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Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

scientificamerican.com

781–790 of 980 posts

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#781

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Subreddits like r/pics are packed full of thinly veiled death threats towards the sitting president or Elon Musk. This is just blatant misinformation. Since r/pics is the only example you've chosen to give us, let's evaluate it: I've scrolled through the current first 50 posts in Hot, and 0 of them are death threats, thinly veiled or otherwise. "Packed full", indeed. And here, so it isn't simply my word vs. his; th…

Yeah "packed full" is probably a bit too heavy here. To pick a few examples though: - The nazi punching thread had several moderated comments ranked near the top which were presumably calls to violence. - The Mitch McConnal thread has many people looking forward to his death, hoping he goes to hell, and a few deleted comments. - A musk thread has "eat the rich" and storm the capitol. Not super highly ranked. I didn't…

Do you also consider Musk's nazism odious?

There is a reason people are angry and the truth is Musk/trump have gone too far. It's bizarre to say but we are watching the downfall of the USA in real time. The country has been captured by criminals who are working to destroy it–folks are going to be angry about that.

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#782
post #720

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in the end, there are more reasonable people, but democracies needs to develop better constitutional/law systems, with very short feedback loop. It is very important to have fast reaction on breaking the law by ruling regime. What’s wrong with the separation of powers in the USA? There’s plenty of situations where judges issue injunctions that are in effect until the case is resolved.

Lack of enforcement mechanisms, captured courts, feckless political stooges, gullible public. E.g. Virginia governor illegally purged voters within a certain time window. Courts said "yeah that was illegal, you need to stop" VA attorney gen said "no I don't." And while the court of appeals agreed with the lower court "yeah simple violation of the law. Reinstate revoked registration." The VA supreme court was like "na…

> Lack of enforcement mechanisms, captured courts, feckless political stooges, gullible public.

> e.g., Virginia governor illegally purged voters within a certain time window. Courts said "yeah that was illegal, you need to stop" VA attorney gen said "no I don't." And while the court of appeals agreed with the lower court "yeah simple violation of the law. Reinstate revoked registration." The VA supreme court was like "nah fam, let's let the governor do his thing and we can figure this all out after the election." And everyone kinda stopped talking about it.

The fact that he won the case means that it was not an illegal purge. It was expressly legal. The SCOTUS agreed as well: https://www.npr.org/2024/10/30/g-s1-30644/supreme-court-virg...

You can't claim the result of a case is "illegal" simply because you don't agree with it. Or is the very act of appealing a ruling itself an illegal act because you do not immediately bend the knee to the first judge that sides with your opponents?

> As a poll worker I had multiple people who had voter ID cards come in last November but required filling out paperwork to re-register them and have them cast a provisional ballot. Feels like they were connected as I hadn't dealt with that in the near dozen elections I've worked prior.

Were they people who checked the box on their driver's license form explicitly stating that they are not a US citizen? Because those are the people who were removed from the voter rolls by that clean up.

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#783

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Reddit? Or the circumstances of Trump’s presidency? Hacker News is radicalizing, and is very likely going to have to decide if it’s going to be pro MAGA or not. What did people think the response was going to be once Trump did everything he said he would? People would lie back and let things happen? In America? The land of the second amendment? I mean people should be happy, after this liberals are going to be proud…

> after this liberals are going to be proud members of the NRA.

I grew up an active NRA member, shooting since I was 6. I have long since disassociated myself with the group but want to make it clear - a lot of liberals have guns and regularly practice using them.

We don't need the NRA (a Putin funded organization) to do that!

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#784

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - It is better to not use social media. You never know if you are discussing with normal person, a political party troll, or Russian troll. Completely valid, but there is a middleground of very deliberately curating your social media: - Avoid using services that are engineered for outrage and views - be ruthless with who you follow and block (someone trying to drum up some unimportant javascript outrage? get them o…

Don't disagree with you, but I'll counter with 2 big issues: 1. the services themselves continually change, and are incentivized to get much more manipulative, and much, much worse. I used to use LinkedIn as an employment network, and now it's a full-on social media hub (though weirdly positive in a very phony way...) even HN has changed for the worse (despite the efforts of dang) 2. won't someone think of the kids?…

> the services themselves continually change

Nothing is perfect, and nothing is immune to change, but that's why I'm attracted to open, and non-commercial social networks. Non-commercial networks have less incentives to enshittify, and being decentralised/open can act as a relief value to give more control to users (like Bluesky's labellers) and help counteract any changes they do make for the worse.

> won't someone think of the kids?

not me. I don't see why I children using social media should impact my decision about how I spend my time?

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#785
post #570

Living in Poland ruled by trumpists for 8 years I have these experiences: - Get subscription of high value newspaper or magazine. Professionals work there, so you will get real facts, worthy opinions and less emotions. - It is better to not use social media. You never know if you are discussing with normal person, a political party troll, or Russian troll. - It is not worth discussing with „switched-on” people. They…

> Get subscription of high value newspaper or magazine. Professionals work there, so you will get real facts, worthy opinions and less emotions.

I struggle with this. It's incredibly challenging to find reliable, unbiased news sources these days, especially with the perceived slant of many major outlets. It's discouraging when even subscriptions to reputable publications like the NYT and WSJ leave you feeling like you're not getting the full story. It's also concerning when editorial content undermines the perceived objectivity of the news reporting, specially with WSJ. So what are people reading?

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#786
post #720

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in the end, there are more reasonable people, but democracies needs to develop better constitutional/law systems, with very short feedback loop. It is very important to have fast reaction on breaking the law by ruling regime. What’s wrong with the separation of powers in the USA? There’s plenty of situations where judges issue injunctions that are in effect until the case is resolved.

Part of the problem is the incredible corruption at the Supreme Court. The courts increasingly can't be trusted to be a stopgap. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/06/supreme-court-justices-milli... Then you have the current administration making veiled threats against senators to ensure they vote as intended. https://www.rawstory.com/morning-joe-today-2671089005/ This is why we need reinforcement of the governmental struc…

> Part of the problem is the incredible corruption at the Supreme Court. The courts increasingly can't be trusted to be a stopgap.

Just because a body disagrees with your desired interpretation of the law does not mean its corrupt. I disagree with the liberal justices on just about every split decision, but I don't think they're on the take. They simply have a different philosophy of the law.

I challenge you to find any specific court case taking up by the SCOTUS where you think the outcome was the result of corruption.

> Then you have the current administration making veiled threats against senators to ensure they vote as intended.

I'm more concerned about the other direction where the (at the time) Senate majority leader expressly threatened the SCOTUS to vote a particular way or they will "you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price": https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/rare-rebuke-c...

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#788

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Outrage fatigue can wear us down"-- the subtitle of the article :P

I don't necessarily see a problem with "outrage fatigue". It sounds like a self-solving problem: if a source gives you such fatigue, you will stop reading it naturally.

> if a source gives you such fatigue, you will stop reading it naturally.

That is not not at all how this works out in reality.

People are not subconciously opposed to being driven to outrage, especially if it reinforces their biases (the reverse appears to be true!).

Sanity check: If evoking outrage was driving away media consumer, there would be very strong selection pressure against that, and media would stop doing it or fail.

This is not what we observe: Almost all media is becoming increasingly outrage-inducing, because it works. It drives clicks, and it does not deter people from coming back.

Just consider CNN, FOX news, MSNBC , etc-- you can see the same trend over time, regardless of the position on the political spectrum.

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#789
post #786

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the problem is the incredible corruption at the Supreme Court. The courts increasingly can't be trusted to be a stopgap. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/06/supreme-court-justices-milli... Then you have the current administration making veiled threats against senators to ensure they vote as intended. https://www.rawstory.com/morning-joe-today-2671089005/ This is why we need reinforcement of the governmental struc…

> Part of the problem is the incredible corruption at the Supreme Court. The courts increasingly can't be trusted to be a stopgap. Just because a body disagrees with your desired interpretation of the law does not mean its corrupt. I disagree with the liberal justices on just about every split decision, but I don't think they're on the take. They simply have a different philosophy of the law. I challenge you to find…

For your challenge: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/supreme-court-grants-tru...

The context of the Supreme Court choosing to reverse 50 years of precedent regarding abortion is pretty important there. Especially as the justices involved were going against their explicit answers from their confirmation hearings, that it was settled law. Schumer also did not threaten violence.

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#790
post #779
post #734

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What’s wrong with the separation of powers in the USA? Once the same party controls the Senate, House, Presidency and Supreme Court, the powers are no longer meaningfully separate. Which is now the case. (state powers are still separate; I'm guessing we'll see action from state AGs against sudden Federal actions which have disadvantaged their state) Also, as Musk has figured out, the simple power of fait accompli.…

> Once the same party controls the Senate, House, Presidency and Supreme Court, the powers are no longer meaningfully separate. Which is now the case. Three out of four of those are the direct will of the voters. And the fourth is the indirect will of the voters as expressed by their President. I think insisting that they always be at odds with each other is unrealistic and goes against the fundamental idea that peop…

> I think insisting that they always be at odds with each other is unrealistic and goes against the fundamental idea that people have a right to form a government that represents them.

Sure, but then there's no longer meaningful separation of powers and you've converged on a UK-like system where a majority, no matter how narrow, conveys all the power - but with a politicised court (UK SC is still generally agreed to be nonpolitical).

It's a really serious problem for the US that lots of very important rights like, say, interracial marriage in Loving v Virginia, came about as court cases despite and often against the will of the voters.

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