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Comment by autoexec | Hacker News Reader

I'm sure that ignoring all of the very real problems we have and the ways we're being harmed can make some people feel better, but burying your head in the sand doesn't make any of it actually go away.

You can pretty safely ignore a lot of irrelevant rage bait, but by remaining ignorant to what's going on around you you also risk losing a lot of useful, actionable, information and being blindsided by things that could have been avoided.

I know that if I were corporation hurting and exploiting people for profit or a corrupt politician screwing over the public I'd be very happy to encourage people to "unplug" and stop stressing about things.

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What are you doing to fix the issues though? Has the knowledge of the issues increased your agency in a meaningful way such that you've taken actions to improve things or are you just enjoying living in a perpetually outraged state for the sake of it? If your martyrdom isn't doing anything to help fix the problem you're just hurting yourself and stopping yourself from potentially being in a space to ever actually do anything.

And what are you doing with the happy mental space you have carved out?

Living a couple years longer in better health from less chronic stress, probably.

I'm surprised by how you need to answer that. I'm not sure if they are being obtuse, contrarian or defending their addiction (yes, I said it).

And I’m surprised by your level of investment in being a jerk in this conversation.

You are right, I'm sorry. My previous message was way over the tone

It seemed appropriate to me considering the question from @lazyasciiart.

Yes, not thinking about serious problems because they don’t personally impact you will make your life more comfortable. Butler appears to be making the less obviously self serving argument that spending time being aware of serious problems is only hurting your ability to do anything about them, which implies that he is better able to do something about them because he does not spend time knowing about them. I think that he isn’t doing anything about them, and therefore his pretense that people would be more effective by staying offline is crap.

> Has the knowledge of the issues increased your agency in a meaningful way such that you've taken actions to improve things

Yes.

Yes. Maybe I'm not taking immediate action now (as I'm still looking for a full time role), but it has shaped how I want to go about my next 2-5 years after I fix my own issues. I don't want to just lean on the sidelines, I want to do my part and help out where I can. Be it financially (when money permits) or physically.

> What are you doing to fix the issues though?

You can't always expect to be able to fix everything yourself, but you often can take steps to help or at least protect yourself. It just depends on what's in the news. Very recently, I've started avoiding produce from Taylor Farms. Good thing I was paying attention to the news when that mess started. It was only by reading the news that I became aware of a change in how postmarks were being added by the USPS and that saved me some potential headaches.

Being informed can result in things like patching vulnerable software, withdrawing supporting a political candidate, reaching out to your representatives about issues that concern you, asking your doctor about treatments/medications/vaccines, exploring new media, changing or delaying travel plans, changing your spending habits, making adjustments to investments, etc.

What does ignorance get you?

You are making valid points, but most people will spend their day reading about other places governments or presidential scandals. For 99% of people, knowing what Trump or whatever politician is doing does not change anything in your life. Also, you have no control or power for changing something about it. If you spent 70% of your day worried about Trump while you live in Estonia (random example), not reading the news is a good choice. You sound like someone who can avoid these traps, but I can say that this is not a common behavior. Most people will bite the ragebait

Accepting the 99% figure, 1% is not a particularly small number. That's about 3.5 million people in the US alone. And it becomes much greater when you consider anyone who cares about someone in that 1%.

If you are American, yes. If you live in a random country, and don't have personal relations with the USA, reading about Trump's actions will only give you anxiety (if you disagree with his positions, of course)

> but most people will spend their day reading about other places governments or presidential scandals.

Okay. I can't control most people. I can control myself. Even if I did want to control people, influencing comes by the minority choosing to be aware and spread that to others.

We are indeed in this situation mostly because "most people" think that they can't do anything. "most people" in my generations (as a very late millenial, so I have some Gen Z exposure) chose not to vote in 2024, given turnout numbers. I want to at least put some effort in addressing that notion.

>If you spent 70% of your day worried about Trump while you live in Estonia (random example), not reading the news is a good choice.

And I'm sure Estonia has its own domestic issues too. I'm sure they can still influence their representatives to take actions based on Trump if that's a strong influence.

They can't do much in the US, but I'm mostly talking to a US audience here. That's my target.

> Very recently, I've started avoiding produce from Taylor Farms Good thing I was paying attention to the news when that mess started.

This is very obviously not the type of situation and behavior marginalia_nu and then I were commenting about.

> This is very obviously not the type of situation and behavior marginalia_nu and then I were commenting about.

marginalia_nu said all news.

Why does one need to be proactively doing anything to justify awareness and holding a point of view?

Yes, it has. Not "tuning out" the news has helped me mitigate significant problems for me personally, which a delay of a couple days would have meant it was too late.

I think your word choice ("enjoying living in a perpetually outraged state", "martyrdom") seems to show more outrage than a lot of the people you rail against.

It's also my impression that most people who want everybody to turn off the news agree with or don't care about any bad things happening to people that are being reported on.

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