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Comment by monster_group | Hacker News Reader

The problem is that some news is relevant. One of my friends has given up reading or watching any kind of news altogether. At first this seems impressive but when I asked him about how far his house was from the wildfire, he was like "Umm - what wildfire?". He was oblivious to the fact that country's biggest wildfire was just three miles away from his house. He is a very smart and successful guy and it really jolted me how a guy like him could be oblivious to such an important event that could impact his life. The reason - he doesn't watch news.

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But he did find out since you told him. That's the whole reason you don't need to read news because if something in the news is actually important you will find out from people talking about it.

That sounds like something that he should have been alerted to via Reverse 911, but I suppose he wasn't properly registered yet if he just moved. I know my county uses Reverse 911 to notify of wildfires, because I errantly received such a warning a few years ago when it was actually for a wildfire in a different part of the county.

Three miles? Did he also give up looking out the window?

Or talking to people in general? That seems incredibly odd.

I asked him about if he could not see the smoke. He said the wind direction took the smoke away from his house and some hills obstructed his view. He had just moved into the neighborhood so he wasn't friends with the neighbors quite yet.

Wow! I would think the logjam of people stuffing their cars with possessions and getting the hell out of there would have been a clue that something, possibly, was happening that might warrant some further investigation.

There's apparently a fine line between "not ardently following the news" and "not paying attention at all."

He did find out, he was talking to people (the OP)

Are you sure it was three miles? Serious wildfires make your eyes burn 50 miles away.

The vast amount of non-relevant news makes it hard to wade through it. I agree that any relevant news will make to you via other means (visual, word of mouth, etc.).

There is a reason that news is like this. Adam Curtis and Oh Dearism is a good watch.

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