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Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

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Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#91

Post by dolessdrugs »

sixo wrote: post #54
f055 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went from The Economist to Foreign Affairs few years ago when Eco became unbearably filled with an agenda. You might want to check FA out.

Can you describe their agenda, or point to a description of it? It's conspicuously centrist and pro-global-capitalism (see: articles essentially saying "human lives on earth has definitely gotten better under capitalism" (and not explicitly saying "world-average QoL is the correct metric by which to measure progress", nor addressing counterfactual hypotheses), + anti-trump + pretty skeptical of brexit. These are sort…

Everyone has a different level of "acceptable, manageable biases"

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#92

Post by jordanpg »

chickenfries wrote: post #82
josefresco wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I like and respect who Aaron was and what he did for us all, I cringed when reading "I Hate the News" because it came across as very naive. It's the same logic young people use to justify not voting, also the same logic my fellow parents use as reason for not attending town meeting. Find new sources, find your news. While today's news doesn't effect you directly, it might tomorrow, or it might effect your frien…

Yeah this post is literally the same argument as “my vote has never changed the outcome of an election so why vote?”

No, not what he says at all. He implies that everything you need to know to vote can fit on one side of an index card.

The point is you don't need to follow the news to make informed voting decisions.

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#93

Post by sudoscript »

capulate89 wrote: post #88
chickenfries wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this post is literally the same argument as “my vote has never changed the outcome of an election so why vote?”

And what's wrong with that argument? Democracy and voting aren't unquestionable goods. Just look at what became of most of the non-democratic countries that the US decided to "liberate" via forcing them to adopt democracy over the years.

> What’s wrong with that argument?

At an individual, probably nothing. But at a macro level, apathy is equivalent to a lack of legitimacy, which is a big problem. If the cancer of apathy spreads too far, the entire system comes crashing down.

It’s like a party where your job is to bring one of the mixers. You don’t bring yours, nothing that terrible happens. No one brings any, and the party becomes a disaster.

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#94

Post by lou1306 »

capulate89 wrote: post #88
chickenfries wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this post is literally the same argument as “my vote has never changed the outcome of an election so why vote?”

And what's wrong with that argument? Democracy and voting aren't unquestionable goods. Just look at what became of most of the non-democratic countries that the US decided to "liberate" via forcing them to adopt democracy over the years.

> And what's wrong with that argument?

It is like saying "I can lift at most 100 pounds; Bob can lift at most 50 pounds: therefore, there's nothing we can do to lift that 104-pound rock".

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#95

Post by ChicagoBoy11 »

soneca wrote: post #20

His post "I hate the news" (0) was(is) very influential for me personally. It was seminal in what become a rather significant change in my habits and view of the world. I am now very conscious that news are entertainment, purely and simply. With the goods and bads of any other entertainment form. From time to time, while explaining my position to others (often seen as kind of radical), I refer this post. I hope it co…

An extension to this principle would be to focus all of that energy into consuming news that, for you, ISN'T a closed circuit, and that potential could have a direct impact in your life.

I'm not in any position now or in the near future to do a darn thing about the soldiers in Iraq, but topics covered by my trade association publication, or news items about work that is going on around me, etc., might. Likelihood of that reading having an impact on my life (and equally of my life impacting the thing reported) is far, far higher, so it would seem the returns to that reading heavily outweigh the returns to reading the NYT.

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#97

Post by chickenfries »

capulate89 wrote: post #88
chickenfries wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this post is literally the same argument as “my vote has never changed the outcome of an election so why vote?”

And what's wrong with that argument? Democracy and voting aren't unquestionable goods. Just look at what became of most of the non-democratic countries that the US decided to "liberate" via forcing them to adopt democracy over the years.

Are you talking about Iraq? I’m pretty sure the problem there was war, not democracy.

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#99

Post by chickenfries »

jordanpg wrote: post #92
chickenfries wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this post is literally the same argument as “my vote has never changed the outcome of an election so why vote?”

No, not what he says at all. He implies that everything you need to know to vote can fit on one side of an index card. The point is you don't need to follow the news to make informed voting decisions.

If all you do is read voter guides then you have delegated your critical thinking to the organization that produces the guide. I would not call you a informed voter if all you do is read a voter guide every election.

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#100

Post by tracker1 »

the_clarence wrote: post #32
soneca wrote: post #20

His post "I hate the news" (0) was(is) very influential for me personally. It was seminal in what become a rather significant change in my habits and view of the world. I am now very conscious that news are entertainment, purely and simply. With the goods and bads of any other entertainment form. From time to time, while explaining my position to others (often seen as kind of radical), I refer this post. I hope it co…

What is a good source of information? By that I mean: - not about daily information (which are usually as fast as possible and don’t take the time to really understand the situation) - not biased - not about juicy news, but world topics that are ~objectively important I feel like there should be a subreddit for that.

There is no such thing as unbiased... fact-based is often as close as you will get, which is increasingly rare.
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