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Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

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Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#871

Post by rightbyte »

wat10000 wrote: post #847
medellin wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely take a break from social media and talk with some real people. Lots of people voted for trump aren’t radical actually none that i know are. I come from a small town in a red state and yes they completely disagree with democrats on pretty much everything but the stuff you read on reddit is so far fetched and extreme I don’t know how anyone would take it seriously. They believe people hate Americans and everyone…

I was in Europe for a while starting right after 9/11 and there was a lot of shame and no lack of pointed questions. The locals didn’t hate us, but there was a decent amount of “what the hell is wrong with you guys?” It was not uncommon for American travelers to put Canadian flag pins on their backpacks to try to deflect attention or curry favor. It’s surely ten times worse now. Trump makes W look like a statesman, a…

I remember the anti-US sentiment among people at the time of the invasion of Iraq as way harsher than now during Trump. Like not even close.

It seems to be mainly European neoliberals that are more upset about Trump.

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#872

Post by rightbyte »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #471
_DeadFred_ wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

/r/UkraineRussiaReport is basically the only forum on the whole site where anything that isn't 100% cheerleading for Ukraine is allowed to be posted. It seems like pro-Russian propaganda only in contrast to the rest of Reddit where the pro-Ukraine bias is actively enforced by the mods. You say the creator was "called out" on other subs which is why he created the alternative. But that just lends legitimacy to the sub…

The overton window has shifted quite abit on the matter since about a year or something, though.

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#873

Post by slg »

HEmanZ wrote: post #753
slg wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How are you making the jump from calibrating your emotional response to distant political changes that have no immediate significance on your own life, are par for humanity, and don’t matter in the long run, to nihilism in your immediate experience of meaning? The primary difference I see between these two is how you define "your immediate experience". At what distance does something become "distant political change…

I’m not advocating for ignoring the world. I’m advocating for contextualizing it so that your emotional response is sane. I think I put it in another post, but someone I know closely has become catatonically depressed this year because of what political news he reads on Reddit. He makes statements like “there has literally never been a worse time to be alive”. His personal life was great, there was nothing in it to s…

>there was nothing in it to suggest the US president’s decisions affect him, but his emotional response to Reddit news is about as extreme as if his wife died.

Do you not realize that you are judging what "decisions affect him" exclusively from your own perspective? You clearly have some established distance in your mind in which you think someone's suffering is immaterial to you. You seem to imply that this reaction might be appropriate for a partner dying, but what about for other people? Would it be appropriate to be depressed because of a friend's suffering? What about a distant cousin? A neighbor? A coworker? An acquaintance? What about the parent of one of your kid's friends who you haven't even met before?

You don't seem to actually be objecting to the reaction your friend is having, you seem to be reacting that your friend just has a larger circle of people he empathizes with than you and therefore more people have the potential to "affect him".

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#874

Post by buttercraft »

koolba wrote: post #818
NickC25 wrote: post #811

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ... Your whole argument basically falls apart with this logic: "Republicans wanted to cheat to put a Republican in power, until they were stopped by a court of law, and when defeated, appealed to powerful Republicans, who voted along pa…

> Your whole argument basically falls apart with this logic: "Republicans wanted to cheat to put a Republican in power, until they were stopped by a court of law, and when defeated, appealed to powerful Republicans, who voted along party lines to give more power to Republicans." Alternatively: " Republicans wanted to clean up the voter rolls by removing self-declared non-citizens. Democrats wanted to cheat by allowin…

What a dishonest take.

"...Justice Department and advocacy groups sued, contending that the state had in fact purged at least some eligible voters and that it did so in violation of a federal law that bars systematic removals from voting rolls in the 90 days prior to an election. Specifically, the 1993 National Voter Registration Act creates a “quiet period” within 90 days of a federal election.

"A federal district court agreed, ordering Virginia to restore the approximately 1,600 voter registrations that were cancelled. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that order. Virginia then appealed to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to allow the state to strike the voters purged in the 90 days prior to the election.

"The state contended that the lower courts “misinterpreted the NVRA.” They argued that the “quiet period” cannot apply to noncitizens, since they are already ineligible to vote. Even if the “quiet period” did apply here, the state argued, the program was sufficiently individualized, not systematic."

So where is the cheating? Is it "cheating" to use the courts to resolve legal disputes? Or to misinterpret the law? Were both of the lower courts in on the cheating?

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#875

Post by fullStackOasis »

gadders wrote: post #586
slg wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Statements like this seem to originate in that environment polluted by propaganda that the previous comment mentions. For example, I genuinely don't know how someone can look at something like the dismantling of USAID as anything but an increase in "large pain". Sure, there are almost certainly individual programs within that organization that are wasteful and aren't the best use of our tax dollars, but there is (or…

I don't think anyone is saying that the US shouldn't have an organisation that distributes aid. But I think it is right to pause it when it is doing things like funding Politico magazine.

My current understanding is that USAID was not doing funding Politico, but had a subscription (or multiple subscriptions). You can check out the description here: https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/05/media/politico-usaid-subscrip... It sure does sound like Politico Pro is expensive, however. There have certainly some other kind of fishy things going on with USAID, but so far as I can tell, all with full approval of the US government. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Agency_for_Inter...

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#876

Post by LeroyRaz »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #54
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…

In principal it's a great method to get back to normal, however there are key areas (subreddits, local groups, etc.) that really do provide information, expertise, and news content that isn't available anywhere else online. It's a double edged sword. The best way I've found is to be in there with a read-only mindset or perhaps only participating inside those key areas where political discussions are strictly prohibit…

You can potentially rely on friends or family members to source such information (e.g., only one member of the household really needs to be checking the local group, etc...)

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#877

Post by munksbeer »

HEmanZ wrote: post #377
magicalist wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Will this even register as a trivia question in 100 years? My family could be murdered in front of me and it wouldn't qualify as a trivia question for you or most other people in one year. This feels like a version of stoicism that missed the point of stoicism.

You’re making such an absurd comparison in situations. The death of your own family has an immediate and extreme impact on you personally. 99% of what you see on the news you would never know happened if it wasn’t presented to you. And I’m not saying not to care. I’m saying put big things into perspective. You don’t need to become catatonically depressed because the US changed its foreign aid in a way that you would…

> And I’m not saying not to care. I’m saying put big things into perspective. You don’t need to become catatonically depressed because the US changed its foreign aid in a way that you would never know about unless presented to you.

Here in the UK in 2016 we had a referendum to leave the EU, which is a pooled sovereignty union to create a more integrated Europe.

I raised the same questions to those who wanted to leave the EU, who complained about "diktats from Brussels" as if pooling sovereignty meant we now had dictators instead of elected officials.

My questions were about how their daily lives were impacted by these "diktats". 99% of people avoided the question. For them, it wasn't about any practical reality. They just wanted to vote to leave the EU. The reasons for it seemed to be post-hoc justifications of an emotionally made decision.

I guess it is like that for most people.

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#878

Post by munksbeer »

basisword wrote: post #671
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…

>> But things like the USA's current constitutional crisis are real. While I have no doubt this is true, is it _actually_ having any impact on your day to day life? If you didn't have social media, didn't read the news, and somehow didn't even know there was an election (I know this one isn't possible) would your day to day life have changed at all? Look at the past week as an example. Threats of tariffs, headline ne…

I see the argument made in the context of government snooping. What if I said that the government made it illegal to use any form of encryption that it did not have a backdoor to. In other words, they have the right to read every single message you ever send or receive. There are people who tell me "don't be concerned, if you've got nothing to hide this won't have any impact on your day to day life".

I don't think that argument is going to persuade you or most others on HN. But you're saying exactly that.

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#879

Post by asadotzler »

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…

HN, WhatsApp, and Discord are also junk food depending on how you use them.

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#880

Post by mihaaly »

Bhilai wrote: post #785
majgr wrote: 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 yo…

Almost every story has sides. Multiple at a time. Depending on people and their cultural background involved or observing. Ask one people about a story, and might say completely different things than another. This is just the nature of humanity, nothing novelty was said here.

Choose something where they at least try.

My long time favorite is The Economist. They have writers there committed to a certain kind of message, true, like everywhere, putting on a glass supporting their preconceptions, yet the overall tone is somewhat analytical, at least trying to look behind and around, trying to use multiple viewpoints. If they miss some, you might add yours pretty easily (on your own or from other sources), and so you will be empowered by better vintage point at the matter than without their help. That's much more than nothing, at least compared to the vast majority (I believe).

I am sure there are even better alternatives where the being emotional first and professionally outraged all the time is frowned upon too. Definitely avoid bbc.co.uk despite their facade of being in depth and balanced. They actually say nothing more than repetition of the events mixed with lots of emotions nowadays, even their selection of topics are outrage oriented.

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