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Did the same thing about 4 years ago and haven’t looked back. I find though that a lot of people are actually offended by it since I have no clue what thing the

Did the same thing about 4 years ago and haven’t looked back. I find though that a lot of people are actually offended by it since I have no clue what thing they and everyone else is outraged about. I get accused of not caring, being disengaged, blah blah blah. It’s difficult to explain to people who are still deep in outrage mode, so I mostly avoid taking about it. My life is so much better since cutting out the news. I am happier, more focused and able to actually concentrate on the things that I care about. I prefer to think about how I can positively impact people around me and my local community, rather than embracing the culture of outrage about things happening thousands of miles away that are ultimately irrelevant.

irq 8y ago
Honest question, how do you turn off your empathy for the suffering of your fellow countrymen? Which is what ignoring their plight would require (at least, it would for me).
- narrator 8y ago
  There is a lot of bad stuff going on all over all the time. Focus is what's important. There are billions of people on this earth. You could cry at hundreds of stories every day if they were told in great enough detail. Those stories could be embellished or made up, paid for by someone with an agenda to promote and you wouldn't know the difference. Save your outrage for things you have first hand knowledge of or knowledge of through trusted contacts. The world did ok before 24/7 news, so it's not like you, king of the world, need to be up to the minute informed on whatever thing you're supposed to take your outrage vengence upon today.
  - kadendogthing 8y ago
    >There is a lot of bad stuff going on all over all the time. Focus is what's important. I mean starting with people who are in close proximity to you seems like an important thing. Especially given the abundance of food and capital we have? And the fact that our government implicitly relies on voters making informed choices to elect representatives that can then practically the address issues you know/care about? >Save your outrage for things you have first hand knowledge of or knowledge of through trusted contacts. I mean, that's what news organizations are. And we even used to have regulations governing them to ensure they could be trusted. >The world did ok before 24/7 news Well we're talking about slower news. Not no news. And certainly not 24/7 news. Because this article is about slowing things down. And the world wasn't really okay for the longest time. All in all your post is "I'm fine, so shit happens." Kind of crappy.
    - misterprime 8y ago
      >God, give me grace to accept with serenity, the things that cannot be changed, Courage to change the things which should be changed, and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other. I think this is a case of these people realizing that they cannot change the world in such a way to solve each and every problem that is presented to them in the news. As such, they choose to focus on their own personal lives and they people they come across in their day to day lives. I hope this helps. It's not that they just don't care, it's that caring is damaging their psyche and performance. They've learned it's healthier to tune most of that noise out.
      - kadendogthing 8y ago
        >God, give me grace to accept with serenity, the things that cannot be changed, Courage to change the things which should be changed, and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other. I'm not sure what whimsical platitudes that essentially absolve you of your civic duty have to do with this conversation, or how it could possibly negate anything that was said. >I hope this helps. No it just solidifies what I think about the type of people that harbor such opinions.
- dannykwells 8y ago
  I don't think that reading or not reading the news is engaging with the plight of "my fellow countrymen". We all ignore the plight of millions/billions of people every day. That is the way life has always been.
  - EGreg 8y ago
    I remember someone coined a concept recently that when you read about a problem in the world that you can help alleviate then you become morally responsible. It’s liks quantum entanglement but with ethics. Found it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10949572 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10949572 What about that? Coming upon news where you can make a difference right now, by sending money to NGOs with workers on the ground.
    - roenxi 8y ago
      That is an impractical argument. Say there is a situation that Alfred have the power to effect. To reliably cause change for the good Alfred must: (1) Identify a problem and its root cause (2) Change the root cause (3) Confirm that the problem is solved. There are people who claim you can leap straight to (2) and skip (3). These are people who (if they ever honestly checked) would discover that they are not responsible for very much positive, meaningful change. They are flailing, looking busy and have the best of intentions. For anything reported in the news step (1) represents a huge investment of time because the news has probably got the situation at least somewhat wrong. To say Alfred has a moral responsibility to do something is equivalent to saying Alfred has a moral responsibility not to read the news; because Alfred doesn't have enough time or resources to confirm what the problem is for all the sad stories he can read about. In your specific example - 'sending money to NGOs with workers on the ground' - Alfred would probably divert a lot of money to organisations who are good at emotive advertising campaigns with administrative costs verging on embezzlement. We have good historical evidence that Alfred's best bet is to go all-in on capitalism, make a fortune, and then do some philanthropy to maximise his impact. Giving to a worthy cause creates incentives that are terrible. I can't be convinced that it is a good idea. I have a lot more respect for people who volunteer time, but even then I'm suspect of their ability to correctly diagnose the problem they are trying to fix.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- fsloth 8y ago
  Um, how does watching news help anyone’s plight, precisely?
  - mike00632 8y ago
    You can't do anything if you're not even informed about it. There are numerous examples of the public giving enormous amounts of money and relief to victims of, for example, natural disasters.
    - fsloth 8y ago
      Surely one can do much more good through their daily conduct, rather than only chipping in in exceptional circumstances? And if a person is improving their community by their conduct, they recieve their information through direct interaction, rendering news irrelevant.
- zwkrt 8y ago
  I think having empathy for those directly around you is a good start. The saying "all politics are local" goes the other way around as well, that most change is local change. It is unlikely that I can help people gain asylum from oppressive regimes, but it is very likely that my donations to local charities and volunteer work is directly helping those around me. In a categorical imperative sense, if more people acted this way fewer things would be so bad about the world.
- leftyted 8y ago
  I don't experience this kind of empathy very often. For example, I don't get upset when a plane crashes or there's a mass shooting. I can imagine myself in the position of the victims. I can imagine if someone I loved died in a situation like that and I can simulate some of the grief and anger I think I'd feel. But that exercise seems sort of selfish to me. In general, these kind of tragic events don't affect my mood. I do sometimes experience this kind of empathy when I'm reading history or a human-interest story about some tragic or unfair situation. It seems to me that many people assume that all good behavior flows from empathy. I don't think this is true. I use various philosophical viewpoints to justify (or rationalize) my behavior: sometimes utilitarianism, sometimes the categorical imperative, and often a vague sort of humanism.
- irq 8y ago
  I wanted to start an honest discussion but my thread seems to have quickly devolved into the haves vs have nots of a capacity for empathy. Which is not my intention. This is probably my fault, for not considering enough viewpoints before writing my question. Let’s consider starting from this standpoint instead: Everyone has differing levels of empathy and it’s not going to be the same for every person. Despite this, we all need to get along and work towards whatever our individual goals are peacefully. Given this vast spectrum of empathy, advice from the extreme edges of that spectrum (“just tune out all news 100%” on one end, “cry for every single suffering being everywhere” on the other end) is particularly useless, because the only reason this situation even exists in the first place is because of extremism / polarization. Where do we go from here?
- iamkroot 8y ago
  Who said anything about ignoring the plight of others? The news does nothing at all to aid me in helping other people. Indeed, most of the time it distracts me and keeps me from being aware of all the myriad ways I can give back to the community. I volunteer lots of my time with various organizations and I didn't need anyone in the news media to tell me that what I'ma doing is important and valuable.
GordonS 8y ago
I did the same 1-2 years ago, and haven't regretted it. Interestingly, I've experienced the same thing where others seem offended by decision, and I also get accused of being insular and "living in my own little bubble". I just don't get this though - what exactly am I losing out on?
- ghthor 8y ago
  Being stressed out and dying early is what you're losing out on. Also being in pain and unhappy.
  - drb91 8y ago
    Being stressed out and dying early is also a likely result for an apathetic population.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- enumjorge 8y ago
  I do agree that paying too much attention to the crazy that’s going on is not constructive or healthy. But you can definitely overcorrect. If you completely disconnect you have no data with which to make your decisions come election time. A lot of what’s happening in politics does affect you directly. Changes to tax code, the budget, deregulation of industries (e.g. net neutrality). And some of it may not affect you directly but affects people in the communities you live in. A Supreme Court nominee had allegations of sexual assault and gambling problems brought against him. Regardless of what you believe, it behooves you to be aware that this is happening. If the accusations were true don’t you want to know? It affects the women in your life to have someone like that be given a lifelong appointment to the most powerful court of the land. If the accusations weren’t, wouldn’t that be important too? If you’re taking a break to maintain sanity I can understand that. But if you’re simply shrugging your shoulders at what’s happening simply because it doesn’t affect you right now—and trust me, some of the policies this administration is adopting are having a big impact on some—then I think that’s a pretty shitty, selfish attitude to have.
ip26 8y ago
I prefer to think about how I can positively impact people around me and my local community Given that, isn't (local) news still relevant?
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Sometimes, sort of. If you think about the things you read on the news, you'll notice that 99%+ ends up being of no consequence for anything. A lot of what people get outraged about daily is total bullshit, and it gets forgotten the very next day, but even the more important-seeming issues really average out to zero impact on the community. In terms of information, the news is a channel with absurdly low signal/noise ratio. If you want to positively impact people, your first job should be finding a channel with higher SNR. There's a secondary value to news (or rather primary, in terms of value delivered) - social objects. Most people know what's currently on the news, so even though the raw information value is near-zero, it becomes a great conversation starter.
  - ip26 8y ago
    Local news is how I find out about ballot issues, restaurant closures and openings, new public works projects, etc, as well as more sordid things like failed health inspections or the deep dysfunction at a neighborhood school we might have sent our kid to... The SNR might not be super high but it seems useful.
    - jiggunjer 8y ago
      Most items of local news are highly relevant to a small proportion of locals. E.g. roadworks probably just affect a few % of people using that road. Then there are shock-news stories like violent crime. How is it relevant to know some kid from my street stabbed another kid over a pack of gum? If I want to know how safe my area is I'd look at crime statistics collected over years and compare it to other areas.
Faark 8y ago
How do you know whom to vote for? I understand the US doesn't have a lot of choice on the ballot, political news is highly polarized and latest/developing news is probably not worth following. But somewhat keeping up with what your government does so you can hold it accountable seems like a civic duty to me. And what better way to do this than news?
- iamkroot 8y ago
  When it comes time to vote I research each candidate and ballot measure and make an informed decision with the information that I find. I don't need to be plugged into to every daily scandal to know that I fundamentally disagree with Trump's policies, a few minutes of research will tell me that just fine.
  - jiggunjer 8y ago
    You'd be surprised how even fascists can portray themselves as reasonable on their own websites, or how lacking wikipedia is on some parties. Ballot measures only address a small subset of policies, and they don't exist in many places. From what I understand making a 360 turn on them after being elected isn't uncommon either. So your 'informed' decision is probably just as biased as someone who bases their decision on news.
    - iamkroot 8y ago
      I would never use someone's own website as my sole source of information, that's just begging for trouble. I search out as many different sources as I can find, including voting history, town hall transcripts, interviews, endorsements, etc. etc. I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make. Are you saying nobody can ever know enough to vote responsibly?
      - Faark 8y ago
        I'd say the easiest source is the archive of a reputable news site, since journalists are historically responsible for collecting and refining this information. Thus we are back at the initial question: How to get Slower, Better News?
sigi45 8y ago
Not reading anything will not allow you the relevance of climate change. I prefer to read specific things to stay in the loop and I see it as a responsibility to be aware of things as my position in our society allows me to do so.
mruts 8y ago
Wouldn't a better solution be to read news but not be outraged by it?

irq 8y ago

Honest question, how do you turn off your empathy for the suffering of your fellow countrymen? Which is what ignoring their plight would require (at least, it would for me).

narrator 8y ago
There is a lot of bad stuff going on all over all the time. Focus is what's important. There are billions of people on this earth. You could cry at hundreds of stories every day if they were told in great enough detail. Those stories could be embellished or made up, paid for by someone with an agenda to promote and you wouldn't know the difference. Save your outrage for things you have first hand knowledge of or knowledge of through trusted contacts. The world did ok before 24/7 news, so it's not like you, king of the world, need to be up to the minute informed on whatever thing you're supposed to take your outrage vengence upon today.
- kadendogthing 8y ago
  >There is a lot of bad stuff going on all over all the time. Focus is what's important. I mean starting with people who are in close proximity to you seems like an important thing. Especially given the abundance of food and capital we have? And the fact that our government implicitly relies on voters making informed choices to elect representatives that can then practically the address issues you know/care about? >Save your outrage for things you have first hand knowledge of or knowledge of through trusted contacts. I mean, that's what news organizations are. And we even used to have regulations governing them to ensure they could be trusted. >The world did ok before 24/7 news Well we're talking about slower news. Not no news. And certainly not 24/7 news. Because this article is about slowing things down. And the world wasn't really okay for the longest time. All in all your post is "I'm fine, so shit happens." Kind of crappy.
  - misterprime 8y ago
    >God, give me grace to accept with serenity, the things that cannot be changed, Courage to change the things which should be changed, and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other. I think this is a case of these people realizing that they cannot change the world in such a way to solve each and every problem that is presented to them in the news. As such, they choose to focus on their own personal lives and they people they come across in their day to day lives. I hope this helps. It's not that they just don't care, it's that caring is damaging their psyche and performance. They've learned it's healthier to tune most of that noise out.
    - kadendogthing 8y ago
      >God, give me grace to accept with serenity, the things that cannot be changed, Courage to change the things which should be changed, and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other. I'm not sure what whimsical platitudes that essentially absolve you of your civic duty have to do with this conversation, or how it could possibly negate anything that was said. >I hope this helps. No it just solidifies what I think about the type of people that harbor such opinions.
dannykwells 8y ago
I don't think that reading or not reading the news is engaging with the plight of "my fellow countrymen". We all ignore the plight of millions/billions of people every day. That is the way life has always been.
- EGreg 8y ago
  I remember someone coined a concept recently that when you read about a problem in the world that you can help alleviate then you become morally responsible. It’s liks quantum entanglement but with ethics. Found it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10949572 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10949572 What about that? Coming upon news where you can make a difference right now, by sending money to NGOs with workers on the ground.
  - roenxi 8y ago
    That is an impractical argument. Say there is a situation that Alfred have the power to effect. To reliably cause change for the good Alfred must: (1) Identify a problem and its root cause (2) Change the root cause (3) Confirm that the problem is solved. There are people who claim you can leap straight to (2) and skip (3). These are people who (if they ever honestly checked) would discover that they are not responsible for very much positive, meaningful change. They are flailing, looking busy and have the best of intentions. For anything reported in the news step (1) represents a huge investment of time because the news has probably got the situation at least somewhat wrong. To say Alfred has a moral responsibility to do something is equivalent to saying Alfred has a moral responsibility not to read the news; because Alfred doesn't have enough time or resources to confirm what the problem is for all the sad stories he can read about. In your specific example - 'sending money to NGOs with workers on the ground' - Alfred would probably divert a lot of money to organisations who are good at emotive advertising campaigns with administrative costs verging on embezzlement. We have good historical evidence that Alfred's best bet is to go all-in on capitalism, make a fortune, and then do some philanthropy to maximise his impact. Giving to a worthy cause creates incentives that are terrible. I can't be convinced that it is a good idea. I have a lot more respect for people who volunteer time, but even then I'm suspect of their ability to correctly diagnose the problem they are trying to fix.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
fsloth 8y ago
Um, how does watching news help anyone’s plight, precisely?
- mike00632 8y ago
  You can't do anything if you're not even informed about it. There are numerous examples of the public giving enormous amounts of money and relief to victims of, for example, natural disasters.
  - fsloth 8y ago
    Surely one can do much more good through their daily conduct, rather than only chipping in in exceptional circumstances? And if a person is improving their community by their conduct, they recieve their information through direct interaction, rendering news irrelevant.
zwkrt 8y ago
I think having empathy for those directly around you is a good start. The saying "all politics are local" goes the other way around as well, that most change is local change. It is unlikely that I can help people gain asylum from oppressive regimes, but it is very likely that my donations to local charities and volunteer work is directly helping those around me. In a categorical imperative sense, if more people acted this way fewer things would be so bad about the world.
leftyted 8y ago
I don't experience this kind of empathy very often. For example, I don't get upset when a plane crashes or there's a mass shooting. I can imagine myself in the position of the victims. I can imagine if someone I loved died in a situation like that and I can simulate some of the grief and anger I think I'd feel. But that exercise seems sort of selfish to me. In general, these kind of tragic events don't affect my mood. I do sometimes experience this kind of empathy when I'm reading history or a human-interest story about some tragic or unfair situation. It seems to me that many people assume that all good behavior flows from empathy. I don't think this is true. I use various philosophical viewpoints to justify (or rationalize) my behavior: sometimes utilitarianism, sometimes the categorical imperative, and often a vague sort of humanism.
irq 8y ago
I wanted to start an honest discussion but my thread seems to have quickly devolved into the haves vs have nots of a capacity for empathy. Which is not my intention. This is probably my fault, for not considering enough viewpoints before writing my question. Let’s consider starting from this standpoint instead: Everyone has differing levels of empathy and it’s not going to be the same for every person. Despite this, we all need to get along and work towards whatever our individual goals are peacefully. Given this vast spectrum of empathy, advice from the extreme edges of that spectrum (“just tune out all news 100%” on one end, “cry for every single suffering being everywhere” on the other end) is particularly useless, because the only reason this situation even exists in the first place is because of extremism / polarization. Where do we go from here?
iamkroot 8y ago
Who said anything about ignoring the plight of others? The news does nothing at all to aid me in helping other people. Indeed, most of the time it distracts me and keeps me from being aware of all the myriad ways I can give back to the community. I volunteer lots of my time with various organizations and I didn't need anyone in the news media to tell me that what I'ma doing is important and valuable.

GordonS 8y ago

I did the same 1-2 years ago, and haven't regretted it. Interestingly, I've experienced the same thing where others seem offended by decision, and I also get accused of being insular and "living in my own little bubble". I just don't get this though - what exactly am I losing out on?

ghthor 8y ago
Being stressed out and dying early is what you're losing out on. Also being in pain and unhappy.
- drb91 8y ago
  Being stressed out and dying early is also a likely result for an apathetic population.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
enumjorge 8y ago
I do agree that paying too much attention to the crazy that’s going on is not constructive or healthy. But you can definitely overcorrect. If you completely disconnect you have no data with which to make your decisions come election time. A lot of what’s happening in politics does affect you directly. Changes to tax code, the budget, deregulation of industries (e.g. net neutrality). And some of it may not affect you directly but affects people in the communities you live in. A Supreme Court nominee had allegations of sexual assault and gambling problems brought against him. Regardless of what you believe, it behooves you to be aware that this is happening. If the accusations were true don’t you want to know? It affects the women in your life to have someone like that be given a lifelong appointment to the most powerful court of the land. If the accusations weren’t, wouldn’t that be important too? If you’re taking a break to maintain sanity I can understand that. But if you’re simply shrugging your shoulders at what’s happening simply because it doesn’t affect you right now—and trust me, some of the policies this administration is adopting are having a big impact on some—then I think that’s a pretty shitty, selfish attitude to have.

ip26 8y ago

I prefer to think about how I can positively impact people around me and my local community Given that, isn't (local) news still relevant?

TeMPOraL 8y ago
Sometimes, sort of. If you think about the things you read on the news, you'll notice that 99%+ ends up being of no consequence for anything. A lot of what people get outraged about daily is total bullshit, and it gets forgotten the very next day, but even the more important-seeming issues really average out to zero impact on the community. In terms of information, the news is a channel with absurdly low signal/noise ratio. If you want to positively impact people, your first job should be finding a channel with higher SNR. There's a secondary value to news (or rather primary, in terms of value delivered) - social objects. Most people know what's currently on the news, so even though the raw information value is near-zero, it becomes a great conversation starter.
- ip26 8y ago
  Local news is how I find out about ballot issues, restaurant closures and openings, new public works projects, etc, as well as more sordid things like failed health inspections or the deep dysfunction at a neighborhood school we might have sent our kid to... The SNR might not be super high but it seems useful.
  - jiggunjer 8y ago
    Most items of local news are highly relevant to a small proportion of locals. E.g. roadworks probably just affect a few % of people using that road. Then there are shock-news stories like violent crime. How is it relevant to know some kid from my street stabbed another kid over a pack of gum? If I want to know how safe my area is I'd look at crime statistics collected over years and compare it to other areas.

Faark 8y ago

How do you know whom to vote for? I understand the US doesn't have a lot of choice on the ballot, political news is highly polarized and latest/developing news is probably not worth following. But somewhat keeping up with what your government does so you can hold it accountable seems like a civic duty to me. And what better way to do this than news?

iamkroot 8y ago
When it comes time to vote I research each candidate and ballot measure and make an informed decision with the information that I find. I don't need to be plugged into to every daily scandal to know that I fundamentally disagree with Trump's policies, a few minutes of research will tell me that just fine.
- jiggunjer 8y ago
  You'd be surprised how even fascists can portray themselves as reasonable on their own websites, or how lacking wikipedia is on some parties. Ballot measures only address a small subset of policies, and they don't exist in many places. From what I understand making a 360 turn on them after being elected isn't uncommon either. So your 'informed' decision is probably just as biased as someone who bases their decision on news.
  - iamkroot 8y ago
    I would never use someone's own website as my sole source of information, that's just begging for trouble. I search out as many different sources as I can find, including voting history, town hall transcripts, interviews, endorsements, etc. etc. I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make. Are you saying nobody can ever know enough to vote responsibly?
    - Faark 8y ago
      I'd say the easiest source is the archive of a reputable news site, since journalists are historically responsible for collecting and refining this information. Thus we are back at the initial question: How to get Slower, Better News?

sigi45 8y ago

Not reading anything will not allow you the relevance of climate change. I prefer to read specific things to stay in the loop and I see it as a responsibility to be aware of things as my position in our society allows me to do so.

mruts 8y ago

Wouldn't a better solution be to read news but not be outraged by it?