Hacker News Reader

Comment by steelframe | Hacker News Reader

I stopped reading the news about a year ago. I felt like my emotions were being manipulated by a sharply-honed system built precisely to invoke outrage and draw you in to read more and more of it.

I've been able to direct my focus and energy to much more productive tasks since I disconnected. Of course I entirely missed that whole Supreme Court thing until after it was over, and I have no idea what people around me are talking about when they discuss some iteration of the most recent outrage. To some extent it's like they're living in a different culture than I am. I still feel that it was a good decision, and I continue to ignore the news.

I might come back if enough journalism sources can take the New Yorker's suggestion to heart.

View on HN

Did the same thing about 4 years ago and haven’t looked back. I find though that a lot of people are actually offended by it since I have no clue what thing they and everyone else is outraged about. I get accused of not caring, being disengaged, blah blah blah. It’s difficult to explain to people who are still deep in outrage mode, so I mostly avoid taking about it.

My life is so much better since cutting out the news. I am happier, more focused and able to actually concentrate on the things that I care about.

I prefer to think about how I can positively impact people around me and my local community, rather than embracing the culture of outrage about things happening thousands of miles away that are ultimately irrelevant.

I did the same 1-2 years ago, and haven't regretted it. Interestingly, I've experienced the same thing where others seem offended by decision, and I also get accused of being insular and "living in my own little bubble". I just don't get this though - what exactly am I losing out on?

Being stressed out and dying early is what you're losing out on. Also being in pain and unhappy.

Being stressed out and dying early is also a likely result for an apathetic population.

I do agree that paying too much attention to the crazy that’s going on is not constructive or healthy. But you can definitely overcorrect.

If you completely disconnect you have no data with which to make your decisions come election time. A lot of what’s happening in politics does affect you directly. Changes to tax code, the budget, deregulation of industries (e.g. net neutrality).

And some of it may not affect you directly but affects people in the communities you live in. A Supreme Court nominee had allegations of sexual assault and gambling problems brought against him. Regardless of what you believe, it behooves you to be aware that this is happening. If the accusations were true don’t you want to know? It affects the women in your life to have someone like that be given a lifelong appointment to the most powerful court of the land. If the accusations weren’t, wouldn’t that be important too?

If you’re taking a break to maintain sanity I can understand that. But if you’re simply shrugging your shoulders at what’s happening simply because it doesn’t affect you right now—and trust me, some of the policies this administration is adopting are having a big impact on some—then I think that’s a pretty shitty, selfish attitude to have.

> And some of it may not affect you directly but affects people in the communities you live in. A Supreme Court nominee had allegations of sexual assault and gambling problems brought against him. Regardless of what you believe, it behooves you to be aware that this is happening. If the accusations were true don’t you want to know? It affects the women in your life to have someone like that be given a lifelong appointment to the most powerful court of the land. If the accusations weren’t, wouldn’t that be important too?

This example is exactly why someone should ignore the news. This was pure partisan bickering and mud slinging. Not once during the whole episode were Kavanaugh's actual positions discussed. Just rumors, gossip, fighting and soundbites. No one came out ahead paying attention to this story.

I understand your frustration, but I think this logic is easily exploited. Part of democracy is keeping our elected officials in check. If we mentally check out whenever they put on a circus show, we’re rewarding bad behavior.

I see it more as by paying attention to the circus you’re rewarding bad behavior (circus creation). Being immune to the histrionics makes it harder to be exploited.

It works the other way too. No amount of leftist outrage managed to bring Trump to heel. Checking out of the news cycle and only getting involved when it seems to be particularly relevant seems like the saner strategy, particularly as our time and cognitive resources are the most precious ones we have.

Why blow it all on generating outrage when it'll just get manipulated into a bottom third talking point?

> If you completely disconnect you have no data with which to make your decisions come election time.

Nothing has happened in the last 10 years to change who I vote for. And this is the same for the majority of people.

How do you know?

Do you really need to read the news to know who to vote for given your views on those issues?

News is the here and now presentation of events (and basically press releases/packages), which one absolutely does not need to consume daily in order to do informed voting.

What you want to be reading is aggregate analysis, and quality articles of that kind are found on sites which mostly avoid feeding you the other bullshit. Publications like Economist, Atlantic, Politico, etc.

Publications like those you named are tuned to your particular brand of "bs" but they have just as much bias as publications you find distasteful. That is the state of our news these days. I can't think of a mainstream news org on that level that is without significant bias.

I really disagree with the consume daily part. I consume news most days, but why can't I just spend some time doing research on the various candidates and what they did over the past several years that was newsworthy in the few weeks immediately before an election? If anything I'd think that would be better as they won't have to worry about having forgotten some dick move some candidate pulled three years ago

The Supreme Court example isn't very good, because you can't act on the outcome in a sensible democratic way.

A better example would be news that brings X to attention, so you can voice concern to the government. Or in the case where politicians are the focus of attention, it can affect your voting choice.

E.g. the internet filter law proposal in Europe. It's not practical for me to review every individual piece of legislation, so I rely on journalists/news platforms to highlight the important bits. As a consequence of the MEP vote I have now blacklisted one political party I considered moderate before. They will never get a vote or a good word from me again, ever.

Other examples you could have mentioned are stuff like the Panama papers and Wikileaks. If I heard a local construction company was funneling money to tax havens, I'd email my municipality and/or IRS.

I think you can act in democratic ways. Like 1. donating 20 dollars to susan collin's opponent for instance 2. voting against your senator

I think the bigger thing is that it is a TORRENT that overwhelms.

Well, the good news is that you guys aren't losing out on it!

You're on HN. Which means you get your daily dose of "outrage porn" like anyone else. I think many people don't think of HN as, basically, a "News" site. With a large percentage of the front page dedicated to "outrage porn". "Big Tech Helping China." "US Workers Highly Taxed." Etc etc etc. And those are just the more, kind of, moderate examples. I think yesterday's: "San Francisco's Slow Motion Suicide" was an example that went a bit further. And there have been discussions on here that just tend to devolve into extremism relatively quickly. (I guess the San Fran post from yesterday devolved into extremism relatively quickly as well. But I suppose I'm talking about discussions that tend to devolve right away.)

At any rate, yeah, if we're on HN, we can't realistically claim to have sworn off news, or "outrage porn". We're just, kind of, comfortable with the "outrage porn" that we get from Hacker News. So much so that some of us, apparently, don't even recognize it as news, or "outrage porn".

This is a good point. However, I think the major difference is the proportion of the content that is "outrage porn". I would argue that HN has a notably lower proportion.

Just took a look at my main "Go to", the BBC.

It's difficult to tell, because the front page of BBC has so many more articles on it than the front page of HN, but the "outrage porn" proportion seems about equal to me. Right around 1/4 or 1/5 of the articles I would classify that way. Seems about the same as HN.

Just for context, at the moment on HN, I'd say these are the "news"-y and "outrage porn"-y posts on the front page.

"Amazon Workers Are Listening To What You Tell Alexa" - Obligatory "outrage porn" post for FAANG company. (Generally a minimum of one is always present on the front page.)

"Urgent Quest For Slower, Better News"

"Most Prestigious Journals Publishing Least Reliable Science"

"New Human Species Found In Philippines" - (Predictable descent into extreme views on evolution. No more "Out of Africa", all that "scientific evidence" stuff is nonsense.)

"Startup Stock Options - Good Deal Gone Bad"

"Logic of Political Survival"

And that doesn't even count the posts on the front page that are borderline.

For starters, I think you're being extremely cynical.

Second, unlike other news sources, HN tends to have moderate to high quality discussion. I come to HN because I tend to learn things and grow here. That's not to say that it's perfect of course, but I think you're being more than a bit dishonest when you compare HN to mainstream media news.

>> compare HN to mainstream media news

HN is a aggregator of (mainstream) media news. It is in a position where it should be able to achieve a better ratio between clickbait and non-clickbait than others. Parent suggested it doesn't. I agree. Huston, we have a problem.

Am I outraged over the fact? Not at all. Because I do not expect HN to be better than mainstream. And in fact it isn't. HN is just a different pie.

"If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."

It's not supposed to be an aggregator of mainstream news. Unfortunatley, it has become that.

> Second, unlike other news sources, HN tends to have moderate to high quality discussion.

I firmly oppose to this view. What you are perceiving as "moderate to high quality" is actually just the suppression of mean words, that is good by itself but does not equate to the quality.

I too classify about one fifth of the HN front page as "outrage porns"; they tend to be visibly biased and their discussions are significantly worse in my humble opinion. For that portion of HN I believe they are no better than the mainstream media. If you want remaining four fifths, good! But you have to learn to filter the problematic fifth out.

I think most of the political discussions on HN have a clear side that the commenters take. To disagree with the consensus invites down-votes into oblivion, so almost no one disagrees with the consensus.

Exactly. I've seen many ridiculous stories, nonsense etc on HN which existed purely to fuel outrage among the more tech-oriented crowd.

Ultimately when people say they've dropped out of a specific news bubble: that means they've just started ignoring things that don't personally affect them or they don't care about. It's essentially as another commentator said meant that you're in favor of the status quo, which means you shouldn't be surprised if you encounter someone who is negatively affected by the status quo and calls you out on being OK with it.

Still, HN is an order of magnitude more thoughtful than the clowns at Fox/CNN/etc news. Just the fact that it is mostly text is one factor.

I don't read the articles on HN. Just here because I often learn about new things (not news) from the discussion.

You never read any articles on HN? Maybe you shouldn't be commenting if you've literally never read a single one?

Doesn't mean parent isn't aware of the topic or hasn't heard about it from somewhere else.

Man, things have changed. I used to be on Slashdot, where it was a badge of honor if you didn't RTFA (read the fine article).

How would you define outrage porn? I think that we have to be careful with definitions. Just as we do not define everything that produces sexual arousal as porn because we would have to call even meaningful relationships porn, we should be careful not to call everything that might produce a certain level of disagreement "outrage porn". If there is a well reasoned and substantiated article about something that is bad and should be fixed, what is your metric to distinguish it from outrage porn?

I prefer to think about how I can positively impact people around me and my local community

Given that, isn't (local) news still relevant?

Sometimes, sort of. If you think about the things you read on the news, you'll notice that 99%+ ends up being of no consequence for anything. A lot of what people get outraged about daily is total bullshit, and it gets forgotten the very next day, but even the more important-seeming issues really average out to zero impact on the community. In terms of information, the news is a channel with absurdly low signal/noise ratio. If you want to positively impact people, your first job should be finding a channel with higher SNR.

There's a secondary value to news (or rather primary, in terms of value delivered) - social objects. Most people know what's currently on the news, so even though the raw information value is near-zero, it becomes a great conversation starter.

Local news is how I find out about ballot issues, restaurant closures and openings, new public works projects, etc, as well as more sordid things like failed health inspections or the deep dysfunction at a neighborhood school we might have sent our kid to... The SNR might not be super high but it seems useful.

Most items of local news are highly relevant to a small proportion of locals. E.g. roadworks probably just affect a few % of people using that road.

Then there are shock-news stories like violent crime. How is it relevant to know some kid from my street stabbed another kid over a pack of gum? If I want to know how safe my area is I'd look at crime statistics collected over years and compare it to other areas.

How do you know whom to vote for?

I understand the US doesn't have a lot of choice on the ballot, political news is highly polarized and latest/developing news is probably not worth following. But somewhat keeping up with what your government does so you can hold it accountable seems like a civic duty to me. And what better way to do this than news?

When it comes time to vote I research each candidate and ballot measure and make an informed decision with the information that I find. I don't need to be plugged into to every daily scandal to know that I fundamentally disagree with Trump's policies, a few minutes of research will tell me that just fine.

You'd be surprised how even fascists can portray themselves as reasonable on their own websites, or how lacking wikipedia is on some parties.

Ballot measures only address a small subset of policies, and they don't exist in many places. From what I understand making a 360 turn on them after being elected isn't uncommon either.

So your 'informed' decision is probably just as biased as someone who bases their decision on news.

I would never use someone's own website as my sole source of information, that's just begging for trouble. I search out as many different sources as I can find, including voting history, town hall transcripts, interviews, endorsements, etc. etc.

I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make. Are you saying nobody can ever know enough to vote responsibly?

I'd say the easiest source is the archive of a reputable news site, since journalists are historically responsible for collecting and refining this information. Thus we are back at the initial question: How to get Slower, Better News?

When all the major parties have completely stopped serving your interests, following big media is pointless as it neglects the minor parties. You need to research it yourself or subscribe to fringe media, and you have more time to do that and are better informed if you don't waste your time with big media.

I understand the US doesn't have a lot of choice on the ballot

That is not at all true. Sure there may only be two parties with one candidate each on the national level (assuming you don't get involved with the primaries), but in the US a lot more local positions are elected (which in many ways have a much greater effect on your day to day life) and local referendums (or ballot initiatives) are very common.

Not reading anything will not allow you the relevance of climate change.

I prefer to read specific things to stay in the loop and I see it as a responsibility to be aware of things as my position in our society allows me to do so.

Wouldn't a better solution be to read news but not be outraged by it?

At the risk of sounding glib, your presence on this site would seem to imply that you've not, in fact, stopped reading the news.

Just noticed your username. Are you the YouTuber?

I am unaware of such a person.

He makes pretty good coding tutorials.

I was just about to make that comment.

Anyone on Hacker News, has not "stopped reading the news".

Maybe they stopped looking at the FOX news website? Or maybe they stopped looking at the CNN website? Or what have you. But they consume a lot of news every day. The reality is that a very large percentage of the front page of HN is political type stuff:

"US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums"

Or stuff intended to trigger discussions of political type stuff:

"Big Tech Helps China Censor People"

etc, etc etc.

There is a lot of negative, outrage focused, news on HN.

True. Hacker news is the only news I read. Because it mostly filters out the stuff I don’t care about. Pretty much every “traditional news” headline basically says to me:

“This horrible thing happened somewhere that has no bearing on your life!”

That’s the kind of “news” I try to avoid.

Not the OP and I haven't stopped reading the news entirely, but actually on HN, I do not usually read the articles (horror!). I especially don't read articles from the major news outlets. I come to HN for the comments and links to blog posts about programming.

And, no, I did not read TFA ;-). I was just curious if anyone had comments on finding slower, better news.

Be careful about what kind of news you ignore. The punishment to who ignore politics, per example, is being governed by who cares.

In 2019, Be careful about what kind of news you uncritically believe. The punishment to those who ignore due skepticism, is being governed by those who will manipulate.

Too true... I can't stand Trump on a personal level... but he's right about one thing. There's a lot of manipulation and outright falsities in news, and almost no research or fact checking in the twitter sphere.

> There's a lot of manipulation and outright falsities in news, and almost no research or fact checking in the twitter sphere.

I think it's pretty safe to assume that he's the one benefitting the most from the lack of fact checking.

I think it's pretty safe to assume that he's the one benefitting the most from the lack of fact checking.

Not safe at all. (Covington Kids, for one thing.) The groupthink among the left-leaning media, particularly the news, is pretty egregious. The degree to which they communicate with each other using electronic networks and create their thought bubbles is well documented at this point. If you "follow the money," to figure out who benefits, then it turns out, it's Far Left activists who benefit by getting to push their agenda and set the narratives. This even results in monetary benefit through fundraising.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aid0V7IHOE4

I wasn't going to dive into far right conspiracy theories. SO isntead let's keep it simple: Take all the live footage and public statements by Donald Trump during his presidency - from rallies, in front of the white house, or even the rare press events - and have his claims analyzed by fact checkers. I'm not sure if he'd make it even remotely to a 50% truth-score. Countless obvious, easily disprovable lies on a daily basis.

That's what I meant by "benefitting the most". You might dismiss it as the left-leaning media you mentioned, but this should be a good starting point to keep track of Trump's false claims: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claim...

Two wrongs don't make a right... it's generally considered the media/news organizations that are supposed to fact check and limit bias. They absolutely don't right now, and that is a huge problem when the news media becomes more about pushing an agenda, than any single politician that should get fact checked (even the cheeto in chief).

That seems like it should hold true, generally. However, it doesn't seem to hold true in present day US politics. Most people who pay attention aren't any less punished than those who don't. Very little of the political news has to do with policy or issues that are up for meaningful debate, and when it does it lacks nuance. Sometimes when unpopular legislation is in the pipeline there's not even an adequate description of what it is in popular media, let alone meaningful debate. Mostly I see divisive partisan propaganda and finger pointing. There's evidence to suggest voters preferences don't really impact policy in the long term, such as the Princeton study.

> There's evidence to suggest voters preferences don't really impact policy in the long term, such as the Princeton study.

The dirty little (open) secret of US politics: nothing, nothing an individual does really matters unless they put in tons of time (time doing things, not reading Twitter), tons of money, or both. And even then it's a crapshoot unless you've got serious cash.

Less true at a very local level. Definitely true of anything past the county level or so.

Not following the news daily doesn't mean you can't do research before elections to makes a decision. It also doesn't mean people are trying to fool you into voting for them - I can reject lots of candidates based on what they're most proud of / what they put on their plans.

It needs to be pointed out that this is an option that originates from privilege. Ignoring the news means ignoring politics. Ignoring politics is tacit support of the status quo. The status quo does not put everyone on equal footing. Disadvantaged people would therefore suffer more from disengaging with the news than people of privilege.

Why is ignoring media tacit support of the status quo?

how else do you make an informed vote?

"News" in its most common form has little to do with being an informed citizen. The library would be a better bet.

Because being politically active at any thing but the most basic level requires knowledge of the issues and knowledge of the issues requires following the news. If you are not politically active you are supporting the status quo because you are not putting in any effort to change the status quo.

Politics aren’t the only way to change the status quo. In fact they’re not good at it at all. Uber and AirBnB changed the status quo far more than any politician in my lifetime.

Also, most people’s personal issues trump any macro issue by far. You can change your status quo. It’s almost impossible for an individual to change the status quo and definitely not through typical political engagement.

>Uber and AirBnB changed the status quo far more than any politician in my lifetime.

I am sorry, but that is just depressing if you believe something like that. The ACA is one thing that comes to mind. Improving healthcare for Americans would have a much bigger impact on people's lives than giving people who already own a home a way to make a little extra money.

The ideal of improving healthcare has little to do with how the ACA turned out.

> Politics aren’t the only way to change the status quo.

The status quo is a political arrangement. It's just a way of referring to the state of power's distribution across institutions and people. That's political.

There is literally, definitionally nothing apolitical that affects the status quo.

Changing the status quo is--inescapably, apodictically--political.

Uber and AirBnB are highly political institutions.

By this definition literally every interaction with the outside world is political. Is a definition that broad really useful?

When people talk about politics they’re almost always talking about interfacing with the government. Taking an Uber is definitely not a political statement in most people’s minds.

It may not be a political _statement_, but it has political _consequences_.

Ignoring nth-order consequences doesn't make them go away.

I don't think following the news is the only way to gain knowledge of the issues. Online discussion forums and books are two other options.

Right, when it comes voting time look at actions a candidate took and what they said they would do. Make your judgements from there and vote. That's all that matters. Everything else is like watching a drama.

But most people are politically active once a year (if that), not every 15 minutes.

And I'd also add that it's hardly even a well conceived process. Most people ideologically align themselves one way or the other and then vote that way, regardless of anything else.

For instance Chicago has been exclusively under one party's exclusive control for going on 90 years now. And so this party has had decades to carry out whatever grand vision they could ever imagine for the city. So we'd expect to see what this grand vision would culminate in. And we see a city with a broken school system, rampant crime, tremendous financial problems, horrible inequity, and that is just in general - broken.

Yet the people keep voting for the exact same party and general ideologies. It's just not logical, but it's how most people operate on most topics. They pick a conclusion they want to be true, and then find evidence to support it, instead of examining the evidence to come to the most reasonable conclusion. Perhaps in large part because the latter process often yields conclusion that we very much don't want to be true.

Or they could do actual research instead of reading the "news" - which largely amounts to professional blogging these days. Following the news does not make one more knowledgeable about politics or current events necessarily. Some of the most ill-informed people I know watch news regularly. There's no guarantee that news is accurate or balanced in it's reporting.

Are you serious?

Like disadvantaged people are gonna read something in the NYT and then successfully lobby their congressman to change it?

Serenity to accept what you can't change is absolutely the most effective strategy for those who don't have the means to change things. Worry about your family first, work within the constraints you have. That's reality for a lot of people. I'd argue it's 'privileged' to think otherwise.

They can't change it but they still need to know to prepare for it. If the GOP killed the ACA, millions of people would need to immediately take action to find alternative support. Most of us on here would be fine either way.

Immediately take what action, specifically, in your ACA hypothetical? Honestly asking.

Best I can come up with is "hope your kids don't get sick", followed by "ignore calls from debt collectors on that emergency room bill".

Reading the news obsessively and buying into the culture war actually does nothing to make those strategies more effective. Just saps energy that could be spent elsewhere.

Fair question. It would depend on the individual, lots of people would also probably run to their doctors and get increased length/dosage prescriptions so they have some emergency supplies. Younger low income people might just cancel their insurance entirely, those with pre-existing conditions would have to consider employment changes potentially (contractor -> full time) and similarly for those on the marketplace.

Edit: To get on my soapbox a bit here, I think people are being a bit black and white as usual. Yea, you don't need to read every political opinion piece by Fox, CNN and NYT, but you also should read more than exactly zero. Neither of these extremes can possibly be optimal for everyone (or anyone probably). HN really likes the narrative "Title: X is problematic and we should fix it. Top Comment: Well I completely stopped X because it was bad for me and now everything is awesome and I'm a 10x dev!" but it's never really that simple.

Check out "hate, inc" by Taibbi. He's self publishing it online. It's been great "bullshit detector enhancement" for me, re: the media.

Knowledge about the Individual Mandate matters a lot to lower income folks. We have to follow the news to learn about such things, whereas the privileged techie does not.

Can you explain your tax planning situation around the individual mandate? Like, did you, as a low income hacker news reader, read something on the news that you used to save money when filing your own taxes?

Yes: I decided to avoid the penalty. Had I not known about the penalty, I would have owed it in ignorance.

Thank you for this.

I am really hoping that one day we can somehow arrive at clean useful and possibly actionable news streams which balance issues and positive/celebratory information.

Today’s news large outlets create anxiety rage and suffering and serve as a tool for separation and propaganda. This experience is extremely toxic and one needs to exercise high level of discipline and often sacrifice well being in order to stay informed.

my take on this is that's it's better focus on major actions taken during a mandate (and that's what people who don't care too much about politics do) to then inform the next vote.

that's why politics before the rise of the internet were much more formal, people remembered what was done and said.

now there is just so much noise it's very hard to distinguish the signal, which leads to people being influenced and directed into "identity politics" (are you yellow or green, blue or red, left or right, good or bad?)

I disagree. News != politics. In fact, if I replace the "status quo" in your statement with "reality", the meaning will change significantly. I don't need a journalist to tell me that the healthcare situation (to pick an example) is absurd, or that taxation (fed+state) in some states is already at European levels, yet without any healthcare or education benefits. It's easy to be aware of these facts, you just have to be alive.

But I also don't need journalists to be brain-washing people by suggesting different ways of sharing the costs (insurance? single payer? have rich people pay for me?). The real solution is, of course, to lower the cost to the levels comparable to EU countries, but the costs are rarely discussed in the mass media, only cost sharing is brought up. Why? Because it's an unpopular solution among people who set the agenda. Fixing health care (i.e. halving its cost _at the very least_) means dropping US GDP by a whopping 9% [1].

So it's not about slow vs fast news. It's about controlling the public discourse. The old system of setting the national agenda [2] is obviously not working well if a populist with a Twitter account can override the MSM narrative and get himself elected.

[1] https://www.cms.gov/research-statistics-data-and-systems/sta...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent

If I were the illuminati, I'd find it hard to beat the current system of keeping everyone tied up in a culture war while I picked their pockets.

I try to post in-depth and reasoned comments to this exact point whenever someone in my social circle posts ranty "news" articles, but they just get completely flat-out ignored.

I've never seen anyone argue that this elite vs the rest pickpocketing isn't actually happening and (what we call) the culture war is the real battle.

It would be helpful if there was, because then I could try to understand the mindset behind the dismissal of our view— it's driving me crazy.

Trying to rise above it is more offensive than taking the other side :)

After all, they can understand fellow addicts on the other side.

This is dangerously naive with respect to how marketing works in the era of social media. Questions you should be asking yourself... Who controls the influential twitter account or blog? Do they make money from it either by posting sponsored content or do they run ads? Could someone who controls a botnet or clickfarm manipulate them by either granting or withholding likes, traffic, and clicks?

> This is dangerously naive with respect to how marketing works in the era of social media.

I was going to point out that this makes the assumption that they're consuming corporate social media, but we're on HN so I suppose that's implied.

I should probably delete this account too.

You can't.

I don't know what you are intending to mean with your first point. Yes, you can change a word in my comment to a word with a different meaning and it will change the meaning of what I said. That doesn't mean what I said isn't true.

Healthcare is really too big and broad of an issue to really highlight what I am saying here. There is no way not to at least be aware of it if not interact with it and it has been one of the biggest political issues in this country for decades. However you can take a look at certain pieces of that to see my point.

For example, a tiny minority of people reading this have any reason to know the price of a month's supply of insulin is over $450 or that 1 in 4 people with diabetes are rationing themselves insulin in order to afford the drug. But more and more news stories are highlighting this issue which is leading to political pressure to address it. Just today there was a congressional hearing on the subject. I have no idea if something will be done to reduce the costs of insulin, but I know the price wouldn't go down if people just ignored every news story about it.

   > I don't know what you are intending to mean with your first point. 
   > Yes, you can change a word in my comment to a word with a different 
   > meaning and it will change the meaning of what I said. 
   > That doesn't mean what I said isn't true.

By using the inflammatory vocabulary, you've re-framed the issue as a class conflict, pushing the proposed solution (ignoring the news) out of scope. This is a classic move straight from Animal Farm. I simply suggested to re-read your comment using less polarizing language. This re-focuses us back on the original proposal, and suddenly we may realize that not listening to sponsored "suggestions" proposed by the media may have us voting for (using my example) a working healthcare system, which would be great for all people, disadvantaged or not.

>suddenly we may realize that not listening to "suggestions" proposed by the media may have us voting for (using my example) a working healthcare system, which would be great for all people, disadvantaged or not.

Maybe, but what are the odds of that vs. being kept in a state of aloof hypocognition that reinforces the status quo though?

Without hearing of disasters or San Franciscan homeless slums from the news, I'd barely know about them because I don't go out of my way to research things like that -- the time and interest isn't there. Left entirely to my own perspective, the biggest problems in the world are the ones I'm facing -- usually programming or computing related.

I really don't know what to say to you if you think "status quo" is inflammatory vocabulary. And I never said anything about suggestions from the media. You are mixing fact based news with opinion based news. You can be informed by ignoring opinion based news, but you still need fact based news to have an educated opinion on an issue.

The problem is not jargom, it is tone. If we criticize the ideas instead of the people we can reach an understanding. But by using "you" it becomes more personal and more inflammatory.

I didn’t criticize the person or use “you” in my initial comment so I don’t know what you are talking about.

And, so what percent of the contemporary news media would you suggest is "fact based" and what percent would you suggest is "opinion based"? Keep in mind that opinion based does not simply mean the article begins under the section "opinion". Articles on issues that are littered with opinions are, in effect, opinion based. One other important nuance here is that while the existence of a quote may be a fact, if it expresses an opinion - it similarly adds little more than opinion to an article.

OP is primarily talking about clickbait. How does this help the disadvantaged exactly?

> It needs to be pointed out that this is an option that originates from privilege.

I don't know if this is what you intended, but I'm reading this as "many or most people who ignore the news are privileged". For instance, this would include many people who are at a 7th grade reading level.

I'm... not sure that's what you meant to insinuate though. Could you clarify?

I disagree. Ignoring politics is the best way change it.

Reading outrage bait then posting on Twitter about it doesn’t do anything to change the status quo.

Not giving away all your possessions, walking away from your house and living as a homeless person also originates from privilege.

Did I win?

People point this out all the time. I think it’s used as a non-sequiteur argument to invalidate people’s opinions who have privilege.

Just because someone was born into privilege does not mean they can’t have opinions or that those opinions are incorrect.

I also think ignoring the news has nothing to do with privilege. So, you’re saying that if I did not have privilege then somehow reading the news is going to change anything?

99% of “news” is absolute garbage and a distraction from actual issues.

Strong disagree with the black and whiteness of this. Ignoring all news and politics, full stop, is less a privileged and more an ignorant position to take.

But I'd argue the worst position is one of non-stop media bingeing without action. In fact, I'd say the only way to act reliably or with clear intention is to not binge on media, to not stay in the zone of manufactured outrage. But instead to keep sanely abreast of what's happening and engage only when meaningful action can be had.

I found when I disconnected from the news and politic in my own country that the people around me didn't really have well developed retention of the new's they where talking about. For example, news event A occurs on day, and everyone in the office talks about A, and how it made them feel. Then news event B occurs the next day, and there doesn't seem to be any cognitive awareness how A connects to B, instead A is forgotten and everyone emotes about B.

I've had to use the analogy to people how weird it appears. It's like everyone talks about a blue cat one day, and the next day talk about a red cat. Everywhere you go everyone talks about the same colored cat's.

It also needs to be pointed out that the only political system where people aren't allowed to be indifferent is known by the charming name of "totalitarianism".

Truly "disadvantaged" people have little to win from any sort of politics and have little time for it. I don't think hobos give a lot of thought to the supreme court.

You're out of your ing mind. One of tbe greatest abuses that lower classes have to endure is the 24 hour propoganda and emotional hijacking machine known as "the news".

God forbid people have the freedom to have cognitive peace, quiet, contemplation, and free play.

If anything, the "disadvantaged" have more to gain from disengaging from constant cognitive hijacking!

You want to take the only thing they have to distract them, from them?

I mean, that would quickly lead to change alright, but it’s also why a lot of people are invested in making sure that never happens.

> You're out of your ing mind.

Please edit personal swipes out of your posts here. Your comment would be fine without that first sentence.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Current me disagrees with you.

I am hyper political and have done some policy work. The people I know who get things done ignore the outrage factory.

Corporate media is a distraction. Like sports talk shows, today's political coverage is just entertainment.

Depends which news sources and whether the news is ingested without any critical lense. Ignorantly consuming news can create far more tacit support for the status quo (or opposition agenda based on bias) regardless of actual political outcomes.

What are the things that the average person who doesn’t like the status quo does? They vote every 2 years - it’s the only power that most people have that really moves the needle. Otherwise for national issues there’s almost nothing one can do without dedicating a large portion of life time and energy.

Highly disagree. I can ignore the news and still be politically active. I put a lot of effort into insulating myself from whatever the latest freakout is and I also invest a lot of energy into voting any time we have an election.

Does it necessarily originate from privilege?

Or simply support the status quo privledge over alternate privilege?

I pay a news site and I get high quality news from them that is curated. And since they make money from subscriptions, the need for eyeballs and page views is not a factor. Something to consider.

Care to share what news site that is?

Well, I'll just say this article (and a lot of them from the author) about the independent journalism business are worth reading: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/nuts-and-bolts-of-prime...

Not OP, but for me it's an economist subscription. I've also dropped most of my news app usage (I feel disconnecting from the news altogether is a little too drastic) but I definitely feel less irritated without missing too much.

Same for me (reading The Economist). Having a few days or a week to filter news down means I still hear about things in a semi-timely manner but that I don't seem to get caught up in most media's daily churn.

I pay for certain categories: some software (eg, lwn), some industry associations, government/law, and economics (Economist is not one, but is a great idea).

The Economist and Stratechery for me. Also CaspianReport for bigger picture geopolitical stuff. CaspianReport is free, but I give on Patreon which ensures he can focus on quality content rather than attracting advertisers.

I really like the Patreon model, I give to 20+ different Youtubers and writers because I hate what advertisers and corporations have done to modern day media, making it all about eyeballs instead of education.

Have you ever read the Financial Times? More broadly, in addition to FT I try to get a multitude of perspectives without straying too far into extremes (so no Fox News, no CNN) and I try to rely on single-topic sites. FT, NYT, Jerusalem Post, AlJazeera, Aviation Week, BBC, SkyNews, a handful of science and tech journals, HN, and some others. You can get a fairly balanced (not perfect) perspective without the kind of moral panicking and clickbait you’d often find. BBC and Sky being exceptions, but that’s my local news.

I'm with you that disengaging from the news can be a good idea and make one happier, but I strongly disagree that this is owing to journalism having gotten worse. I think that the point of journalism should be to find things that make people outraged, and while this may not be so healthy for an individual, it is healthy on a societal level. This is how scandals are dug up and the powerful held to account. The print news industry isn't inherently less scandal-oriented than digital (at least if you compare apples to apples), it just isn't as fast.

I had a similar reaction reading Aaron Swartz's post on why he hates the news[1]. I'm sure Thoreau would have had the same view of the news in his time. Sure, you are unquestionably better off and probably happier learning Japanese or PDE instead of the daily newspaper. But it still has an important function.

[1] http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews

I did this about 4 years ago as well and haven't looked back either. The habits I'd formed around news reading just were not helpful or useful. If you think about it for it a second there is very little informational value given by news articles. The who, where, what, why can be done in a paragraph, the implications and future projects can be done in an opinion piece, because any forward future looking projection is 'opinion' and has error, bias embedded in it. All of this is cheekily now lumped into one. Well that's my view.

I've seen my colleagues go through the most anguishing emotional roller coaster over the the last 3 months with the brexit madness. I've seen emotions run high, I've seen the highs and lows. Everyone is stressed and I'm blissfully content.

I'm yet to experience a life altering impact from skipping the news.

I have been reading news (news on real paper) since I could barely understand what I was reading about. I read news often just for reading.

But I have also stopped reading/watching/hearing news. When election time comes, I will read the laws being proposed, do some google search and pick a candidate or yay/nay a proposition (I live in California).

Just step back and reconsider what 'news' is trying to tell you from a 3rd person view. Ultimately you are being manipulated, imho. To vote for a candidate and/or clicks so that ads can be sold.

Just check this book out. Or at least read reviews of the book.

> How the News Makes Us Dumb: The Death of Wisdom in an Information Society Paperback – March 17, 1999 by C. John Sommerville (Author)

You read the law proposals? I don't have weeks to decipher and interpret dry verbose text and cross-reference each party's stance on it by sending emails. Especially since my country has 10+ national fractions.

In general, I try to understand their underlying values by reading discussions and previous news items. I vote based on values, not legislation snapshots.

In California, weeks before an election each voter gets mailed a booklet listing each proposition (proposed law that citizen or groups got on ballot) with argument from groups advocating both yay and nay. Quite handy to view.

And you can get the value each group advocating yah/nay also.

Same with candidates for elected positions.

No average voter can read all proposed laws and hope to understand it. And most definitely no news articles can help anyone to do so imho.

I don't have a choice but to follow some news. For example: I want to know when politicians are trying to ban me from public life. That's a regular occurrence. Following the ACLU and SCOTUSblog will get you enough of the news that matters.

I think that 90% of news is totally unimportant. Its just non stop bad news about stuff that doesn't affect me and I can't do anything about. I would like to stay informed about some level of politics so that I can make informed voting choices but it seems hard to find the worthwhile news and cut through the crap.

I've recently let a couple of subscriptions (a local newspaper, and a car magazine of all things) because I also sensed that politics were being inserted where they didn't belong.

I'd gladly pay a slight premium for news content that's completely politically neutral. I long for the good old days where you couldn't tell where the news presenter fell on the political scale.

I would be inclined to read past the headlines if I received it as plain text, via email. I might even pay for it if that's all it was, and contained absolutely no ads or even links.

That said, I don't know that I'd actually read it, since most news strikes me as obscenely polemical, even when it feigns objectivity. Even the New York Times rubs me the wrong way in this regard.

I stopped reading the news about a year ago. I felt like my emotions were being manipulated by a sharply-honed system built precisely to invoke outrage and draw you in to read more and more of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc

Can you add some context for those who don't want to / are not able to watch the youtube video?

Tim Pool was falsely tarred by the SPLC as a speaker at a Holocaust Denial conference. The only citation given by the SPLC for this was an unvetted web page from a white supremacist website. Turns out, this was (yet another) bald-faced lie.

However, it's his words as a commentator in this video which I find the most informative.

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