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It needs to be pointed out that this is an option that originates from privilege. Ignoring the news means ignoring politics. Ignoring politics is tacit suppor

• netfl0 8y ago
  Why is ignoring media tacit support of the status quo?
  • jdhawk 8y ago
    how else do you make an informed vote?
    • mixmastamyk 8y ago
      "News" in its most common form has little to do with being an informed citizen. The library would be a better bet.
      • AWildC182 8y ago
        So we should just never read any news again because someone wrote a click-bait article? I don't know if you've been to a library...but they usually have newspapers.
        • deleted 8y ago
          [deleted]
        • rayiner 8y ago
          Most articles are little better than click bait. Journalists writing about X usually aren’t trained in X and usually have little time to build expertise in X. They are by training writers, so for the most part they’re reduced to parroting the narratives peddled by this or that group or political party. It’s very rare I read a general news article within my areas of subject matter knowledge and think “oh, this writer really understands and has highlighted the important issues.” I have to assume the same is true for subject matter I’m not familiar with, like tax policy. In reality, for a lot of these subjects, nobody knows the answers, not even the “experts.” For those things, journalists have neither the space, time, or education to even do a good job raising the relevant issues, much less elucidating the answers.
          • tptacek 8y ago
            This is a reductive and misleading summary of what journalists do. Every blogger on the Internet also writes, with varying degrees of training and success. What reporters do that bloggers don't is reporting --- surveying and cultivating sources, visiting places, making a zillion phone calls, working with fact checkers (itself a tedious job that has little to do with the craft of writing). That's the job of a reporter. Not knowing everything, but being willing to do the legwork to find people with firsthand knowledge of things, and then relating what they have to say. That's why we call journalism "the first draft of history", and not the textbook of history. Like every profession, journalism has limitations and is itself practiced with varying degrees of success. We're fond of Crichton's "Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect" on HN, but ignore the Djikstra Amnesia Effect, holding journalists to a standard we rarely achieve in our own profession, where our own errors routinely cause direct harm to people through ignorance and omissions.
            • rayiner 8y ago
              I don’t disagree with your first paragraph. As to your second, I think that’s part of the problem: those people with first hand knowledge are often relaying a sound bite, a piece of packaged narrative. And the journalist doesn’t know enough to really add anything to that narrative. That may be a limitation of journalism, but I question whether given that limitation, journalism is a useful vehicle for educating the public about the highly complex issues that underpin our society. (Someone on HN changed my mind recently by pointing out that, while judges sometimes invoke history, they are generally bad historians. It was a thought provoking assertion, because it’s not uncommon for judges to justify opinions by reference to economics or social science. But they have neither the training nor time and procedural flexibility to do a good job of such analysis. My conclusion was, therefore, that such analysis simply isn’t useful. I think journalism might suffer from the same problem.)
              • kasey_junk 8y ago
                What does the alternative look like?
              • 8y ago
        • XorNot 8y ago
          No it means you should analyse your motivations for doing so carefully. If all you do is read it to get angry at something, or dismiss the opinion of whoever is speaking, then why read/watch it at all? I'd go further and say if you're doing it just so you can give a hot take on politics to someone nearby, or have your opinions validated by them then also stop doing that (it's hard) and be mindful that whoever they are may actually disagree with you but isn't interested in having their views criticised as a part of someone's entertainment schedule or to be lectured too.
        • dang 8y ago
          "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." "Don't be snarky." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  • slg 8y ago
    Because being politically active at any thing but the most basic level requires knowledge of the issues and knowledge of the issues requires following the news. If you are not politically active you are supporting the status quo because you are not putting in any effort to change the status quo.
    • malvosenior 8y ago
      Politics aren’t the only way to change the status quo. In fact they’re not good at it at all. Uber and AirBnB changed the status quo far more than any politician in my lifetime. Also, most people’s personal issues trump any macro issue by far. You can change your status quo. It’s almost impossible for an individual to change the status quo and definitely not through typical political engagement.
      • slg 8y ago
        >Uber and AirBnB changed the status quo far more than any politician in my lifetime. I am sorry, but that is just depressing if you believe something like that. The ACA is one thing that comes to mind. Improving healthcare for Americans would have a much bigger impact on people's lives than giving people who already own a home a way to make a little extra money.
        • mixmastamyk 8y ago
          The ideal of improving healthcare has little to do with how the ACA turned out.
      • rexpop 8y ago
        > Politics aren’t the only way to change the status quo. The status quo is a political arrangement. It's just a way of referring to the state of power's distribution across institutions and people. That's political. There is literally, definitionally nothing apolitical that affects the status quo. Changing the status quo is--inescapably, apodictically--political. Uber and AirBnB are highly political institutions.
  • AWildC182 8y ago
    Because you don't have to worry about your kids being separated from you at the border, being bombed by the Saudis, or losing our homes to climate change related events. Most of the things the news covers disproportionately effect destitute-through-low-income individuals.
    • Simon_says 8y ago
      Watching the news didn't help them ...
      • AWildC182 8y ago
        If you were in Yemen would the news that the Saudis were bombing civilians change your actions? If you were attempting a border crossing into the US with children, would the news influence your approach?
      • HeWhoLurksLate 8y ago
        If I were in that situation, I would want all the relevant news possible, in any and all formats available. TV broadcasts of cease-fires are great news for someone who wants to get out, as are radio reports of major hot-spots, etc. Getting the relevant news can be the difference between life and death in these situations.
    • rayiner 8y ago
      And yuppies reading the news and then going back to buying $12 avocado toast won’t do a damn thing to help those people.
      • AWildC182 8y ago
        Don't the yuppies generally vote democrat and the democrats usually oppose these things while the very-not-yuppies tend to vote GOP and the GOP usually likes/is ambivalent about these things? Like, I get it, gotta grab a side in The Culture Wars, but we should at least be fair about it shouldn't we?
• yourbandsucks 8y ago
  Are you serious? Like disadvantaged people are gonna read something in the NYT and then successfully lobby their congressman to change it? Serenity to accept what you can't change is absolutely the most effective strategy for those who don't have the means to change things. Worry about your family first, work within the constraints you have. That's reality for a lot of people. I'd argue it's 'privileged' to think otherwise.
  • AWildC182 8y ago
    They can't change it but they still need to know to prepare for it. If the GOP killed the ACA, millions of people would need to immediately take action to find alternative support. Most of us on here would be fine either way.
    • yourbandsucks 8y ago
      Immediately take what action, specifically, in your ACA hypothetical? Honestly asking. Best I can come up with is "hope your kids don't get sick", followed by "ignore calls from debt collectors on that emergency room bill". Reading the news obsessively and buying into the culture war actually does nothing to make those strategies more effective. Just saps energy that could be spent elsewhere.
      • AWildC182 8y ago
        Fair question. It would depend on the individual, lots of people would also probably run to their doctors and get increased length/dosage prescriptions so they have some emergency supplies. Younger low income people might just cancel their insurance entirely, those with pre-existing conditions would have to consider employment changes potentially (contractor -> full time) and similarly for those on the marketplace. Edit: To get on my soapbox a bit here, I think people are being a bit black and white as usual. Yea, you don't need to read every political opinion piece by Fox, CNN and NYT, but you also should read more than exactly zero. Neither of these extremes can possibly be optimal for everyone (or anyone probably). HN really likes the narrative "Title: X is problematic and we should fix it. Top Comment: Well I completely stopped X because it was bad for me and now everything is awesome and I'm a 10x dev!" but it's never really that simple.
• andrei_says_ 8y ago
  Thank you for this. I am really hoping that one day we can somehow arrive at clean useful and possibly actionable news streams which balance issues and positive/celebratory information. Today’s news large outlets create anxiety rage and suffering and serve as a tool for separation and propaganda. This experience is extremely toxic and one needs to exercise high level of discipline and often sacrifice well being in order to stay informed.
• draw_down 8y ago
  I suppose so. But there is no shame in taking whatever privilege you're handed, the shame is more around how privilege gets distributed. And there is no honor in getting upset and sad at the news every day. I stopped reading the news just like GP did, but way more than a year ago. You tend to hear about the stuff that matters anyway.
• localhostdotdev 8y ago
  my take on this is that's it's better focus on major actions taken during a mandate (and that's what people who don't care too much about politics do) to then inform the next vote. that's why politics before the rise of the internet were much more formal, people remembered what was done and said. now there is just so much noise it's very hard to distinguish the signal, which leads to people being influenced and directed into "identity politics" (are you yellow or green, blue or red, left or right, good or bad?)
• old-gregg 8y ago
  I disagree. News != politics. In fact, if I replace the "status quo" in your statement with "reality", the meaning will change significantly. I don't need a journalist to tell me that the healthcare situation (to pick an example) is absurd, or that taxation (fed+state) in some states is already at European levels, yet without any healthcare or education benefits. It's easy to be aware of these facts, you just have to be alive. But I also don't need journalists to be brain-washing people by suggesting different ways of sharing the costs (insurance? single payer? have rich people pay for me?). The real solution is, of course, to lower the cost to the levels comparable to EU countries, but the costs are rarely discussed in the mass media, only cost sharing is brought up. Why? Because it's an unpopular solution among people who set the agenda. Fixing health care (i.e. halving its cost _at the very least_) means dropping US GDP by a whopping 9% [1]. So it's not about slow vs fast news. It's about controlling the public discourse. The old system of setting the national agenda [2] is obviously not working well if a populist with a Twitter account can override the MSM narrative and get himself elected. [1] https://www.cms.gov/research-statistics-data-and-systems/statistics-trends-and-reports/nationalhealthexpenddata/nationalhealthaccountshistorical.html https://www.cms.gov/research-statistics-data-and-systems/sta... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent
  • yourbandsucks 8y ago
    If I were the illuminati, I'd find it hard to beat the current system of keeping everyone tied up in a culture war while I picked their pockets.
    • photojosh 8y ago
      I try to post in-depth and reasoned comments to this exact point whenever someone in my social circle posts ranty "news" articles, but they just get completely flat-out ignored. I've never seen anyone argue that this elite vs the rest pickpocketing isn't actually happening and (what we call) the culture war is the real battle. It would be helpful if there was, because then I could try to understand the mindset behind the dismissal of our view— it's driving me crazy.
• shay_ker 8y ago
  > It needs to be pointed out that this is an option that originates from privilege. I don't know if this is what you intended, but I'm reading this as "many or most people who ignore the news are privileged". For instance, this would include many people who are at a 7th grade reading level. I'm... not sure that's what you meant to insinuate though. Could you clarify?
• bromuro 8y ago
  I disagree. Ignoring politics is the best way change it.
• rayiner 8y ago
  Reading outrage bait then posting on Twitter about it doesn’t do anything to change the status quo.
• topmonk 8y ago
  Not giving away all your possessions, walking away from your house and living as a homeless person also originates from privilege. Did I win?
• clay_the_ripper 8y ago
  People point this out all the time. I think it’s used as a non-sequiteur argument to invalidate people’s opinions who have privilege. Just because someone was born into privilege does not mean they can’t have opinions or that those opinions are incorrect. I also think ignoring the news has nothing to do with privilege. So, you’re saying that if I did not have privilege then somehow reading the news is going to change anything? 99% of “news” is absolute garbage and a distraction from actual issues.
• rayiner 8y ago
  This view is pretentious and hypocritical. Let’s imagine that you’re a typical HN-er and you have a nice MacBook Pro or have taken a nice vacation or gone to Burning Man or whatever. For that same amount of money, you could have changed the life of a child in Bangladesh. Why didn’t you? Because you are a bad person, and you chose frivolities for yourself over necessities for someone far from you. Maybe if you read the news about what’s happening in Bangladesh you would have decided differently. But do you have a moral obligation to do that?
  • Can_Not 8y ago
    I don't blame OP for choosing his macbook and burning man over a single Bangladeshi child when OP is likely paying rent to and also employed by people who are personally hoarding wealth to feed millions of starving children and instead using that wealth to invent new ways to make people pay even more for a basic modest existence.
  • enraged_camel 8y ago
    So basically, if you bought a MacBook instead is spending that money to help a kid in Bangladesh, you are a hypocrite and shouldn’t criticize others for being privileged? I think this is sufficient to demonstrate the sheer ridiculousness of your stance: https://imgur.com/gallery/ORdcf0R https://imgur.com/gallery/ORdcf0R
    • rayiner 8y ago
      The point is that you have no moral obligation to read the news and learn about the suffering of distant people in some ill conceived attempt to try and empathize with them. Humans aren’t built that way. You don’t have a generalized obligation to inform yourself about the abstract struggles of others and give up your own priorities in some token gesture of support for those people. Take two people who both go to Burning Man instead of changing some kid’s life in Bangladesh. A reads the news and votes for X out of concern for some disadvantaged group. B doesn’t read the news and votes for Y because he doesn’t perceive the struggles of that disadvantaged group. Notwithstanding that difference, radius of empathy of A and B are almost the same. Both exclude the majority of those suffering in the world—billions of people—from their radius of empathy, not caring enough even to give up a frivolity for themselves.[1] Excessive moralizing over that small difference is indeed rather hypocritical. [1] The moral rabbit hole here runs very deep. For example, all else being equal, buying an ICE car hurts people in Bangladesh who will suffer the most from rising sea level due to global warming. But at the margin, taking the extra money you’d spend on a new electric car and just giving it to some kid in Bangladesh will do more good than the incremental environmental benefit from buying that electric car.
• cmod 8y ago
  Strong disagree with the black and whiteness of this. Ignoring all news and politics, full stop, is less a privileged and more an ignorant position to take. But I'd argue the worst position is one of non-stop media bingeing without action. In fact, I'd say the only way to act reliably or with clear intention is to not binge on media, to not stay in the zone of manufactured outrage. But instead to keep sanely abreast of what's happening and engage only when meaningful action can be had.
  • hackits 8y ago
    I found when I disconnected from the news and politic in my own country that the people around me didn't really have well developed retention of the new's they where talking about. For example, news event A occurs on day, and everyone in the office talks about A, and how it made them feel. Then news event B occurs the next day, and there doesn't seem to be any cognitive awareness how A connects to B, instead A is forgotten and everyone emotes about B. I've had to use the analogy to people how weird it appears. It's like everyone talks about a blue cat one day, and the next day talk about a red cat. Everywhere you go everyone talks about the same colored cat's.
• BethGagaShaggy 8y ago
  It also needs to be pointed out that the only political system where people aren't allowed to be indifferent is known by the charming name of "totalitarianism". Truly "disadvantaged" people have little to win from any sort of politics and have little time for it. I don't think hobos give a lot of thought to the supreme court.
• XaoDaoCaoCao 8y ago
  You're out of your ing mind. One of tbe greatest abuses that lower classes have to endure is the 24 hour propoganda and emotional hijacking machine known as "the news". God forbid people have the freedom to have cognitive peace, quiet, contemplation, and free play. If anything, the "disadvantaged" have more to gain from disengaging from constant cognitive hijacking!
  • Aeolun 8y ago
    You want to take the only thing they have to distract them, from them? I mean, that would quickly lead to change alright, but it’s also why a lot of people are invested in making sure that never happens.
  • dang 8y ago
    > You're out of your ing mind. Please edit personal swipes out of your posts here. Your comment would be fine without that first sentence. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• specialist 8y ago
  Current me disagrees with you. I am hyper political and have done some policy work. The people I know who get things done ignore the outrage factory. Corporate media is a distraction. Like sports talk shows, today's political coverage is just entertainment.
• headsoup 8y ago
  Depends which news sources and whether the news is ingested without any critical lense. Ignorantly consuming news can create far more tacit support for the status quo (or opposition agenda based on bias) regardless of actual political outcomes.
• taurath 8y ago
  What are the things that the average person who doesn’t like the status quo does? They vote every 2 years - it’s the only power that most people have that really moves the needle. Otherwise for national issues there’s almost nothing one can do without dedicating a large portion of life time and energy.
• iamkroot 8y ago
  Highly disagree. I can ignore the news and still be politically active. I put a lot of effort into insulating myself from whatever the latest freakout is and I also invest a lot of energy into voting any time we have an election.
• paulddraper 8y ago
  Does it necessarily originate from privilege? Or simply support the status quo privledge over alternate privilege?