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...
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.
After all, they can understand fellow addicts on the other side.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
Please edit personal swipes out of your posts here. Your comment would be fine without that first sentence.
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.
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.
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'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.
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?
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?)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
Ignoring nth-order consequences doesn't make them go away.
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.
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.
Or simply support the status quo privledge over alternate privilege?
Did I win?
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.