5 ms·

First and foremost, what evidence is there for Hamming's claim? > is worth a single disrupted morning. We're not talking about a single "disrupted" morning. W

First and foremost, what evidence is there for Hamming's claim? > is worth a single disrupted morning. We're not talking about a single "disrupted" morning. We're talking about chronic depression, which can lead to suicide. Many people I tell that I don't keep up with current events like to claim I'm ignorant. At which point I ask them to name the most important thing they learned from news two weeks ago. Haven't had someone come up with anything substantial yet. Knowledge is valuable, it is a form of wealth, and there are many ways to get it. I do not believe we receive knowledge from modern mainstream media today. Most of it is ephemeral drama that does not matter in the least.

DanielBMarkham 9y ago
Spot on. It used to be when the feedback cycles were quite long that newspapers were forced to use a shotgun approach, hitting all sorts of topics in the hopes that one or two them would interest the reader. If they failed? No big deal. With instantaneous feedback, and click-based advertising? All that crap is out the window. (Although you can make a good argument that things got really out of hand with the rise of cable news and the 24-hour-news cycle.) It's all emotional manipulation now. Nothing else. It looks like for a lot of folks, it doesn't even matter if it's true or not. 50 years ago, if you didn't the paper, you were ignorant. Today, if you consume a bunch of online media, you're not ignorant, you're stupid: you are purposely filling your head with emotion-laden content in lieu of actually learning anything. If anything, you're most likely making yourself emotionally ill. The best source I have for learning what's going on is the opinion columns. The format drives more honest out. As an opinion-writer, you're expected to have a thesis, an argument, and supporting data. Your bias is direct and up-front. It's a much more tractable way of evaluating information sources.
wu-ikkyu 9y ago
>I do not believe we receive knowledge from modern mainstream media today. Most of it is ephemeral drama that does not matter in the least. The "news" has been like that for a long time. "Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knolege with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief, that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time; whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will, &c., &c.; but no details can be relied on. I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false." -Thomas Jefferson, 1807 http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_speechs29.html http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_spe... While Jefferson neglected to read newspapers, he read many books and was arguably one of the most important figures in the Enlightenment.
- l9k 9y ago
  I actually thought it was a recent quote until the end. 200 years later, still true.
- npsimons 9y ago
  > While Jefferson neglected to read newspapers, he read many books and was arguably one of the most important figures in the Enlightenment. This is my goal. Well, at least being more erudite by reading books and research papers and ignoring the news. I think I missed my window on being an important figure in the Enlightenment.

DanielBMarkham 9y ago

Spot on. It used to be when the feedback cycles were quite long that newspapers were forced to use a shotgun approach, hitting all sorts of topics in the hopes that one or two them would interest the reader. If they failed? No big deal. With instantaneous feedback, and click-based advertising? All that crap is out the window. (Although you can make a good argument that things got really out of hand with the rise of cable news and the 24-hour-news cycle.) It's all emotional manipulation now. Nothing else. It looks like for a lot of folks, it doesn't even matter if it's true or not. 50 years ago, if you didn't the paper, you were ignorant. Today, if you consume a bunch of online media, you're not ignorant, you're stupid: you are purposely filling your head with emotion-laden content in lieu of actually learning anything. If anything, you're most likely making yourself emotionally ill. The best source I have for learning what's going on is the opinion columns. The format drives more honest out. As an opinion-writer, you're expected to have a thesis, an argument, and supporting data. Your bias is direct and up-front. It's a much more tractable way of evaluating information sources.

wu-ikkyu 9y ago

>I do not believe we receive knowledge from modern mainstream media today. Most of it is ephemeral drama that does not matter in the least. The "news" has been like that for a long time. "Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knolege with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief, that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time; whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will, &c., &c.; but no details can be relied on. I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false." -Thomas Jefferson, 1807 http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_speechs29.html http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_spe... While Jefferson neglected to read newspapers, he read many books and was arguably one of the most important figures in the Enlightenment.

l9k 9y ago
I actually thought it was a recent quote until the end. 200 years later, still true.
npsimons 9y ago
> While Jefferson neglected to read newspapers, he read many books and was arguably one of the most important figures in the Enlightenment. This is my goal. Well, at least being more erudite by reading books and research papers and ignoring the news. I think I missed my window on being an important figure in the Enlightenment.