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It's such a sheltered attitude I see on HN where people talk about just ignoring the news, when you know that you don't have to worry about anything bad happeni

It's such a sheltered attitude I see on HN where people talk about just ignoring the news, when you know that you don't have to worry about anything bad happening to you. It's a civic responsibility in a democracy to be informed. Even if you can't influence much with one particular vote depending on where you live, your voice can do a lot (see the NRA). There's people dying in Yemen from a war that the US is supporting. There are serious debates occurring about the future of the economy which will have massive repercussions. Climate change poses a threat to the stability of civilization. We're coming to a crossroads with government surveillance issues. It is deeply annoying when I see that people just tune out. You don't need to obsess over the latest 24 hour news cycle, but it's important not to be a personal isolationist for the good of society.

caseysoftware 7y ago
Fundamentally, I agree with you except: - That assumes the situation is presented without an agenda or - at minimum - a disclosed agenda. - That the coverage is an accurate - and preferably complete - summary of the situation. - And that it's clear which details are facts vs assumptions vs conjecture vs conclusions vs whatever. Unfortunately, we have few of those things at best. There are many ways to be informed, the current media is not a good, useful, or productive way to do that on just about any topic.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Also, additional assumption: that most of the news is in any way actionable or even relevant to your life. In vast majority of cases, it isn't. People don't read the news to be informed (otherwise they wouldn't tolerate the ridiculously low journalistic standards of today). They consume news because it gives them stuff to talk about with other people. Whether or not the stories are true is irrelevant, as long as everyone hears the same stories. The psychological cost of these stories is, however, unaccounted for.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
jazzyjackson 7y ago
IME the "news" doesn't report on Yemen, climate change, nor does it critique the economic status quo, so skipping the "news" doesn't mean dropping out.
hindsightbias 7y ago
> your voice can do a lot Your money can do a lot more - see the NRA. I remember a generation that grew up with nightmares of nuclear war, Three Mile Island and child kidnappings. Lot of good all that did. The US has been screwing the Yemen’s of the world for over a century, and the best the todays alt-left can do is tweet about it and watch Chomsky - if they tune RT in. As this study shows, this is just another generation where the world is all black and white and the news reflects that - in a 280 characters. I’d suggest what I did - watch/listen/read foreign media for your world and domestic news if you’re really interested. At least you know the bias. Anyone getting their news from US sources is the real definition of an isolationist.
rjf72 7y ago
Somehow this post ended up way longer than intended. Apologies, I haven't the time to write a short one! But rather than tuck some link down at the bottom of this post (which I expect many will disagree with), this [1] piece from the Guardian is an absolutely phenomenal article on this exact issue. Now onto the disagreeable! [1] - https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/may/03/how-the-news-took-over-reality https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/may/03/how-the-news-to... --- A major problem with the news is that it thrives on the negative, and you will never run out of bad news. And so it creates a rather severely distorted representation of society. How safe, worldwide, do you think the Earth is today? Is it getting safer or less safe? By approximately how much...? Many people would be completely unable to answer these questions because they focus on nothing but the negative, and so never receive any sort of perspective on the positive. For instance today we live in what is, by many orders of magnitude, the safest time in our species entire existence. And I mean this worldwide. We literally cannot conceive of how bad things were in the past. For instance during WW2 about 3% of the world was killed. Scaled to today's population that's about 231 million people. Since we suck at intuiting really big numbers let's put that in terms of 9/11s, as it was considered a practically unprecedented scale of destruction given our sweet luxuries of modern times. 2,996 people died there, including the 19 attackers. WW2 had the equivalent of a 9/11 scale event happen every single day for, literally, 211 years. If your family each has a child, on average, when they're 30. Then your great great great great great grandchildren would all have grown up in a world where every single day of their lives - from birth to death, there was a 9/11 scale event happening. Now compress all of that death and suffering into 6 years!! This is why I'm completely serious that we cannot even conceive of how bad things were in the past. And that's just 3%. The reason I picked it was not it's magnitude, but it's relative recency. The Mongol Hordes wiped out as much as 10% of humanity using little more than arrows and swords, the black death killed about 20% of the world's population, and so on. --- This doesn't mean you shouldn't care about or should not get involved with contemporary issues. But I do think it's important to put things in perspective. And nearly all issues that we find of critical importance today are, relative to anytime in our species' long past, not that important. It's like from today's perspective if we could look into the future and saw them arguing, vehemently and very seriously, about whether pine or oak should be the normal for city beautification efforts. That seems quite silly from our perspective, yet if you go back in the past nearly all of our issues would seem similar to them. And I think always focusing on the negative is not good for peoples' mental health. Not just psychological but also their intellectual health. In times past people would get bored and find creative ways to fill that time. In modern times now if you're bored you can click on any news site and there will be numerous new negative article you can obsess about. And your view of the world suggests that not only can you do this, but you should do this as a civic responsibility. Just look at the NYTimes right now. On their front page: - That Beloved Hospital? It's driving Up Health Care Costs - My Parents Broke The Rules of the Church Out Of Love - No One Threatens the Environment Like Donald Trump - No, Your Kid Shouldn't Get a Gold Star for Reading - Dogs Will Fix Our Broken Democracy You'd think this was some cherry picked selection over an extended period of time. No, those are all literally on the front page of the NYTimes at the exact moment of this post. And it seems every single one of those articles was written within the past 24 hours. Nonstop 24/7 negative news on demand. That's what news has become. And I would say that doing without that nonsense is not only not irresponsible, but far healthier both individually and socially.
coldtea 7y ago
>It's such a sheltered attitude I see on HN where people talk about just ignoring the news, when you know that you don't have to worry about anything bad happening to you. I think it's still a sign of being sheltered one needs to learn about bad things happening to them on the news. People who are actually affected (as opposed to sheltered), e.g. latino immigrants under Trump, learn about bad shit in real life and/or have relationships with their community where such things are communicated much faster than they hit the media. Even if someone in the community stop following all media, they will still learn whatever's important. It's the fully isolated and sheltered people who only learn about things from media coverage. >There's people dying in Yemen from a war that the US is supporting. There are serious debates occurring about the future of the economy which will have massive repercussions. Climate change poses a threat to the stability of civilization. We're coming to a crossroads with government surveillance issues. Those things are a 10,000 ft view of the news, and everybody that's even partially in society will know about them. You don't need to follow news and social media to know about them and do something about them. In fact you can directly join an organization about each of them or a party that does what you think is best on all of those, and push it further to your ideas. You don't need to follow what passes as news for that. In fact if you watch the mainstream news, you'll get a skewed view of all of those issues, with left and right either agreeing (e.g. in warmongering), or playing disagreement theater (e.g. in climate change, the right wants nothing do, the left wants "green new deal", that is to make money off of the climate, with nothing done. The something that needs to be done, of course, being beyond the pale to discuss: slowing down the economy, cutting down on consumption, and so on).
asdff 7y ago
I am being informed, but with the amount of stuff happening every day you need to be selective in the information that you are consuming out of the fire hose. I read local news from the local paper on local issues, because I'd rather be informed about what happens in my city than the gritty details of the constant horrors that I am personally powerless to affect on the other side of the world. How do I stop Exxon? How do I stop Raytheon? I already vote straight D. But reading local news taught me about how some of my neighbors are actively helping people in crisis in one of the wealthiest cities on earth. It taught me about how my community leaders are combating climate change. It also taught me how I could get involved in driving local change. Local news presents issues that I actually have agency to affect. There are pressing issues all over the world at once, so why not focus on the issues in your back yard?
tomhoward 7y ago
The problem is that if you allow the news to affect you so much that it impairs your mental health, you become less able to do anything to effect positive change in the world, and more easily influenced by the emotionally-charged, manipulative trash that makes up so much of what is presented as news. If someone's mental health is impaired by exposure to the news, a period of detox is necessary. Consuming more of it won't help them or the rest of the world while they're in that state, and indeed will likely do more harm by perpetuating the cycle. A person in such a state would be far better off taking some time to improve their ability to discern between useful news and trash, and to become more able to use their knowledge of the news to inspire positive action.

caseysoftware 7y ago

Fundamentally, I agree with you except: - That assumes the situation is presented without an agenda or - at minimum - a disclosed agenda. - That the coverage is an accurate - and preferably complete - summary of the situation. - And that it's clear which details are facts vs assumptions vs conjecture vs conclusions vs whatever. Unfortunately, we have few of those things at best. There are many ways to be informed, the current media is not a good, useful, or productive way to do that on just about any topic.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
Also, additional assumption: that most of the news is in any way actionable or even relevant to your life. In vast majority of cases, it isn't. People don't read the news to be informed (otherwise they wouldn't tolerate the ridiculously low journalistic standards of today). They consume news because it gives them stuff to talk about with other people. Whether or not the stories are true is irrelevant, as long as everyone hears the same stories. The psychological cost of these stories is, however, unaccounted for.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

jazzyjackson 7y ago

IME the "news" doesn't report on Yemen, climate change, nor does it critique the economic status quo, so skipping the "news" doesn't mean dropping out.

hindsightbias 7y ago

> your voice can do a lot Your money can do a lot more - see the NRA. I remember a generation that grew up with nightmares of nuclear war, Three Mile Island and child kidnappings. Lot of good all that did. The US has been screwing the Yemen’s of the world for over a century, and the best the todays alt-left can do is tweet about it and watch Chomsky - if they tune RT in. As this study shows, this is just another generation where the world is all black and white and the news reflects that - in a 280 characters. I’d suggest what I did - watch/listen/read foreign media for your world and domestic news if you’re really interested. At least you know the bias. Anyone getting their news from US sources is the real definition of an isolationist.

rjf72 7y ago

Somehow this post ended up way longer than intended. Apologies, I haven't the time to write a short one! But rather than tuck some link down at the bottom of this post (which I expect many will disagree with), this [1] piece from the Guardian is an absolutely phenomenal article on this exact issue. Now onto the disagreeable! [1] - https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/may/03/how-the-news-took-over-reality https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/may/03/how-the-news-to... --- A major problem with the news is that it thrives on the negative, and you will never run out of bad news. And so it creates a rather severely distorted representation of society. How safe, worldwide, do you think the Earth is today? Is it getting safer or less safe? By approximately how much...? Many people would be completely unable to answer these questions because they focus on nothing but the negative, and so never receive any sort of perspective on the positive. For instance today we live in what is, by many orders of magnitude, the safest time in our species entire existence. And I mean this worldwide. We literally cannot conceive of how bad things were in the past. For instance during WW2 about 3% of the world was killed. Scaled to today's population that's about 231 million people. Since we suck at intuiting really big numbers let's put that in terms of 9/11s, as it was considered a practically unprecedented scale of destruction given our sweet luxuries of modern times. 2,996 people died there, including the 19 attackers. WW2 had the equivalent of a 9/11 scale event happen every single day for, literally, 211 years. If your family each has a child, on average, when they're 30. Then your great great great great great grandchildren would all have grown up in a world where every single day of their lives - from birth to death, there was a 9/11 scale event happening. Now compress all of that death and suffering into 6 years!! This is why I'm completely serious that we cannot even conceive of how bad things were in the past. And that's just 3%. The reason I picked it was not it's magnitude, but it's relative recency. The Mongol Hordes wiped out as much as 10% of humanity using little more than arrows and swords, the black death killed about 20% of the world's population, and so on. --- This doesn't mean you shouldn't care about or should not get involved with contemporary issues. But I do think it's important to put things in perspective. And nearly all issues that we find of critical importance today are, relative to anytime in our species' long past, not that important. It's like from today's perspective if we could look into the future and saw them arguing, vehemently and very seriously, about whether pine or oak should be the normal for city beautification efforts. That seems quite silly from our perspective, yet if you go back in the past nearly all of our issues would seem similar to them. And I think always focusing on the negative is not good for peoples' mental health. Not just psychological but also their intellectual health. In times past people would get bored and find creative ways to fill that time. In modern times now if you're bored you can click on any news site and there will be numerous new negative article you can obsess about. And your view of the world suggests that not only can you do this, but you should do this as a civic responsibility. Just look at the NYTimes right now. On their front page: - That Beloved Hospital? It's driving Up Health Care Costs - My Parents Broke The Rules of the Church Out Of Love - No One Threatens the Environment Like Donald Trump - No, Your Kid Shouldn't Get a Gold Star for Reading - Dogs Will Fix Our Broken Democracy You'd think this was some cherry picked selection over an extended period of time. No, those are all literally on the front page of the NYTimes at the exact moment of this post. And it seems every single one of those articles was written within the past 24 hours. Nonstop 24/7 negative news on demand. That's what news has become. And I would say that doing without that nonsense is not only not irresponsible, but far healthier both individually and socially.

coldtea 7y ago

>It's such a sheltered attitude I see on HN where people talk about just ignoring the news, when you know that you don't have to worry about anything bad happening to you. I think it's still a sign of being sheltered one needs to learn about bad things happening to them on the news. People who are actually affected (as opposed to sheltered), e.g. latino immigrants under Trump, learn about bad shit in real life and/or have relationships with their community where such things are communicated much faster than they hit the media. Even if someone in the community stop following all media, they will still learn whatever's important. It's the fully isolated and sheltered people who only learn about things from media coverage. >There's people dying in Yemen from a war that the US is supporting. There are serious debates occurring about the future of the economy which will have massive repercussions. Climate change poses a threat to the stability of civilization. We're coming to a crossroads with government surveillance issues. Those things are a 10,000 ft view of the news, and everybody that's even partially in society will know about them. You don't need to follow news and social media to know about them and do something about them. In fact you can directly join an organization about each of them or a party that does what you think is best on all of those, and push it further to your ideas. You don't need to follow what passes as news for that. In fact if you watch the mainstream news, you'll get a skewed view of all of those issues, with left and right either agreeing (e.g. in warmongering), or playing disagreement theater (e.g. in climate change, the right wants nothing do, the left wants "green new deal", that is to make money off of the climate, with nothing done. The something that needs to be done, of course, being beyond the pale to discuss: slowing down the economy, cutting down on consumption, and so on).

asdff 7y ago

I am being informed, but with the amount of stuff happening every day you need to be selective in the information that you are consuming out of the fire hose. I read local news from the local paper on local issues, because I'd rather be informed about what happens in my city than the gritty details of the constant horrors that I am personally powerless to affect on the other side of the world. How do I stop Exxon? How do I stop Raytheon? I already vote straight D. But reading local news taught me about how some of my neighbors are actively helping people in crisis in one of the wealthiest cities on earth. It taught me about how my community leaders are combating climate change. It also taught me how I could get involved in driving local change. Local news presents issues that I actually have agency to affect. There are pressing issues all over the world at once, so why not focus on the issues in your back yard?

tomhoward 7y ago

The problem is that if you allow the news to affect you so much that it impairs your mental health, you become less able to do anything to effect positive change in the world, and more easily influenced by the emotionally-charged, manipulative trash that makes up so much of what is presented as news. If someone's mental health is impaired by exposure to the news, a period of detox is necessary. Consuming more of it won't help them or the rest of the world while they're in that state, and indeed will likely do more harm by perpetuating the cycle. A person in such a state would be far better off taking some time to improve their ability to discern between useful news and trash, and to become more able to use their knowledge of the news to inspire positive action.