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

No news is good news

thomasjbevan.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 160 posts

Re: No news is good news

#81

Post by gumby »

coffeefirst wrote: post #65
gumby wrote: post #36

I have been a very strong adherent of this philosophy for over 30 years. There’s an adage, “there’s nothing as worthless as yesterday’s news”. Which led me to wonder, “was it even worth knowing yesterday?” I realized the solution was a low pass filter. I first switched to a seven-page newspaper (CSM) delivered through the mail. I realised the editors had to figure out whether it would still be interesting by the time…

What's interesting about this is you picked: 1. Extremely high quality publications. 2. In a controlled manner. That's not "no news" at all, it's a healthy relationship to quality news.

Good point. I interpret “nothing as worthless” to mean “extremely low worth, but not necessarily nil” and indeed instead of “worth” I could say “worth in aggregate”

Clearly there things worth knowing and not all of them were by Aristotle, Bach, Newton or Wittgenstein:-). The low pass filter screens put the froth; the selection of sources, the dross.

Not that I even read every article in The Economist, but I do read about things I wouldn’t notice or bother to were I reading from the firehose.

Side point: great thing about HN is that someone can say “here’s a clarification or contradiction in what you said” and have it often not be hairsplitting, so can spark a conversation rather than shut one down.

Re: No news is good news

#82

Post by dragontamer »

gumby wrote: post #36

I have been a very strong adherent of this philosophy for over 30 years. There’s an adage, “there’s nothing as worthless as yesterday’s news”. Which led me to wonder, “was it even worth knowing yesterday?” I realized the solution was a low pass filter. I first switched to a seven-page newspaper (CSM) delivered through the mail. I realised the editors had to figure out whether it would still be interesting by the time…

> I do find it interesting that I have yet to have anyone bring up the Ukraine situation.

Speaking of "weekly" discussions, the Ukraine situation has been brought up in my weekly Church prayers since it started.

Generally speaking, if it a current event that the Priests make 2 or 3 "intentions" for (in the Catholic mass, the prayers that occur after the Homily but before the preparations), its an incredible event. In many situations, the words are vague so that it applies to as broadly as possible (ex: there usually is something about wars and disasters), but Ukraine specifically is brought up in those prayers in my experience.

Which makes sense, the suffering and pains of that country are the greatest seen in many decades.

--------

Generally speaking, the intentions are specific to the parish community (pray for X who died last week) and local. Sometimes, a "sister parish" from another side of the world get their intentions emailed to our Church (ex: a hurricane that affects Haiti will be brought up, because our "sister-Parish" is in Haiti, so their "local" issues are brought up in our prayers as well. My current Parish doesn't have a sister-parish, but my last one had one in Haiti). For a global event to be brought up in specific terms (more so than just "prayer to end wars". But a specific "prayer to help the people of Ukraine") is pretty rare.

Re: No news is good news

#83

Post by gumby »

sedatk wrote: post #66
gumby wrote: post #36

I have been a very strong adherent of this philosophy for over 30 years. There’s an adage, “there’s nothing as worthless as yesterday’s news”. Which led me to wonder, “was it even worth knowing yesterday?” I realized the solution was a low pass filter. I first switched to a seven-page newspaper (CSM) delivered through the mail. I realised the editors had to figure out whether it would still be interesting by the time…

How does HN fit in this picture?

That’s a great question! I do scan titles from an RSS feed more often than one might expect but ignore what I think of as “froth”. More example while a “show HN” might be like catnip to me, in reality I skip most of them (sorry, brave show-ers, you guys are great).

I’m not much of a social media conversationalist but I do find the discourse level of HN in the topics that interest me typically high enough that I often learn from it, thus it’s worth it and fun to participate.

(Discourse quality is bimodal but that’s true at a cocktail party too, even one full of nerds)

Re: No news is good news

#85

Post by allturtles »

I agree with some of the premises of this article, that much of the news is actually of negative value, but I have some problems with this part:

> If an event is actually important to your real life, you will find out about it. Such news will find you.

> Well, from my experience you ignore all of the things you cannot control and that have little bearing on your life (again, if there is some news that will actually effect your life you’ll hear about it)

Here is the crux. There are actually important things we need to know about (e.g. a nearby natural disaster that may threaten your area; an upcoming local election with important consequences; a worldwide pandemic). How do we find out about about them? This article assumes they will somehow reach you anyway even if you ignore all news - how?

IME, the way this happens, is that your relatives/friends/neighbors, who are following the news, tell you about it. In other words, this advice appears to me to rely on parasitism - a minority can ignore all news without harm because they can still rely on the majority who follow the news to provide really important information. As a moral position it fails the categorical imperative.

Re: No news is good news

#86

Post by throwaway684936 »

paulpauper wrote: post #64

If you were a Jew in early 1930s Germany, following the news would have been very important, but this is an extreme outlier. most news can be ignored.

If you're LGBT, following the news is incredibly important. It's essential to track legislation such as the Idaho anti-trans bill that jails parents, or Florida anti-LGBT bill that just passed, especially if you're an LGBT teenager or a parent of one.

Re: No news is good news

#87

Post by dwaltrip »

allturtles wrote: post #85

I agree with some of the premises of this article, that much of the news is actually of negative value, but I have some problems with this part: > If an event is actually important to your real life, you will find out about it. Such news will find you. > Well, from my experience you ignore all of the things you cannot control and that have little bearing on your life (again, if there is some news that will actually e…

Maybe the reverse is possible? The majority can ignore the news until the few who are watching the skies notice something important enough for people to break their no-news policy.

Re: No news is good news

#88

Post by bradlys »

gumby wrote: post #36

I have been a very strong adherent of this philosophy for over 30 years. There’s an adage, “there’s nothing as worthless as yesterday’s news”. Which led me to wonder, “was it even worth knowing yesterday?” I realized the solution was a low pass filter. I first switched to a seven-page newspaper (CSM) delivered through the mail. I realised the editors had to figure out whether it would still be interesting by the time…

> I still talk to people and so I hear about stray stories. I do find it interesting that I have yet to have anyone bring up the Ukraine situation. At all.

Could be your own bubble. Most everyone in my circle has brought it up. Many of us brought it up because we know people who are from Ukraine or have lived there extensively. I live and work in SV. Lots of Ukrainians work and live here.

Re: No news is good news

#89

Post by cambaceres »

I agree with you, but this text is unnecessarily long for the points you are making. Please try to be more concise, otherwise you will not reach those which I assume is your main target - the ones addicted to short sensational news.

Re: No news is good news

#90

Post by jsharpe »

allturtles wrote: post #85

I agree with some of the premises of this article, that much of the news is actually of negative value, but I have some problems with this part: > If an event is actually important to your real life, you will find out about it. Such news will find you. > Well, from my experience you ignore all of the things you cannot control and that have little bearing on your life (again, if there is some news that will actually e…

Those relatives/friends/neighbors may very well have a healthier relationship with the news than you do. For a certain set of people (me included), news is addictive and destructive to my life, but for others, it's something they can peruse once a day.

Besides which, it's not like a majority of people will ever quit the news. You alone doing it is not doing anyone else a hardship. It's not like anyone is thinking, "Ugh, I have to keep scrolling twitter so that I can keep my news-less friend in the loop."

Post reply on HN