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Comment by mvcosta91 | Hacker News Reader

Seconding this. I only heard about Iran bombing 23 hours after it happened. I was playing SimCity 2013 with my 7yo. I’m reading older books, playing older games, exercising, and keeping a loose eye on AI so I don’t fall too far behind, but I always wait about two months before adopting anything new (like Claude Code, new tools, etc.). I know that’s pretty superficial, but the goal is staying sane, right?

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Other people did the same as you and are now stranded halfway around the world waiting for flights.

I get the gist of it but I think being informed is useful. The best way is having access to quality news with a balance. It does not need to be constant outrage.

If I knew I was traveling to a region, with a potential conflict, I would do my due diligence and read the news. For the vast majority of people, reading news is a net negative.

You may be right. I just wanted to add that there are probably people stranded in Dubai right now because they booked a Berlin–Sydney flight with a stopover six months ago. Sometimes you simply can’t predict these things.

Yes, staying informed can help in some cases. But there are also many situations where it wouldn’t have made a difference. The amount of noise you have to sift through to “stay updated” is huge. At some point, it becomes a trade-off: consume a constant stream of news to maybe avoid a rare edge case — or tune it out and accept that very occasionally you might get unlucky.

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