Comment by jeromegv | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jeromegv | Hacker News Reader

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Most news is local. If it doesn't impact YOU, then it's always fine, the world is fine. I'm sure that if you are in Ukraine, turning off the TV doesn't mean that the world is fine when you look outside and see bombs falling on the building next door.

I understand the sentiment, and I'm also careful about how much news I consume, but there's a fine line between this and being privileged to be able to afford to skip news because those suffering aren't your family.

In a less extreme example, if a big project came into your neighborhood to destroy all the houses on your street to build a highway, I'm sure that suddenly this news would make you want to get involved politically to advocate against the destruction of it. But when that happened in the other neighborhood and you didn't care to even write an email to your local politician to oppose it because you didn't know about it, other families suffered.

It's a fine line.. I've seen my parents watch news 3 times a day (lunch, dinner, and late-evening news) and it was definitely not healthy and did not make them better citizen either. I don't have a perfect answer.

> I understand the sentiment, and I'm also careful about how much news I consume, but there's a fine line between this and being privileged to be able to afford to skip news because those suffering aren't your family.

I don't think there's any obligation to keep up with events on the other side of the world (or the other side of your country) if you're not also able and willing to do something about it. I dunno about applying the "privilege" label to that—in fact, the fewer resources you have, the less point there is in it.

> I don't think there's any obligation to keep up with events on the other side of the world

Things that happen across the world affect us here too. Maybe your friends have family in Ukraine or are from there. I have students who are Ukrainian. Currently Ukrainians are leaving their homeland as refugees and resettling all around the world. They could be moving in down the street and will be your neighbors! Knowing what's happening around the world allows one to be empathetic to the situations of others.

How much time does one need to spend on distant news to know enough of it for that purpose, though? If you've got a whole lot of refugees heading to your city, local news will cover it. Otherwise, knowing the basics seems like plenty to me, unless you're just interested in it for entertainment's sake.

I feel that is so privileged of you to say that. You have a duty to know what is happening on the other side of the world when you're American, because the federal politicians you elect decide policy affecting the whole globe, and have done so unopposed by any equal force for over 30 years.

Being an American is like being a Roman citizen; you have to run the whole empire.

How much time do you need to do that, though? Is keeping up with all the minutia, checking in on how Ukraine's doing every single day (even multiple times), really helping anyone? I do keep up with the news, and especially international news, but I'm under no illusion that it's a valuable use of time. Past very low-levels of engagement, it's a hobby, or a pastime. Like knitting or watching soap operas.

Again, I think that end would also be better served if a high proportion of news media consumption were shifted to citizenship-relevant books (and maybe very high-quality, low-frequency periodicals), probably starting with textbooks and classics in political science, history, and economics (I doubt anyone who's mined those well already, needs any help picking their next high-value read).

>You have a duty to know what is happening on the other side of the world when you're American, because the federal politicians you elect decide policy affecting the whole globe

Nope, not my duty. My duty is to elect politicians who enact policy affecting me. If a politician enriches my country at the expense of another, it is my duty to vote for him, for the sake of myself and my family. No one is a citizen of the world.

You will vote for the people destroying the Roman empire for the sake of Rome? That way lies madness.

> there's a fine line between this and being privileged to be able to afford to skip news because those suffering aren't your family.

Watching the news is not helping these people.

> there's a fine line between this and being privileged to be able to afford to skip news because those suffering aren't your family.

Hence why I said most. I definitely agree that being exposed to outside events can be important for sympathizing with those affected (and possible helping them), but at the same time, one does not need to be aware of everything going on in the world.

It's interesting how you choose "highway" and not "railway" even though the eminent domain would be the same.

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