4 ms·

> This seems like the author is explicitly arguing for the tragedy of the commons. Yes, any one individual getting 'wound up' doesn't accomplish much, but the p

by Arun2009 6y ago

> This seems like the author is explicitly arguing for the tragedy of the commons. Yes, any one individual getting 'wound up' doesn't accomplish much, but the public 'at large' getting wound up can and does effect real change sometimes. There's an easy compromise: it's likely that some people are better off not watching the news. This group might be more sensitive to disruptive news and opinion pieces. It'd do them good to stay away from news. This is similar to certain food allergies. Peanuts are good stuff, but some people have negative reactions to it. They are better off without peanuts. Similarly, if your response to news is highly psychologically disruptive, you'd do well to stay away from it. It doesn't have to mean that you are shirking your responsibilities as a citizen. Rather than exhaust yourself by responding to local and temporal events, you could conserve your energies for longer-term projects that help the society at a fundamental level.

TulliusCicero 6y ago
This would be a better take. If you genuinely feel that being more informed about current events doesn't outweigh the psychological damage involved, especially if it stops you from being a contributing citizen in other ways, I could see an argument for checking out. My counter-argument is specifically that if you scale up this advice to everyone or even most people, the implications are really awful.
djsumdog 6y ago
> Peanuts are good stuff, but some people have negative reactions to it. They are better off without peanuts. In the book The Coddling of the American Mind, Jonathan Haidt talks about how schools were so concerned about Peanut allergies, a lot of places removed peanuts from school lunches and banned them from lunches people brought in. The result? Peanut allergies went up. Kids weren't being exposed to peanuts and it made the situation worse. He uses it as an analogy to our ability to deal with things psychologically and how any attempt to remove bad/dangerous ideas (he calls this the "What ever doesn't kill you makes you weaker" fallacy) has made it more difficult to deal with controversial ideas and leads to a cultural of "safetyism" (e.g. safe spaces) in University/Academic environments.

TulliusCicero 6y ago

This would be a better take. If you genuinely feel that being more informed about current events doesn't outweigh the psychological damage involved, especially if it stops you from being a contributing citizen in other ways, I could see an argument for checking out. My counter-argument is specifically that if you scale up this advice to everyone or even most people, the implications are really awful.

djsumdog 6y ago

> Peanuts are good stuff, but some people have negative reactions to it. They are better off without peanuts. In the book The Coddling of the American Mind, Jonathan Haidt talks about how schools were so concerned about Peanut allergies, a lot of places removed peanuts from school lunches and banned them from lunches people brought in. The result? Peanut allergies went up. Kids weren't being exposed to peanuts and it made the situation worse. He uses it as an analogy to our ability to deal with things psychologically and how any attempt to remove bad/dangerous ideas (he calls this the "What ever doesn't kill you makes you weaker" fallacy) has made it more difficult to deal with controversial ideas and leads to a cultural of "safetyism" (e.g. safe spaces) in University/Academic environments.