Cancel The New York Times | Hacker News Reader

Cancel The New York Times

robrhinehart.com

61 pointsp1esk28 comments

This article seems manic. I have no love for the NYT, I dont subscribe and never will. But it doesnt even make my top 50 list of organizations that are doing harm to this country and the world. The metaphors and imigary used are... interesting. Uncomfortablely close to some famous propaganda used by a certain political organization. Overall, not impressed by the arguments or the messenging.

I kinda assumed some level of satire or story would emerge but it seems sincerely manic and a sort of conspiracy theory prone type thinking.

Maybe I'm taking this rant too literally but:

>There is a ton of money in newspapers. Have you ever heard of Hearst castle? There is a literal castle in California built by a man that owned newspapers.

I'm not sure that makes sense.... now.

Also the NYT destroyed local newspapers? I'm not sure that is accurate.

>They are the ones that choose the president.

What?

>Write what you want to write. Write what you really think. The truth will come out. And it will come out better if you stop fearing and feeding the octopus.

Is that just an argument to just believe whatever you want and to write a blog about it?

That whole rant seems off.

This also seems to be the second time this was submitted:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26128850

I don't take it all that literally. To me, "NYT" here represents mainstream or syndicated journalism and author is advocating for blogging to make a comeback. The internet gave us the power to speak our own minds, offensive or not, accurate or not, and author is saying, do more of that! Color outside of the lines, experiment with prose! Stop being a mindless consumer and start creating! You can replace NYT with any other mainstream media outlet you choose. Or social media outlet. But it's far more impactful to write a story against a concrete character (NYT) rather than an abstract idea (syndicated journalism).

I'm not sure a bunch of blogs means "the truth will come out" if what people will write is similar to social media today...

Problem with social media it's like the junk food of writing. It takes far more thought just to piece together an essay than it does to piece together a tweet. A lot of social media is reactive and off-the-cuff. Writing an essay requires sitting down for an hour or two or four and getting out what you want to say with far more careful wording and expressiveness.

I would say an article that claims:

>They are the ones that choose the president.

Is just like that junk food...

Hmm. http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html seems relevant here:

When you find something you can't say, what do you do with it? My advice is, don't say it. Or at least, pick your battles.

Suppose in the future there is a movement to ban the color yellow. Proposals to paint anything yellow are denounced as "yellowist", as is anyone suspected of liking the color. People who like orange are tolerated but viewed with suspicion. Suppose you realize there is nothing wrong with yellow. If you go around saying this, you'll be denounced as a yellowist too, and you'll find yourself having a lot of arguments with anti-yellowists. If your aim in life is to rehabilitate the color yellow, that may be what you want. But if you're mostly interested in other questions, being labelled as a yellowist will just be a distraction. Argue with idiots, and you become an idiot.

...

The most important thing is to be able to think what you want, not to say what you want. And if you feel you have to say everything you think, it may inhibit you from thinking improper thoughts. I think it's better to follow the opposite policy. Draw a sharp line between your thoughts and your speech. Inside your head, anything is allowed. Within my head I make a point of encouraging the most outrageous thoughts I can imagine. But, as in a secret society, nothing that happens within the building should be told to outsiders. The first rule of Fight Club is, you do not talk about Fight Club.

...

When Milton was going to visit Italy in the 1630s, Sir Henry Wootton, who had been ambassador to Venice, told him his motto should be "i pensieri stretti & il viso sciolto." Closed thoughts and an open face. Smile at everyone, and don't tell them what you're thinking. This was wise advice. Milton was an argumentative fellow, and the Inquisition was a bit restive at that time. But I think the difference between Milton's situation and ours is only a matter of degree. Every era has its heresies, and if you don't get imprisoned for them you will at least get in enough trouble that it becomes a complete distraction.

> The most important thing is to be able to think what you want, not to say what you want. [...] Draw a sharp line between your thoughts and your speech

While this is wise life advice, it's also an invitation to hypocrisy. A collective hypocrisy in which everyone might think one way and speak another. And sometimes this will have consequences: will you defend from public lynching the one who said what everybody thinks? Will you betray yourself when you thought you were in a safe context, only for your words to be reported and used against you?

Generally, the number of people that will stand up to a crowd or a mob and hold their own is dismally small. It goes against your own raw survival instincts to be accepted by the tribe (we are social creatures by nature) and sets your body into fight mode.

I think pg is off on this particular essay. You may want to pick your battles, but you still have to have battles to win the war. You can't hide in your basement. You can't risk nothing.

There’s no reporting institution that gets all reporting right. I surely disagree with lots of NYT reports but they do a better job than most others in explaining a story. I’d be happy to take recommendations though on where to get maybe better written briefings everyday.

I thought flame baiting was against the rules here

I'm also flagging.

This has no merits with regards to science or the hacker mindset (thinkering with things, technology or engineering).

It's someone with an agenda, trying to leverage the reach this platform has for the wrong purposes. (Propaganda/incentivise cancel culture).

Does not belong on Hacker News.

I wonder how many upvoters read the whole thing and think that the NYT (or something like them):

>They are the ones that choose the president.

Eh, more and more it’s seeming the opposite. This seems to be what HN wants and perhaps I don’t belong on it.

Once in a while I try to write some nuanced opinions I have that don't slot well into the liberal "tribe" I usually slide into, but I think could result in some profound dialog if everying is engaged in good faith. I don't agree with a good deal of liberal policy, but they kind of have a monopoly on moral accountability and sanity at the moment, so that's where I'm rooted.

Problem is, I can't write about something that goes against the tribe's hive mind without getting viscous pushback. Usually the pushback is rooted in either a complete misunderstanding/ignorance of what I'm saying, or simply not caring what I have to say if it's not in line with the current narratives.

Anyway, I found this article interesting (I have no idea if the guy's NYT rant is valid). I don't write much anymore because I don't like the negative consequences that comes with it. Good, honest debate can be fun, but it's nearly impossible to have even with people that you share virtually everything in common with.

You can always do what the author says (maybe the only thing I'd take from that rant) and write a blog.

did anyone actually read this whole... thing? If so, does it ever get to a logical or sane point or reasoning?

After about 20% through I started scrolling through, looking for something, but this seems to be just... a bunch of words? Maybe the author should have just kept it in one of those paper notebooks that was mentioned.

No, it never comes together and the ending seems entirely disconnected.

I think many posters are missing the actual point of the article. To me it reads more like a manifesto against the toxic main stream media (MSM) apparatus that we have in the US.

NYT (and other MSM outlets) have consistently been caught in lies that benefit the current political establishment. It has also consistently suppressed and misrepresented any group or individual that posed a serious threat to it. When caught, they either don't acknowledge any wrongdoing, or issue a non-apology. There have already been several stark examples of NYT reporters being fired (cancelled) for daring to share any opinion not in line with the NYT or the establishment group-think. There is a whole online community rallied around weaponizing the biased articles and opinions published in MSM publications against anyone that might challenge them or present a different perspective.

This is the power that we collectively have given to the NYT and MSM, and this is what the author is hoping we reclaim. For me this became very clear the last 3 political cycles, when I clearly saw the MSM bias and how destructive it is to our political discourse. We are left with no real change in large part because of the organized suppression in our "news" reporting. You just have to look at the difference of polling on popular issues vs. what is actually discussed in MSM publications.

The Trumpers already knew that the MSM is "fake" because they were a dissenting voice that was consistently suppressed and distorted. Now the Progressives have realized the same after their treatment over the last 8 years. The political middle are the ones that are left still giving credence to the MSM, but I wonder how much longer that will continue when the people's voice continues to be suppressed by these outlets and their lives get worse because of it....

Anyone have a tl; dr? The article didn't really have any sort of stated thesis at the start. I paged down and skimmed and it seemed kind of like a long rant without any sort of coherent argument. What was this all about?

I'm pretty sure it isn't coherent.

NYT (mainstream media bad) - be your own journalist you can do better, truth and facts don't matter something something liberties and fake news.

I thought it might be about hard it is to cancel a NY Times subscription. Nope. Started OK, a bit about writing more, then suddenly it turns into something like a bad drug trip.

This post reads like the author is having a manic episode. It also seems better suited for a conspiracy group than this community, and outright calls for violence near the end.

> They are the ones that choose the president.

> It is the great deceiver. The prince of lies. The great trickster. The great oppressor. This evil is ancient.

> We are all being controlled and oppressed and enslaved by the evil octopus of the New York Times.

> I see it now. I see that information and truth and freedom have been oppressed. I had been silenced.

> There are now crimes of thought and the New York Times is the police and being canceled is the prison.

> Everyone was suddenly forced to write for the New York Times and spread their writing.

> If you own the building in which the New York Times resides burn it down.

I haven't read it yet but does the author actually mention "Q Anon" as their information source or is that a connection you made and ascribed to the author?

I edited my post to say “conspiracy group”, because I thought “qanon drivel” was a bit inflammatory.

He does not mention qanon specifically. That being said, his talking points of an omnipresent evil cadre who control politics would be right at home. The post is full of classic anti-Semitic tropes.

"The octopus is oppressing America, and it is destroying America. In the New York Times the country seems literally on the brink of anarchy and war, all in service, to the power of the New York Times. Look what is happening! When times are good and people are happy and fulfilled and successful the New York Times is an irrelevant bore. When the world is ending as they would have you believe (it is not) they become more powerful than the president. They are the ones that choose the president. You may think that if you vote for Trump or Biden that it will get better. It will not! It will only get worse! The only way to get better is to stop reading the New York Times. And stop writing for any of its tentacles."

This resonates with me especially. In a time of excess we are led too often to believe we are on the brink of collapse. Manufactured crises.

Relevant readings talking about the NYT and journalism:

- https://savingjournalism.substack.com/p/how-newspapers-handl...

- https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-ge...

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26122924

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