6 ms·

Honestly I'm surprised more people aren't burnt out on this. I can only be angry and get triggered by the same bullshit for so long before it just doesn't work.

by Zarath 7y ago

aiphex 7y ago
But isn't that a sinister side of it too? Burn out and disengage those of us who are rational and reasonable. Only 150 more years till we can apply to Starfleet...
- filoleg 7y ago
  Being disengaged from mainstream news reporting and clickbait articles isn’t the same as being disengaged from news, reading articles, and being informed though. It just means that instead of following the outrage threadmill and blindly trusting the first source you encounter, you get more emotionally disengaged and have to do more work to filter out your sources and read multiple different coverages of the same piece of info to get a more full and objective picture that isn’t clouded by the lens and emotional coloring through which the source could present it. It does take more of your willpower and effort to do all that, but that’s the price we have to pay to get a more objective view of something. Back in the old days, the access to information in the first place was what people had to work hard for. In the age of information abundance, you still have to work to get it, but now you have to do more filtering and less figuring out how to access it in the first place.
Swizec 7y ago
An old quote I heard once: “The news doesn’t tell you what to think, the news tells you what to think about” Doesn’t matter if the emotional jerking doesn’t work no more. Your mind is still hijacked.
caseysoftware 7y ago
Copied from where I've said this elsewhere: Almost 10 years ago, I conducted an experiment. I watched an hour of CNN every night but it was never that night's coverage. It was from exactly two weeks ago. It was amazing how much "breaking news!" was irrelevant or just outright wrong, how many large trend predictions were wrong, and how many "[person] will do X" were wrong. While the predictions could have been portrayed as opinions, they were presented as facts and the obvious next steps or conclusions. I realized pretty quickly that avoiding CNN kept out the blatantly wrong information so even if I didn't replace it with anything, I was net ahead. A few years ago, I discovered this article and realized that some portion of it was probably on purpose: https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-internet-flips-elections-and-alters-our-thoughts https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-internet-flips-elections-and-...
- r00fus 7y ago
  > I watched an hour of CNN every night but it was never that night's coverage. It was from exactly two weeks ago. This is an amazing thought experiment. I wonder if using this method, but extrapolating to multiple competing news sources could get remove bias both in recency as well as consistency.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    I think the main conclusion of that thought experiment was that you're better off not watching the news in the first place. No point in trying to see if you could average out bias by watching multiple news sources; you've failed the moment you've started to watch any of them.
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  I gave up on TV news before I was even out of high school because I was fed up with the "milling" of incessantly covering to death a few topics with endless speculation and often dropping them before they resolved. That and youth as villain moral panics which were trivially bullshit like rainbow parties (even the coolest of kids claiming to have gotten blown by seven girls with different color lipsticks would get cries of bullshit by those who actually believe that someon has a "girlfriend in Canada", and "pharm parties" which consisted of filling mixing bowls with random cabinets full of pills. Even the dumbasses who stick paper clips in electrical outlets because they think it would be funny or looking to get high wouldn't do that because it not only is obviously dangerous but not likely to get high. Smoking random literal area weeds would be more fun and less stupid.
txcwpalpha 7y ago
I agree. About a year ago I made the conscious decision to remove the vast majority of "news", particularly political news, from my life. On Reddit, I blocked all political-related subreddits, removed CNN et al from my bookmarks, unsubscribed from news-related podcasts, removed all news apps from my phone, and I only browse sites /subreddits that pertain to specific interests of mine (HN, subreddits about programming, technology, fitness, financial news about specific companies I am following, etc). I will open a "news site" very rarely when I catch wind of a significant event happening (impeachment, bombing Iran), but again this is very rare. When it comes time to vote, I'll spend some time doing active research on current topics so I can make informed decisions, and the active research helps significantly to avoid clickbait/ragebait that pops up when passively browsing the internet. I can say without a doubt it has made a significant improvement to my general mood and demeanor. I no longer get sucked into a trap reading infuriating news about the government or inane comments on social media sites. Now when I do happen to come across a clickbait/ragebait headline, my brain seems to just ignore it and carry on with life. Sometimes my friends will bring up the latest "omg Trump, did you hear?" news while we hang out and it will devolve into a bitchfest where they get visibly angry as they talk about it, meanwhile I just sit back and say "I have no idea what you're talking about". Ignorance is bliss, and I say that completely unironically. It is a little sad because I previously loved being "in the know" and always kept up with the news and wanted to be involved in politics. I miss that aspect a little bit, and I'm certainly wary of the greater effect if everyone in society just disengaged from public debate, but for the most part the improvements have far outweighed that negative. If you find yourself spending more than even a couple minutes a day being angry/stressed at current events, I strongly recommend limiting, if not totally cutting out, that type of news. It really is great.
- mistermann 7y ago
  Another approach is trying to take a disciplined, abstract view of the situation. For the news, pay less attention to the content of the news, but the style in which it is delivered, paying particular attention to word choice, chosen perspective, suspiciously excluded details, double standards, epistemic soundness (how would one actually know the "fact" that is being reported), etc. For internet conversations, try to remain undecided on the particular issue being argued, but closely observe the nature of the conversation, using the same techniques as above. I think if you can manage to do this skillfully, what would normally be an exercise in frustration and stress can transform into a pleasurable study of the nature of human beings, if you're into that sort of thing.

Honestly I'm surprised more people aren't burnt out on this. I can only be angry and get triggered by the same bullshit for so long before it just doesn't work.

by Zarath 7y ago

Honestly I'm surprised more people aren't burnt out on this. I can only be angry and get triggered by the same bullshit for so long before it just doesn't work.

aiphex 7y ago

But isn't that a sinister side of it too? Burn out and disengage those of us who are rational and reasonable. Only 150 more years till we can apply to Starfleet...

filoleg 7y ago
Being disengaged from mainstream news reporting and clickbait articles isn’t the same as being disengaged from news, reading articles, and being informed though. It just means that instead of following the outrage threadmill and blindly trusting the first source you encounter, you get more emotionally disengaged and have to do more work to filter out your sources and read multiple different coverages of the same piece of info to get a more full and objective picture that isn’t clouded by the lens and emotional coloring through which the source could present it. It does take more of your willpower and effort to do all that, but that’s the price we have to pay to get a more objective view of something. Back in the old days, the access to information in the first place was what people had to work hard for. In the age of information abundance, you still have to work to get it, but now you have to do more filtering and less figuring out how to access it in the first place.

Swizec 7y ago

An old quote I heard once: “The news doesn’t tell you what to think, the news tells you what to think about” Doesn’t matter if the emotional jerking doesn’t work no more. Your mind is still hijacked.

caseysoftware 7y ago

Copied from where I've said this elsewhere: Almost 10 years ago, I conducted an experiment. I watched an hour of CNN every night but it was never that night's coverage. It was from exactly two weeks ago. It was amazing how much "breaking news!" was irrelevant or just outright wrong, how many large trend predictions were wrong, and how many "[person] will do X" were wrong. While the predictions could have been portrayed as opinions, they were presented as facts and the obvious next steps or conclusions. I realized pretty quickly that avoiding CNN kept out the blatantly wrong information so even if I didn't replace it with anything, I was net ahead. A few years ago, I discovered this article and realized that some portion of it was probably on purpose: https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-internet-flips-elections-and-alters-our-thoughts https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-internet-flips-elections-and-...

r00fus 7y ago
> I watched an hour of CNN every night but it was never that night's coverage. It was from exactly two weeks ago. This is an amazing thought experiment. I wonder if using this method, but extrapolating to multiple competing news sources could get remove bias both in recency as well as consistency.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  I think the main conclusion of that thought experiment was that you're better off not watching the news in the first place. No point in trying to see if you could average out bias by watching multiple news sources; you've failed the moment you've started to watch any of them.
Nasrudith 7y ago
I gave up on TV news before I was even out of high school because I was fed up with the "milling" of incessantly covering to death a few topics with endless speculation and often dropping them before they resolved. That and youth as villain moral panics which were trivially bullshit like rainbow parties (even the coolest of kids claiming to have gotten blown by seven girls with different color lipsticks would get cries of bullshit by those who actually believe that someon has a "girlfriend in Canada", and "pharm parties" which consisted of filling mixing bowls with random cabinets full of pills. Even the dumbasses who stick paper clips in electrical outlets because they think it would be funny or looking to get high wouldn't do that because it not only is obviously dangerous but not likely to get high. Smoking random literal area weeds would be more fun and less stupid.

txcwpalpha 7y ago

I agree. About a year ago I made the conscious decision to remove the vast majority of "news", particularly political news, from my life. On Reddit, I blocked all political-related subreddits, removed CNN et al from my bookmarks, unsubscribed from news-related podcasts, removed all news apps from my phone, and I only browse sites /subreddits that pertain to specific interests of mine (HN, subreddits about programming, technology, fitness, financial news about specific companies I am following, etc). I will open a "news site" very rarely when I catch wind of a significant event happening (impeachment, bombing Iran), but again this is very rare. When it comes time to vote, I'll spend some time doing active research on current topics so I can make informed decisions, and the active research helps significantly to avoid clickbait/ragebait that pops up when passively browsing the internet. I can say without a doubt it has made a significant improvement to my general mood and demeanor. I no longer get sucked into a trap reading infuriating news about the government or inane comments on social media sites. Now when I do happen to come across a clickbait/ragebait headline, my brain seems to just ignore it and carry on with life. Sometimes my friends will bring up the latest "omg Trump, did you hear?" news while we hang out and it will devolve into a bitchfest where they get visibly angry as they talk about it, meanwhile I just sit back and say "I have no idea what you're talking about". Ignorance is bliss, and I say that completely unironically. It is a little sad because I previously loved being "in the know" and always kept up with the news and wanted to be involved in politics. I miss that aspect a little bit, and I'm certainly wary of the greater effect if everyone in society just disengaged from public debate, but for the most part the improvements have far outweighed that negative. If you find yourself spending more than even a couple minutes a day being angry/stressed at current events, I strongly recommend limiting, if not totally cutting out, that type of news. It really is great.

mistermann 7y ago
Another approach is trying to take a disciplined, abstract view of the situation. For the news, pay less attention to the content of the news, but the style in which it is delivered, paying particular attention to word choice, chosen perspective, suspiciously excluded details, double standards, epistemic soundness (how would one actually know the "fact" that is being reported), etc. For internet conversations, try to remain undecided on the particular issue being argued, but closely observe the nature of the conversation, using the same techniques as above. I think if you can manage to do this skillfully, what would normally be an exercise in frustration and stress can transform into a pleasurable study of the nature of human beings, if you're into that sort of thing.