Hacker News Reader

Comment by silicon2401 | Hacker News Reader

> >While many of the points made by this article are valid, it fails to address important questions like: how can we remain informed

> Well, an earlier question would be: why should we "remain informed"?

IMHO you hit the nail on the head here. Everyone has been conditioned by the news media to assume that we need to follow the news, which they then conflate with "remaining informed".

I go after the information I'm interested in or lacking as needed, like financial or housing market info. Then other info comes to me if it's relevant, like local elections or topics of mutual interest with my friends (or places like HN).

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I understand how you seek financial info, but how does Hacker News come to you? How does local election info come to you?

And I don’t mean what device or medium, but literally _how_ if you aren’t actively clicking or tapping to access it by way of a bookmark or otherwise?

I feel like the original post really wanted to say “control your FOMO and critically consider what news sources you value”, but became too wrapped up in some anti-mainstream media emotion.

> but how does Hacker News come to you?

Submissions by other users come to me through HN. I don't have to search through dates, topics, countries, etc. I just click enter and it all comes to me.

> How does local election info come to you?

I get emails about it for my state, I get physical mail from my state, I get emails about it from my employer, I hear friends/family/coworkers talk about it, I see signs out and about.

Not being flippant, but just because these things don't happen to you doesn't mean they don't happen to anyone. I even learned about some recall election in CA while on vacation there that I made zero effort to learn about. I just saw billboards, flyers in grocery stores, etc.

Clicking Hacker News is seeking news the same way as clicking CNN.

Signing up for emails (presumably) isn’t organically hearing about it via billboards or voluntary conversation; it’s willfully agreeing to have news appear in your inbox.

How does this differ from the person who visits Fox News or CNN and follows a group on Facebook to see their posts appear in their news feed?

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