4 ms·

A war? Are the Russians at the border of Death Valley? How many tanks do they have? Have shots already been fired? What do the presidents say? It's headlines l

A war? Are the Russians at the border of Death Valley? How many tanks do they have? Have shots already been fired? What do the presidents say? It's headlines like these which are the reason you can't or should not really give a fuck about news anymore. There's only exaggerations, hype and bloated stories left in news. I don't even want to read the article when it's using a headline like this.

cocochanel 8y ago
Agreed. Compare that to the following paragraph, > A request to drill for lithium near Death Valley National Park has alarmed environmentalists, who say mining the metal is unacceptable, even if it is an essential ingredient in the production of zero-emission electric vehicles.
- martin_a 8y ago
  So the environmentalists are the ones with tanks and guns? Man, they have really upgraded...
  - Cthulhu_ 8y ago
    There's an Agenda behind this article to paint off the environmentalists as dangerous extremists. Definitely not unbiased / neutral reporting.
geomark 8y ago
Russians? I think you have already been influenced by news more than you wish :p
- solveit 8y ago
  Yeah, it's not like they were the predominant threat to the US for ~50 years. Not everyone on HN is in their twenties.
  - geomark 8y ago
    I was around for a lot of that. It was utter BS. Right up until when the Soviet Union fell apart the US gov and all its spook agencies were constantly screaming warnings of a Soviet breakout that would surely wipe us out. I was working at a defense contractor during that time so was pretty close to it.
    - adrianN 8y ago
      More than once it was the decision of a single soldier not to press the button that saved our collective asses from nuclear war.
    - paganel 8y ago
      It's true that no Western "sovietologist" had predicted the sudden fall of the Eastern Block, but that doesn't mean that the West and the countries that were under Soviet influence weren't enemies. Source: me, a guy that grew up in an Eastern European country and who was imbued with my country's propaganda during my childhood. And to make it even more OT: the "war" between West and East was won by the West the moment when people in the East started almost revering physical objects coming from the West, such as blue jeans. I remember that growing up in the '80s my mother's only jeans dress had an almost mythical status, it was THE one piece of clothing from our family's wardrobe that had that extra thing. I remembered of that feeling this past weekend while watching a Russian movie describing the '80s as lived on the Eastern side of the Wall (the movie is called "Leto" [1], I highly recommend it), during which movie one of the female characters highly wishes to purchase a pair of jeans for herself, if only she would have had the money. It is my intuition that the Western sovietologists from back in the day didn't have access to this type of information on the real feelings of the people living in Eastern Europe and in the former USSR, they were looking mostly at translated articles from Pravda and at satellite photos of rocket-launch sites in order to predict the health of the system. Turns out they were looking at the wrong stuff. [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7342838/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7342838/
      - pauljurczak 8y ago
        > the "war" between West and East was won by the West Not so fast. The most populous country and the largest world economy by purchasing power parity is communist China. The physical objects people revere are likely made there or in neighboring communist Vietnam.
- martin_a 8y ago
  "Die Russen kommen!" which translates to "The Russians are coming!" is a widespread joke in Germany influenced by the "Werner" comics (about a motorbike-driving plumber apprentice) which is often used when you are joking about not really existent dangers. So this was not really based on the influence of US news but I think it fit quite well nevertheless. edit: I think in the comics it's "Werner, die Russen kommen!" when Werner and his colleague are joking about their boss and his hysterical character and Werners colleague impersonates the boss. Just to give a little more context. ;-)
dang 8y ago
I don't think that title was all that baity. "War" is often used as a metaphor for any protracted or intense conflict. But ok, we'll switch to the first part of the subtitle.
- martin_a 8y ago
  It IS baity and it was planned that way. And we shouldn't change titles but discuss whether or not sites that use titles like these should be qualified/used as sources or get "banned". This is a worldwide phenomena and it's terrible. It's ruining trust in media and dulls the power of words.
  - dang 8y ago
    It's common for a good article to get a lame title, because writing articles and writing titles are different jobs at many publications. The solution in such cases is to replace the lame title with a good one, so HN users can discuss the article instead of getting distracted by the title. I don't think that at HN we have much power to affect "trust in media" or "the power of words", but if we did, the way to wield it would be to select the best articles and deselect the worst titles, which is what we try to do anyway. Banning entire publications wouldn't help because the good and bad articles are scattered across many publications and often exist side by side.

cocochanel 8y ago

Agreed. Compare that to the following paragraph, > A request to drill for lithium near Death Valley National Park has alarmed environmentalists, who say mining the metal is unacceptable, even if it is an essential ingredient in the production of zero-emission electric vehicles.

martin_a 8y ago
So the environmentalists are the ones with tanks and guns? Man, they have really upgraded...
- Cthulhu_ 8y ago
  There's an Agenda behind this article to paint off the environmentalists as dangerous extremists. Definitely not unbiased / neutral reporting.

geomark 8y ago

Russians? I think you have already been influenced by news more than you wish :p

solveit 8y ago
Yeah, it's not like they were the predominant threat to the US for ~50 years. Not everyone on HN is in their twenties.
- geomark 8y ago
  I was around for a lot of that. It was utter BS. Right up until when the Soviet Union fell apart the US gov and all its spook agencies were constantly screaming warnings of a Soviet breakout that would surely wipe us out. I was working at a defense contractor during that time so was pretty close to it.
  - adrianN 8y ago
    More than once it was the decision of a single soldier not to press the button that saved our collective asses from nuclear war.
  - paganel 8y ago
    It's true that no Western "sovietologist" had predicted the sudden fall of the Eastern Block, but that doesn't mean that the West and the countries that were under Soviet influence weren't enemies. Source: me, a guy that grew up in an Eastern European country and who was imbued with my country's propaganda during my childhood. And to make it even more OT: the "war" between West and East was won by the West the moment when people in the East started almost revering physical objects coming from the West, such as blue jeans. I remember that growing up in the '80s my mother's only jeans dress had an almost mythical status, it was THE one piece of clothing from our family's wardrobe that had that extra thing. I remembered of that feeling this past weekend while watching a Russian movie describing the '80s as lived on the Eastern side of the Wall (the movie is called "Leto" [1], I highly recommend it), during which movie one of the female characters highly wishes to purchase a pair of jeans for herself, if only she would have had the money. It is my intuition that the Western sovietologists from back in the day didn't have access to this type of information on the real feelings of the people living in Eastern Europe and in the former USSR, they were looking mostly at translated articles from Pravda and at satellite photos of rocket-launch sites in order to predict the health of the system. Turns out they were looking at the wrong stuff. [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7342838/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7342838/
    - pauljurczak 8y ago
      > the "war" between West and East was won by the West Not so fast. The most populous country and the largest world economy by purchasing power parity is communist China. The physical objects people revere are likely made there or in neighboring communist Vietnam.
martin_a 8y ago
"Die Russen kommen!" which translates to "The Russians are coming!" is a widespread joke in Germany influenced by the "Werner" comics (about a motorbike-driving plumber apprentice) which is often used when you are joking about not really existent dangers. So this was not really based on the influence of US news but I think it fit quite well nevertheless. edit: I think in the comics it's "Werner, die Russen kommen!" when Werner and his colleague are joking about their boss and his hysterical character and Werners colleague impersonates the boss. Just to give a little more context. ;-)

dang 8y ago

I don't think that title was all that baity. "War" is often used as a metaphor for any protracted or intense conflict. But ok, we'll switch to the first part of the subtitle.

martin_a 8y ago
It IS baity and it was planned that way. And we shouldn't change titles but discuss whether or not sites that use titles like these should be qualified/used as sources or get "banned". This is a worldwide phenomena and it's terrible. It's ruining trust in media and dulls the power of words.
- dang 8y ago
  It's common for a good article to get a lame title, because writing articles and writing titles are different jobs at many publications. The solution in such cases is to replace the lame title with a good one, so HN users can discuss the article instead of getting distracted by the title. I don't think that at HN we have much power to affect "trust in media" or "the power of words", but if we did, the way to wield it would be to select the best articles and deselect the worst titles, which is what we try to do anyway. Banning entire publications wouldn't help because the good and bad articles are scattered across many publications and often exist side by side.