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Comment by vacri | Hacker News Reader

I think the best counter to the faff in this article is simply: Talk to someone who watches the news. Then talk to someone who doesn't. Even if nothing else, watching the news is at least indicative of an interest in the world beyond arms'-length.

Besides, there's a world of difference between "read the news being aware that the news-maker has an agenda" and "ignore the news entirely".

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I totally agree with what you said, some of my coworkers are blissfully ignorant to anything that happens beyond their household and talking to them feels almost like talking to a child. Sometimes it even gives me a sense of superiority when I see I am way more "prepared" than them.

Having said that, I feel exhausted from news. Specially link bait or biased media. Almost like I have a burnout of BS and I am becoming very skeptical from almost all news source. Example, started watching CNN ditched in favor of BBC then stopped BBC in favor of Al Jazeera then... You get the point.

I must say that I have an urge that I keep coming back to check the news, every so often, to satiate this weird need to staying informed. But if I could, talking almost like an addicted person here, I would totally stop reading all this "crap".

Yeah, it's this exhaustion from reading news that I think the article is trying to help avoid. It's great to be engaged in the world, but being engaged by consuming news is exhausting, literally causes constant anxiety, and is bad for you!

That's not to say you should ignore the world, you should just try getting your information from in-depth reporting, long essays on topics of interest, from people who have actually been there, and so on. There's no freaking rush!

If it's so important that I can't wait a month to read an in depth article with context and correct details, I will hear about it from friends.

As in most things, moderation is the key. There's a lot of room to move between "avoid all news" and "constantly check the news".

I also find that keeping abreast of the news provides a history that helps things make sense. Why the news has to provide some sort of life-shattering function for you (as the article describes) is beyond me. Why is politician A pushing Article 1? Well, there's been several strings of related articles, and then there was Incident 2 a couple of months ago...

That may tell you more about who buys into the popular notion of keeping up with the news than who's interested in the world. There's a lot of social signaling involved in appearing informed about a somewhat arbitrary selection of current events.

And what exactly is the difference you find between those who watch news and those who don't?

Besides being able to talk about latest news themselves, of course.

One of the absolute curses of the internet is that it has near-completely killed off the ability to speak in metaphor.

I truly don't find your metaphor (if it can be called that at all) apt, thus my question.

'speaking in metaphor' is a bit self-referential and is another way of saying 'talking around the issue without having to exactly specify everything in a bullet-pointed list that is clear to even the most basic speaker of the language, all the while allowing for all the usual disclaimers to be applied, the most salient being that the item in question is a general trend that has been noted by the utterer, and not a cast-iron ruling applicable to every possible combination of subject parties when applied in a Condorcet-style fashion'. It's a kind of shorthand.

As for 'what do I mean', I mean that I find people who actually follow news (and I mean in general, not news junkies) generally have a better understanding of why one event follows another, are generally more worldly in that way. You can of course find exceptions, because these are humans and there is little that is absolute or even near absolute in that realm, but I think that 'following news' and 'having a more worldly view' are two items that are not completely orthogonal; the relationship between them is a positive one and is not lost in statistical noise.

You should really revise what you wrote earlier in light of what you've just written and, in the process, get off the high horse. It would have been a lot shorter and less annoying for everybody involved. (Hint: "best counter to the faff in this article is simply: Talk to someone who watches the news. Then talk to someone who doesn't." implies that one is "better" than the other and which one, but not at all why)

Now that you've explained why, I can tell you my experience is not like yours at all, I find that many people who actively follow the news tend to parrot them out without true understanding.

Now that you've explained why, I can tell you my experience is not like yours at all

This is what pissed me off from your first utterance. You already knew what I meant. And you already knew what you wanted to say. But rather than just step forward with what you had to say, you did this stupid fucking charade where I have to explain myself in detail before you'll deign to provide your side of the argument. And that would have played out in a way that both of us already knew. You could have just as easily said what you thought I meant and why you think it's wrong, instead of turning it into this stupid pantomime. And then if you had misunderstood me, I would have the opportunity to clarify. Instead you started an entirely predictable path of drek, and I thought 'fuck that, I'll go a different way'.

My 'high horse' was born of being tired of your "I say you're wrong with no support on my side; explain yourself further!" style of argument. It's lazy and unfair and requires minimal commitment from you while not making any statement of substance that can be addressed. That's why I went over the top in my previous comment, nothing to do with the particular topic at hand.

Also, if you want to lecture people about getting off high horses and not implying that one is better than the other, it would behoove you not to use condescending mechanisms like "(Hint:".

You are plainly and simply wrong.

I was not sure what you meant and that's why I asked, especially given that you gave no extra context or argumentation for your position.

If that bores or tires you, stop answering instead of derailing the conversation with anger stemming from paranoid delusions about second and third intentions.

Your talk experience works as well with football, basketball, cinema, HN, weather... Sharing a common interest with someone make talk a lot more interresting.

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