passive. Basically I only read news brought to my attention organically; social media, word on the street which I later look up, etc.

Thus far I haven't missed anything of genuine humanity-shaking importance, my emotional state has improved, and I have much more time for reading, hacking, and all other aspects of my life.

It resonates with the "millennials consume news differently" piece submitted elsewhere on HN actually.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#52

Post by bryanlarsen »

austenallred wrote: post #8

I, strangely enough, agree with Most of what Aaron says. And I'm the founder of a news company. I worry about this attitude on a macro scale, but it's hard to argue with on a micro one. I spend most of my day following what's going on in the world, and it hasn't added much value to my life. But I worry about everyone not caring. Not because that would kill my company (I started it because I hate news in its current f…

The sign up process didn't ask me where I was from and/or what I was interested in. For general world news with a reasonable frequency and good digests I've got The Economist. It's the national, local and specialist news that I'm missing.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#53

Post by iagomr »

There's also an interesting article in The Atlantic regarding the "endless stream" of news. Alexis C. Madrigal makes a very interesting point regarding the stock (what stays) and the flow (what keeps you entertained rather than informed).

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/2013-t...

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#54

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

austenallred wrote: post #8

I, strangely enough, agree with Most of what Aaron says. And I'm the founder of a news company. I worry about this attitude on a macro scale, but it's hard to argue with on a micro one. I spend most of my day following what's going on in the world, and it hasn't added much value to my life. But I worry about everyone not caring. Not because that would kill my company (I started it because I hate news in its current f…

Great landing page, I'm sure conversion rate is good. But the visuals don't make me want to stay, even with the mini-tutorial its a little annoying.

Crowd-sourced fact checks are an interesting idea, I'm not sure it works for news. You need to be fast and thorough, which is hard.

I'd love to have reliable background information for long-running issues, like the Ukraine crisis. Maybe this will be easier, as the value can accumulate over a longer time period.

I wish you good luck, we need better news!

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#55

Post by aidos »

austenallred wrote: post #18
samastur wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I must be too dense, but I simply do not know how to use grasswire. I'm stuck with live feed on left which shows me exactly the kind of useless "breaking" stuff I want to avoid and popular feed on the right which I don't seem to be able to control beyond either providing fact-check or comment. What am I missing?

What you're looking at is kind of like a backend - consider it the "talk" page for Wikipedia. It's a little bit chaotic this early in the morning, but our algorithm pulls in the "breaking" stuff on the left, and the most upvoted stuff flows to the top of the "popular" page. Grasswire users fact-check stuff for accuracy, and comment on whether or not/why it's important. The site is mostly for news junkies. It's a litt…

I really like this. I too am sick of seeing stuff promoted in everyday media which is clearly fabricated.

Admission. I think I up-voted some comments by accident. It's not obvious what that large up arrow does (now that I say it out-loud I think it's probably pretty obvious!) and there's no way to undo the operation. Sorry.

Are there plans to add a frontend to it?

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#57

Post by Thriptic »

bkurtz13 wrote: post #21

He uses voting as an example. Which begs the question: why vote? If you're living within a corrupt, self-serving political system (we are), then naturally the only people who run for office will be products of that system. If a candidate who genuinely wants to change the status quo somehow manages to slip in, they will be prevented from achieving anything meaningful once inside. No matter what, none of these people h…

> If you're living within a corrupt, self-serving political system (we are), then naturally the only people who run for office will be products of that system. If a candidate who genuinely wants to change the status quo somehow manages to slip in, they will be prevented from achieving anything meaningful once inside.

If these politicians are as corrupt and self-serving as you say, then it actually becomes quite easy to enact meaningful change. All we need to do is coalesce around important issues and threaten to vote politicians out of office if they don't bend to our will. Schwartz himself was one of the individuals who rallied broad segments of the population to mobilize and defeat the passage of the deeply unpopular, industry backed legislation that was SOPA by implicitly threatening to punish politicians who voted in favor of it.

I think people assume that because their vote doesn't cout, their voice doesn't count. Even if you don't vote you can still donate money to opposing political causes (or threaten to), write your congressmen, protest, rally public support, and call out your elected officials publicly. If enough people do this it is possible to elicit change without stepping foot inside a voting booth.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#58

Post by ta82828 »

austenallred wrote: post #8

I, strangely enough, agree with Most of what Aaron says. And I'm the founder of a news company. I worry about this attitude on a macro scale, but it's hard to argue with on a micro one. I spend most of my day following what's going on in the world, and it hasn't added much value to my life. But I worry about everyone not caring. Not because that would kill my company (I started it because I hate news in its current f…

Asking me to sign up before I've even looked at the page is annoying (to me).

http://tabcloseddidntread.com/

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#59

Post by popeshoe »

I feel that this was and is a super myopic view to hold, while it's true that most of the worlds news probably doesn't affect you directly, it will almost certainly affect you indirectly, since you live in the world.

It boils down to the same reason you should vote, sure you probably won't swing any elections, but in the same way your voting might influence politicians into listening to the things you care about, by being aware what is happening in and around your city/country/planet you make it harder for people doing shady shit who rely on general public apathy to get away with it.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#60

Post by skwirl »

bkurtz13 wrote: post #21

He uses voting as an example. Which begs the question: why vote? If you're living within a corrupt, self-serving political system (we are), then naturally the only people who run for office will be products of that system. If a candidate who genuinely wants to change the status quo somehow manages to slip in, they will be prevented from achieving anything meaningful once inside. No matter what, none of these people h…

You have gone past the point of healthy skepticism to unquestioning cynicism. The status quo can't be changed? Are you kidding? Is that why we still have slavery in the U.S., women can't vote, homosexuals can't marry, etc?

Change may be imperceptible day to day or year to year, but over the long term, it has been profound and there's no reason to believe it will not continue to be. In a decade's time marijuana will likely be legal in most of the U.S. and the drug war a shadow of its former self. In a decade's time I expect more legal protections for transgender people.

If this is the product of a corrupt, self-serving political system, then perhaps those are good qualities for a political system to have.

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