Comment by coldpie | Hacker News Reader

Comment by coldpie | Hacker News Reader

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> I'm with Bryan Caplan's position that most of the news can be safely eliminated from one's consumption with zero loss to one's quality of life

I follow one or two very local news sources[1], who post about three to five stories a week. I find those valuable: new restaurants opening, construction going on, what's going on with local organizations & politicians, some local history. It's up to ten minutes a day. And, I choose to pay a subscription to support each of these.

Outside that, I 100% agree with you. National news? Complete waste of time. World news? Somehow an even bigger waste. Reading random vomit on Twitter? Good lord, taking up smoking is a better use of your life than that. No way in hell I'm wasting my life or money on any of that junk. It's despairing to see so many people I know spending hours every day reading national news junk to absolutely no purpose. You can know everything you need to know about the world in ten minutes a day. More than that is just throwing your time down the garbage.

[1] An example: https://racketmn.com

I do get the point that following news constantly all day long is a bit like doom scrolling and doesn’t add much to a good life. However, I would not go as far as saying „complete waste of time“. It is Saturday morning and I just read a long interview with Wladimir Kara-Mursa, one of the Russian opposition politicians who was recently released from prison as part of a prisoner exchange. In the interview, Kara-Mursa talks a lot about his time in Russian jails, Putin‘s system, and being a opposition politician in Russia. Does it to relate my everyday normal life here in Germany? Well of course it does not at first glance. But at second and third glance it does and most importantly it helps me appreciate what I consider my normal everyday life in a democracy and it informs my decision making when it comes to the upcoming elections and the way different parties position themselves towards Russia and the war in Ukraine.

That being said, I don’t think it makes much sense to follow any type of news all the time all day long, but I would really miss it if it was no longer available as it helps me put things / my life into context and make more informed decisions at the ballot box. And sure I am willing to pay for that type of journalism.

> No way in hell I'm wasting my life or money on any of that junk. It's despairing to see so many people I know spending hours every day reading national news junk to absolutely no purpose.

Now imagine you don't have access to those anymore. Overconsumption of news clearly is a problem, but shutting yourself off to the what's happening in the world is somehow worse.

> but shutting yourself off to the what's happening in the world is somehow worse

How?

Russia's doing something stupid in Ukraine. People in the middle east are killing each other again. The Olympics just happened in France. Republicans are running nutjobs for office again. Sweet, I'm up to date in 15 seconds. I can go back to reading a book or playing guitar or cooking dinner or weeding my garden or arguing on HN.

How is this worse than spending 2 hours reading into all the details of the stuff I just mentioned, and then not having any time left over to do the things that actually make my life worth living?

2c,

1) Don’t read the news. It IS optional. Personally, if there were a good reason to read it, it would be based on curiosity and interest in knowing about humanity at large.

2) someone should be reading the news, because of economics, politics, and voting.

In the current global economy - your fate is dependent on the fate and actions of others.

The actions of Russia have hampered economies in the EU. This has currently obscured the strength of the underlying EU economy, making the US economy appear stronger.

Simultaneously, Italy, which had a lower dependency on Russian energy, is doing better and hopefully reducing some of its loan burden.

That’s just… fun to know?

Sheikh Hasina’s government in Bangladesh collapsed, the interim / caretaker government which has come in is headed by a Nobel Laureate. Their mandate is to prepare for another round of elections.

They don’t call themselves ministers, but advisors (iirc). I thought that was an interesting wrinkle and potential counter example for discussions on government, which happen regularly.

I don’t know how to frame my point better, but it does feel that this comment thread presupposes only a few narrow options.

Perhaps breaking from news is good when it’s just overwhelmingly negative, and designed to harm you?

But perhaps its great when its a way to address your interest and curiosity ?

Then funny part “stronger US economy” has stock crash not related in any way to events in Ukraine or Middle East. It crashed because finance guys had scheme borrowing Japanese currency and buying stocks with it.

So it is always that you might have illusion of knowing what is going on.

I love talking heads “experts” making assumptions but it is just talking and real stuff is always deeper.

So I rather people voting on their core values whatever those are than “perceived wisdom they are so informed”.

I mean, there isnt any illusion, because the stock market != economy. The statement was about economies.

Secondly - that was an incredibly short paragraph, so talking about illusions, and depth is *really* assuming a lot from under 250 words.

Plus your addition of current events, only underscored the point of needing to be aware of the news. So... thanks?

> So I rather people voting on their core values whatever those are than “perceived wisdom they are so informed”.

I think this assertion was not supported (and potentially undermined) by your supporting anecdotes.

Edit: if anything, your sharing more News to .. argue (?) against the position, supports the point that aware of current affairs is needed.

Hey we are discussing things so I am not about scoring points here ;)

I might write in confrontational tone and I like to write opposing view just for discussion sake.

I do agree market != economy. I think “perceived wisdom they are so informed” is still quite a good statement.

Ah, thanks for highlighting that. Tone can be quite a painn

> … That’s just… fun to know?

I agree, I like to read these analyses too but I don’t think they’re “news”, they’re usually in a wonky blog I follow.

On average it’s not, at least not for the average person.

But not everyone is average, and for some of those who do invest the time in going beyond superficial headlines, the payoff is considerable in terms of power, prestige, influence, and wealth.

There is also the fact that if everyone disregarded the news, society would quickly disintegrate as bad actors leveraged people’s ignorance for the own personal ends. Thus, there is a social responsibility aspect to keeping abreast of current events.

The solution may be to go back when news wasn't some action filled adventure to be consumed every hour. Social responsible news should inform the public and provide the necessary background so people can form their own views and conclusions, rather than current system of news companies that carves an audience to whom they can provide entertainment and engagement.

To make a second reference, Yes, Minister has an excellent sketch over UK news papers, beautifully illustrating how each paper has carved up their own piece of the population and provide entertainment to serve those readers. It almost 40 years old and still fairly accurate description.

It not an uncommon sentiment to hear people saying that Wikipedia is a better platform for news than news organizations, since the content will stabilize fairly fast on that which everyone agrees on, and contentions over facts becomes noticeable. The general resistance to emotional loaded words also helps combat some of the worst aspects of news.

PM: What about the people who read The Sun?

Bernard: Sun readers don't care who runs the country, as long as she's got big tits.

Best comedy series.

> There is also the fact that if everyone disregarded the news, society would quickly disintegrate as bad actors leveraged people’s ignorance for the own personal ends. Thus, there is a social responsibility aspect to keeping abreast of current events.

Can you provide an example of this? I honestly can't think of a single time when I learned something in the news that fit this description.

There are lots of examples of politicians resigning from press reports about them. Just recently a senator from NJ stepped done because his court case caused tons of negative publicity.

Public shaming has been less of an issue the past 10 years but it’s still kind of a thing.

> society would quickly disintegrate as bad actors leveraged people’s ignorance for the own personal ends

There is an argument that the media is that bad actor, and a contributor to society's disintegration

You can read up on what is happening like once per quarter in like a couple of hours. Following 'this just in' with 'developing stories' is a waste of time.

E.g. I read the wiki entry for Trump's assassination attempt after like a week and saved myself hours of rumours and guesses.

I think https://www.slow-journalism.com/ is trying to do what you describe.

You make a valid point. I live in a small city and something’s that matter (what’s going on with road work: bike lanes). I went to a meeting a few years back and had to explain what was going on to a neighbor, because no coverage and the city didn’t post a lot of good information.

A lot of news is too much analysis or “what might happen next” rather than “this just happened and here’s what it means”.

I keep up with the news, but I can see the point OP made.

The average Johnny McOfficeWorker in the West is unaffected by and has no control over the conflicts, political struggles, or general bad stuff happening halfway around the world. Personal circumstances aside (i.e., a family member in a conflict area), the only reasons a typical person even cares are 1) feeling fulfilled by being an informed voter, and 2) entertainment.

And unfortunately, I suspect more people care about the entertainment value than they do the civic value.

Being uninformed works well as long as the political system is sort of ok. But for the (democratic) political system to work sorta well, most voters needs to be somewhat informed about national and even international issues (since they are connected).

> The average Johnny McOfficeWorker in the West is unaffected by and has no control over the conflicts, political struggles, or general bad stuff happening halfway around the world.

They are greatly affected, especially if the US ends up fighting wars or the international economy is undermined when others fight wars. Their taxes go now to prevent those conflicts (which would be much more expensive later). Other global phenomena, like mpox, climate change, etc. do not respect borders. Foriegn powers do not respect borders, including by supporting their political allies right in McOfficeWorker's own country.

As far as McOfficeWorker's influence, probably nothing is more influential in international affairs than the average American's opinion (see my nearby comment for more about that).

I wonder what the best argument is for a median American needing to watch the news in order to do their civic duty. E.g. how will the average Joe be able to impact a century-long conflict in Palestine?

At what point is it just people living a delusion, overestimating their ability to impact the rest of the world, refusing to accept that they're just an NPC with zero agency when it comes to major issues outside of their immediate neighborhood?

> E.g. how will the average Joe be able to impact a century-long conflict in Palestine?

The 'average' American has so much influence, in fact, that the cornerstone of Israeli foreign policy and national security is the support of average Americans.

How that mechanism works is an interesting question, but not too hard to imagine: Israel is much too small to defend itself, and therefore depends on support from the most powerful country in the world. That support happens largely because average Americans want it. Imagine, for example, if one of the current candidates said, 'if elected, I will cut off all support to Israel' - probably they would lose the election.

The beliefs of average Americans have great influence over many things, which is why powerful people spend so much time, money, and effort trying to persuade them. Look at Fox News and MSNBC; look at Russian and Chinese (and probably other) social media influence operations; look at the near infinite political propaganda; look at Musk, who spent $40B on such influence, and at how much time he spends posting in order to influence people.

Another way to influence average Americans is to convince them to surrender their power and not even try. That leaves the field more open for others to control events.

> but shutting yourself off to the what's happening in the world is somehow worse

I see this point sometimes, never qualified further. Can you elaborate? In what way will my quality of life diminish if I have no idea what's going on outside of my local area? Provide an actual example.

I think not being subject to having your rights removed by legislation is a privilege.

Consider this: a woman in Texas doesn't follow the news. She tries to seek out an abortion. Now she is unable to get that healthcare she previously was able to. Similar things can arise with voting rights, where now people need to bring very specific forms of ID to vote. Essentially, I think my point is not being aware of which groups in power are actively working to limit your rights is probably not good.

Almost all examples end up boiling down to “you might vote wrong if you don’t pay attention to the news” to which I say, well that’s easy enough, I don’t vote.

It sounds like you always vote for the status quo.

I think being able to live and not worry that the government will not limit your rights is a privilege.

I have a theory, to the effect that impacts on you are determined by the magnitude of the news as well as an exponential decay of the distance.

To take an extreme example, if Godzilla were to show up and level Tokyo today, that would clearly be terrible but the actual impact on me is much less than that some roads nearby are closed because of a marathon.

Unless I can do something to prevent Godzilla, there is no reason to follow the news from far away, except the leftover limbic system of my brain that still thinks its 10000 BC and we are in a small hunter gather band.

It really depends who you are and what you do...

For most of history humanity grew it's food locally, it depended on local items, got killed by local actors as you state. Each locality was its own anti-fragile little kingdom.

But this is no longer true and this is something we saw during covid. If a factory blows up in Tokyo that makes the live saving medicine/device that you depend on to keep surviving, it's no different for you than your city catching on fire. If all the crops die in some foreign place and you live in a food importing country, trouble is coming. If a war is blowing up ships then supplies you need for your business may not show up any more and bankruptcy could be on the menu.

We live in a fragile black swan dominated world.

(Daily) news isn't nearly the only option of learning about what's happening in the world. And I'd argue it's not even the best either, by a long shot.

Is it? Do the Amish follow the news? They seem to be living fine and happy without it.

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