Hacker News Reader

Comment by soyasis | Hacker News Reader

On the political note of the article: yes, the world is fucked up and it is exhausting to only read fucked up news. I personally believe that disconnecting from reality and becoming 'apolitical' implies giving up on humanity; that is giving up on your kids, nephews and the children of your best friends. No need to change the world, a small change in your community is more than enough. Specially as coders, what we build can impact and influence thousands of people all over the world. Sometimes I wonder if things would be different if we all invested 3-5% of our time in supporting our communities and engaging in some form of activism.

View on HN

I don’t follow the news at all because it’s 99% biased garbage and frequently not true and pollutes the mind. My life and mental health is significantly better for this. Nothing I read in the news would change how I vote, which is basically the best reason anyone could give for watching it.

You can afford not reading news only if you live in a democratic country with a stable economy, far from any conflict zones. In other parts of the world, you would miss information that you need for your survival.

Even in that country - if you’re a woman you need to know if you still have rights regarding bodily autonomy (e.g. abortion). If you’re queer you need to know if you’re allowed to dress a certain way (anti-drag laws) or express public affection, without being arrested.

I mean everyone needs to knows the law broadly, and the specific laws that may impact them.

Definitely yes to community engagement. Shovelling the snow outside the house of an elderly neighbour is good because it's actually doing something.

I agree, mostly. I decided years ago to stop listening to the news, but that was only after I decided to not have children. It seems wrong for breeders to stick their fingers in their ears.

I have given up on the world, as you put it. But other people's children is not my fault. I do as much as everyone else does to "do the right thing", but no more than that. I used to think about all these things, try to minimise my personal footprint and think about sustainability and future generations etc. But I lost hope. I was fighting the tide. Now I just try to make sure my footprint is not above average and try to be good to the people around me.

Fair enough, as someone sometime somewhere said "you only have control over your actions and your thoughts".

Disconnecting from the news industry does not automatically imply disconnecting from reality. At least I hope so as I consume non-technical news maybe once a week.

You would be insane to think anything on the news was connected to reality.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com