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I agree. I keep up with current events mostly through a couple of very popular niche forums, each with a few hundred thousand members. The news posted there is

I agree. I keep up with current events mostly through a couple of very popular niche forums, each with a few hundred thousand members. The news posted there is biased, of course, but mostly it's a selection bias. I use it because my interests (if not necessarily my perspective) overlap with those forums' topics. When I find something that piques my interest, then I'll seek out other sources for that particular story. I spend the majority of my "what's going on in the world?" time on ar15.com - but I don't assume that the stories posted there are accurate. I judge the reputation of the source from which it came, and if it's contentious, I'll purposefully look for alternative reporting. The bottom line is that no news outlet, "mainstream" or not, is without bias. There are decisions made on what constitutes news and stories are editorialized both explicitly and implicitly. There was a time when I spent a decent amount of time on 4chan, but the SNR is so low these days and the format is so hard to keep up with that I haven't bothered in years. Instead, I watch secondary sources who are watching the chans.

bigred100 7y ago
I haven’t read ar15.com but at first glance my thought was: “Why would you hurt yourself by filling your head with such nonsense instead of just reading all or part of some reputable news service?” People don’t acknowledge the long-term costs (social or otherwise) of not making the right choice in this area. Spend too much time playing Sam Harris and now your wife is embarrassed to bring you to parties for fear of an outburst about Muslims. Read some other forum and now you’re fixated on weird parts of the news and an oddball narrative. Read an even worse forum and you’re dragged into political radicalization. These things happen everyday and we’re all at risk.
- nradov 7y ago
  Cut the alarmist nonsense. Anyone like me who has critical thinking skills isn't at risk of political radicalization. And I don't care to be told what the "right" choice is.
  - bigred100 7y ago
    Dislike
    - effingwewt 7y ago
      You don't have to like something for it to be correct.
      - bigred100 7y ago
        Getting your news from ar15.com is not correct in any meaningful interpretation
        LyndsySimon 7y ago
        Who said they "get their news from ar15.com"? I said I keep up with current events through that forum (and others). It serves as an aggregator for political topics for me in much the same way that this site serves as an aggregator for tech topics.
- LyndsySimon 7y ago
  Realistically, I'm more radical than 99% of the members of that site, though in a different way. I'm not at risk of accidentally becoming a stereotypical right-winger. I use it for a purpose. I'm mostly interested in political news in a few areas, and those areas strongly coincide with what the userbase of that site are interested in. My positions on those areas differ in quite a few ways, but that's OK. > Spend too much time playing Sam Harris and now your wife is embarrassed to bring you to parties for fear of an outburst about Muslims. I'm much more at risk of embarrassing my wife through an outburst about the nature of taxation or the base immorality of government as a whole. It's still unlikely though. She's at least as radical as I am, and a decade ago we decided to have children instead of a social life :)

bigred100 7y ago

I haven’t read ar15.com but at first glance my thought was: “Why would you hurt yourself by filling your head with such nonsense instead of just reading all or part of some reputable news service?” People don’t acknowledge the long-term costs (social or otherwise) of not making the right choice in this area. Spend too much time playing Sam Harris and now your wife is embarrassed to bring you to parties for fear of an outburst about Muslims. Read some other forum and now you’re fixated on weird parts of the news and an oddball narrative. Read an even worse forum and you’re dragged into political radicalization. These things happen everyday and we’re all at risk.

nradov 7y ago
Cut the alarmist nonsense. Anyone like me who has critical thinking skills isn't at risk of political radicalization. And I don't care to be told what the "right" choice is.
- bigred100 7y ago
  Dislike
  - effingwewt 7y ago
    You don't have to like something for it to be correct.
    - bigred100 7y ago
      Getting your news from ar15.com is not correct in any meaningful interpretation
      - LyndsySimon 7y ago
        Who said they "get their news from ar15.com"? I said I keep up with current events through that forum (and others). It serves as an aggregator for political topics for me in much the same way that this site serves as an aggregator for tech topics.
LyndsySimon 7y ago
Realistically, I'm more radical than 99% of the members of that site, though in a different way. I'm not at risk of accidentally becoming a stereotypical right-winger. I use it for a purpose. I'm mostly interested in political news in a few areas, and those areas strongly coincide with what the userbase of that site are interested in. My positions on those areas differ in quite a few ways, but that's OK. > Spend too much time playing Sam Harris and now your wife is embarrassed to bring you to parties for fear of an outburst about Muslims. I'm much more at risk of embarrassing my wife through an outburst about the nature of taxation or the base immorality of government as a whole. It's still unlikely though. She's at least as radical as I am, and a decade ago we decided to have children instead of a social life :)