23 ms·

Reading too much political news is bad for your well-being

• aww_dang 6y ago
  I was surprised to learn that Bukowski submitted poems and stories to The Atlantic in his early, hungry years. In my lifetime, I've only known it as an outlet for partisan opinion pieces. On the occasions that I do visit the site, I wonder what he would say about what The Atlantic has become. Not in terms of how it would suit his political biases, but in the agenda first, logic last, unimaginative partisan hackery. I imagine him ranting at length or condemning them eloquently. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDiLfQUBnyA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDiLfQUBnyA
  • notsureaboutpg 6y ago
    People in the (very small) poetry world used to know the Atlantic as one of the premier places to have a poem published. If you pick up a physical copy there are two or three poems and those are guaranteed to be by someone huge in the American poetry scene at the moment. In the last decade or so things have changed, online has boomed, spoken word/slam poetry took off and left it's mark. And now the markers which signify status in the poetry world are shifting. And for the first time in a while I was actually reading the Atlantic for the articles (online) and surprised to find how much of it was, as you said, partisan, ideology-first, logic-last type reporting.
    • genericone 6y ago
      Quora question: Why is slam poetry so bad? : https://www.quora.com/Why-is-slam-poetry-so-bad https://www.quora.com/Why-is-slam-poetry-so-bad
  • deleted 6y ago
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• qazxcvbnmlp 6y ago
  Yeah... whenever I consume news I get anxious and realize I should spend my time on things I have influence over.
• smitty1e 6y ago
  > After controlling for household income, education, age, gender, race, marital status, and political views, I found that people who were “very interested in politics” were about 8 percentage points more likely to be “not very happy” about life than people who were “not very interested” in politics. If we could locate these philosopher-kings from Aristotle and put them in charge, then ignoring politics might be safe. But your disdain for bossing others around isn't reciprocated by the Chads and Karens seeking office. This, detachment from the swamp is a sin of omission. You and your wallet will be punished.
  • notsojustcity 6y ago
    Interestingly enough, Plato's proposal for creating an ideal city-state had specific instructions for how to breed philosopher-kings. He advocated eugenics, and he also recommended lying to the citizens about how it was decided who would be paired up with who. So...I'm not sure we should go down that road?
    • dr_dshiv 6y ago
      Any quotes to share?
  • eutropia 6y ago
    I am very interested in policy, but I do not watch the news. Why? Because it contains no actionable information that changes my decisions: I'm still going to vote in every election, I'm still going to research the candidates when the time comes, I'm still going to volunteer at the polls... The news is trivia, generally speaking. When I have a more active life in politics I'll take the Chomskian approach to news, but for now I'll vote with my ideals (which don't change with the passing tides of the news cycles)
    • technoplato 6y ago
      What is the Chomskian approach to news?
• deleted 6y ago
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• mynameishere 6y ago
  Arguments are to be avoided: they are always vulgar and often convincing. -Oscar Wilde
  • deleted 6y ago
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• technoplato 6y ago
  In other news of things that are completely obvious...
• dr_dshiv 6y ago
  We should redesign the news. What would it ideally be like?
  • gurleen_s 6y ago
    I think Axios is on the right path in keeping news reports as short as possible without too much fluff.
  • zarkov99 6y ago
    It would reward reporters who are honest and courageous. The incentives right now punish objectivity and reward conformity.
    • verroq 6y ago
      I won’t call some of these reporters journalists, they are more like activists. They aren’t interested in keeping society informed, they just want to push their agenda.
      • goldenManatee 6y ago
        Ba dam bum.
      • TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
        They're like that because that's what the current system rewards. I think that's why the user you replied to said what they did.
      • pjc50 6y ago
        The only worthwhile journalism is activism. Discomfort the powerful. Unfortunately it's dangerous to be too good at this, see Daphne Caruana Galizia.
        • verroq 6y ago
          The truth doesn’t have an agenda
• turbinerneiter 6y ago
  I think the problem isn't the news, but the obvious injustice that politics gets away with. In germany, the minister of transportation lost the taxpayer 500 million euros, with a publicity stunt to bolster his party in a local election. He is now lying in people's face about it, everyone knows it and he does not have to step back. Instead, they wrote a fluff piece about him, because he managed to buy some masks for the nation by using some connections from his home town. The article that came out two weeks later about these masks being fake and another million euros lost was for some reason behind the paywall of the online newspaper. It's not the news that makes people unhappy, it's the blatant bullshitting we have to endure.
  • Grollicus 6y ago
    If you want to get really depressed you should look into the state of our media where they themselves have something at stake. One examples from the top of my head would be Peer Steinbrücks destruction in the weeks running up to the 2013 election where they collectivly decided that fighting against tax evasion is bad. Or the reporting about Article 13 where they forgot to ask critical questions about how some of the arguments made absolutely no sense and could someone please explain that in more detail? On the other hand if you are looking for more nuanced reporting I've come to like deutschlandfunk radio lately.
• cblconfederate 6y ago
  What are we supposed to read then? Politics is the current day s soap opera
  • dbtc 6y ago
    Step away from the screen
  • dublinben 6y ago
    Books. Replace the instant gratification of doomscrolling with more thoughtful consumption that encourages self-reflection rather than reaction.
    • kabdib 6y ago
      It's a good time to re-visit old friends on the shelf, or find new ones. I picked up a series that I'd stuck a bookmark in 30 years ago, and I wish I'd continued reading it back then. On the other hand, I have roughly 2,000 pages of greenfields escapist fantasy to crawl into. [For a number of reasons, I won't mention the series]
  • aww_dang 6y ago
    I agree with this approach. However, politicians and talking heads generally lack self-irony. Many refuse to acknowledge the farce they are participating in. Even worse, audiences have a tendency to take it all a bit too seriously. Everyone would be better off if pundits would look into the camera and wink occasionally. Just let us know that they know we know it is all a spectacle. A little acknowledgement goes a long way here.
  • ravenstine 6y ago
    You do other things to improve your life and the lives around you. This culture where everyone is compelled to be a participant in politics is relatively new, or wasn't common once civilization made small tribes obsolete.
  • dageshi 6y ago
    When Trump caught Covid I actually thought to myself that this is a soap opera plot from a parallel dimension and the writers had just jumped the shark.
• eywneidid 6y ago
  Its living in a fucked up society that is bad for your well being. These fucks would rather have you stay ignorant happy and complacent. Fuck them. I wish I could jam political news down the throat of everyone that is dumb enough to say I dont give a shit about politics.
  • khalilravanna 6y ago
    Does this approach seem like it will bring people around to your point of view? I think this sort of toxic aggression is exactly what produces the partisanship that leads to a lack of progress on all sides. I think this article is pretty constructive. It specifically argue there’s value in being informed. And it even goes on to suggest active involvement in the community over passive consumption of news.
• darepublic 6y ago
  The debate between Trump and Biden epitomizes why political news is a mental health risk. No questions about long term goals and how we get there. Yes Trump is bad but I don't think it would be any different without him. Just questions that lead to petty, divisive tit for tat.
• deleted 6y ago
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• deadalus 6y ago
  I get very frustrated, sad and emotional when I read CNN or any of the major news sites. So I avoid it. Instead I use Wikipedia once a month : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events/September_2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events/Septembe...
  • nunez 6y ago
    This is incredible. I wish I knew about this years ago. I have long been looking for impartial news sources. I used to listen to CBC, NPR, and ABC (Australia) to try and get more angles to a story, but that got tiring.
    • DC-3 6y ago
      I use the BBC World News site as my homepage. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world
  • jaredtn 6y ago
    Thank you for this!
  • _prototype_ 6y ago
    This, this is awesome
  • notankies 6y ago
    That's intentional, especially with CNN. The major news sites have essentially been tabloids since the death of print. Sites from local TV news groups seem to be the most dispassionate reporting these days.
    • Medicalidiot 6y ago
      PBS News Hour. I've never watched more boring and informative news in my entire life.
      • MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
• pjc50 6y ago
  The news is depressing. This is, in its own way, a form of voter suppression.
• jrgaston 6y ago
  De Botton's "The News: A User's Manual," inspired me to cut back on my news consumption. The blow-by-blow of the news isn't particularly enlightening. De Botton's other books are worth a look, too.
• fab1an 6y ago
  I've been trying to cut news and social media out of my daily habits as much as possible, and am attempting to replace it with reading books whenever possible. It sure isn't easy, but I feel significantly more productive, healthier, happier and overall more human on days where this works particularly well. What helps is to not have the phone in your bedroom and charge iit elsewhere instead - replace it with a Kindle or a book and rread that instead for a few minutes upon waking up.
  • mountainb 6y ago
    You can read one book that recaps the events of multiple years in a fraction of the time that it takes to consume the news daily in fragment form, with the bonus that it comes with appropriate context. It is also easier to avoid sensational gore or celebrity tales that are for the most part meaningless (or the opposite if that is one's proclivity).
• rvz 6y ago
  Right. Probably says something more about the Atlantic editors than the people who actually do incredible and productive things either on Show HN or Product Hunt to even waste an hour on reading dreadful articles like this one. Now if you excuse me, I have to continue counting the pages of sales from my paid customers for this week.
• HashThis 6y ago
  When the rich and powerful rig the economy, then the real problem is when you read about it. Not that it really happens.
  • MR4D 6y ago
    I think that’s by design... From Sun Tzu (loosely): when an enemy is large in number, divide them. Isn’t that what news does, especially the political crap we call news in the US - divide the population so they fight among themselves.
• m3kw9 6y ago
  Or political articles spewed by The Atlantic
• oblib 6y ago
  We have to learn to compartmentalize political news and keep it separated from our personal life. And we have to be honest with ourselves about our personal life. For many of us, and it's probably fair to say most of us here on HN, life is pretty good. But we have to put that statement in perspective to see it that way. Where I live, in the Ozarks, life 100 years ago was pretty tough and even compared to when and where I grew up life is pretty good here right now. In fact it's pretty amazing. Stuff I find here on HN amazes me almost daily.
• kabdib 6y ago
  I put myself into a news bubble about six weeks ago. I still very occasionally read local news and a mainstream front page (say, every few days), which seems sufficient to let me know what's going on in broad terms. Stuff leaks into the bubble (e.g., via HN) but the point is not to be totally isolated, just not to get caught in hours-long doom spirals. I've given money to the campaigns that are going to get money from me. I voted yesterday (which answered the question, "are we going to get our mail-in ballots on time?"). I'm done. As a consequence I'm getting more done and I'm happier. I'm reading a lot more books.
  • nharada 6y ago
    Same, my new routine is I receive a daily news briefing email in the morning and read that, and then don't read/watch any other news for the rest of the day. I feel relatively informed but no longer feel as depressed as when I would check the front page of news sites every hour. The other plus side to this is that the whiplash of rapidly developing news is never an issue. Previously the news headlines would speculate on new developments so frequently that you felt like you were always behind on what was current, but truthfully most news can wait 24 hours (and if it can't it's probably an emergency).
    • adriand 6y ago
      I also instituted a news blackout about three weeks ago, with the intent to (perhaps) resume reading the news on Nov 5. In 2016 I spent an inordinate amount of time hooked on election news. This year I decided to spend my time more productively (as a Canadian, I can’t even vote in the US elections, so I’m ultra powerless). Anecdotally, I do feel happier. I’ve also poured the time I previously spent on news consumption into studying and making music, and it’s just generally a more positive mental environment for me. I may decide to switch to a less in-the-moment mode of news consumption, such as getting an Economist subscription and only reading the paper magazine when it arrives. Or maybe the NYT Saturday paper only, or something. I feel a duty to be an informed citizen but the ceaseless noise and sense of angry powerlessness doesn’t make me feel happy or satisfied.
      • 6y ago
• deleted 6y ago
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• yashap 6y ago
  This point rings strongly true to me. I have a number of members of friends/family who have become very difficult to be around, because they’ve become so intense/constantly outraged about politics, even if they are on the same end of the political spectrum as me: > The research doesn’t reveal precisely why we tend to dislike overly political people, but it doesn’t take too much imagination to guess that constant foam-flecked political outrage makes one quite tedious. It also impedes our ability to think clearly: At least one experiment has shown that people become less accurate in interpreting data when the data concern something politically polarizing.
  • noneeeed 6y ago
    This is basically why I stopped using Twitter. Reading a dozen of my friends expressing basically the same thought at the same time, even though I agreed with it, was just getting tideous. In hindsight it took me way too long to realise how much time I was wasting on it.
  • inglor_cz 6y ago
    But Facebook and Twitter can sell many more ads this way. We are manipulated into constant outrage for someone else's profit.
    • treeman79 6y ago
      While not wrong, the country is headed toward a revolution / Cival War. Similar to when Mao or Lenin came to power. So yea, emotions are running a little high right now.
  • sgustard 6y ago
    A couple years ago all you heard about was kids who didn't want to get shot in school. Now it's communities of color who don't want to get shot by police. It sure is a lot nicer to keep my head in the sand.
    • yashap 6y ago
      There are always tonnes of terrible things going on in the world, throughout human history. Hell, my grandfather was an Auschwitz survivor, and his entire immediate family was murdered by Nazis. I think Trump is a terrible, terrible President, causing a tonne of damage to America, but he’s not exactly Hitler, more of a poor man’s Putin. I’m all for having political conversations, even reasonably frequent ones, but barring a legitimate Hitler situation, I don’t want it to be the ONLY thing I talk about. There’s a lot more to life. Some members of my friends/family can talk about nothing else anymore, it’s nonstop outrage, and they completely ignore all social queues from people who want to change the subject. These people suck to be around. The article sums it up well: > it doesn’t take too much imagination to guess that constant foam-flecked political outrage makes one quite tedious
• bazeblackwood 6y ago
  > They found that those watching the most partisan television news sources—on both the left and the right—were often less knowledgeable about world events than those who consumed no news at all. This is some very fancy footwork to leave out some key information. The study found that those watching only Fox News and MSNBC answered worse than people who watch no news programs at all. As far as I can tell, this latter group doesn't exclude people who read newspapers, blogs, political websites, etc. Meanwhile, all of the viewers of other programs/networks (NPR, Daily Show, CNN, etc.) score higher than average, so saying "often less knowledgable" kind of buries the lede if you ask me, which is that some "partisan" viewers are in fact, much more informed than others. Also, since the quiz the survey participants answered was split into domestic and international topics, FOX is the only network whose viewers consistently failed both on exceeding the average number of correct questions than achieved by "no news" viewers—MSNBC at least seems to be informing their viewers on domestic issues better than that baseline. http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2012/confirmed/final.pdf http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2012/confirmed/final.pdf
  • gridlockd 6y ago
    > MSNBC at least seems to be informing their viewers on domestic issues better than that baseline. The difference is only about 5% to the "no news" crowd. Also, people that are better-educated tend to lean liberal and therefore might prefer to consume liberal outlets, but that doesn't mean liberal outlets are better at informing people. Looking at the frontpage of MSNBC, it's almost exclusively political opinion pieces centered around the US. Moreover, the key question is not whether you're being informed better by consuming this media, but whether it is worth risking some of your well-being by consuming it. Research has found that media that is upsetting is the most addictive. People with addictions make up all kinds of rationalizations on how their addiction has upsides. The idea that you've been wasting time consuming ultimately useless information that irritates you - it's not very attractive.
    • pattusk 6y ago
      > Research has found that media that is upsetting is more addictive? Do you have any source for tjat research? (Not doubting you, just curious.)
• pedro1976 6y ago
  I find news as a concept quite weird, since it implies recent data is important data, with all its side effects. There is a ton of old news, maybe even years, that did not loose relevance, but we simply ignore it.
• aklemm 6y ago
  Read the news with a goal in mind: understand civic life. My 20+ years of reading news daily has brought me a personal understanding of the world, and it’s way better than when I started out in my teens ignorant, confused, and unmoored. I know what’s most important to me now, and I know how to participate in those issues. Of course, there are many news outlets that don’t offer much in terms of better understanding the world, so avoid those.
• binaryorganic 6y ago
  On the Media (podcast) ran a good piece Friday about how the problem with news (especially right now with the election) is that journalists are treating the candidates as the protagonists of their own stories (and the media then get the voter reactions to what those protagonists deem important) when what’s needed is for us voters to be the protagonists who set the priorities for what the campaigns should be talking about.
• rektide 6y ago
  > Reading Too Much Political News Is Bad for Your Well-Being unconvinced that atm the words "reading" and "news" are needed or helpful in calibrating where we all are
• pedro1976 6y ago
  News with its focus on recent data only is quite weird concept, given its popularity. The implication that recent data is relevant totally ignores all the former news that would still be a relevant and probably a much better source of information.
• CapitalistCartr 6y ago
  More accurately, GIGO: those that watch garbage sources, i.e. Fox, MSNBC, are poorly informed compared to those getting news from more legitimate sources such as NPR, BBC, etc. If you want a quality education in anything, choose your sources carefully. For instance, Al Jazeera is a good source, except on the subject of Qatar.
  • cabaalis 6y ago
    I listen to NPR often. What they say is generally factual and true; however I often note that a bias shows through what they do not mention when covering a topic. That's why we have the concept of the truth and the WHOLE truth.
• xwdv 6y ago
  I feel that most people would benefit more from reading or watching financial news rather than political news. Financial news is about numbers and events that pertain to companies relevant to people's everyday life. Financial news is immediately actionable, you could choose to invest your money based on your interpretation of what's going on in markets or various companies. Politics will occasionally creep their way in, but not in a way that dominates the conversation or appeals to emotion.
  • andrewmcwatters 6y ago
    There's a reason why FT, Bloomberg, and The Wall Street Journal are so good.
• kyle_martin1 6y ago
  Worth a read for explanation as to why: https://rb.gy/81ygny https://rb.gy/81ygny
  • PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
    this is a link to the wikipedia page on "Trump Derangement Syndrome", and contains little, if any, "explanation as to why". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_derangement_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_derangement_syndrome
    • kyle_martin1 6y ago
      Reading too much negative anything is bad for the psyche. It just so happens that the MSM is full-on TDS and they can't seem to let go. Trump is the blackhole for MSM, everything is somehow connected to "Orange Man Bad". Moreover, the Washington Post reported that 90% of Trump's coverage is negative [1]. Do you know anyone that is 90% terrible? I doubt it. Taking a step back from one's political views, which is hard for a lot of people, it becomes obvious that there's little honest and unbiased reporting going on within MSM. Sure it's fine to read information with a particular viewpoint (be it conservative or liberal), as long as the reader is made aware that the "facts" are framed from a particular viewpoint. Otherwise it's just brainwashing and intellectually dishonest. I think any rational person can get behind this sort of "zero-trust framework". [1] https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jan/15/a-broadcast-tradition-90-of-trump-coverage-remains/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jan/15/a-broadcast...
      • RonaldRaygun 6y ago
        Very strange that an unusually terrible politician would have an unusual number of negative articles written about him, isn't it? Clearly this is bias in action. Many people don't realize that everyone has exactly the same moral standing, and that any indication to the contrary is not to be trusted. Thank goodness we have the catchphrases "Orange Man Bad" and "Trump Derangement Syndrome" to safely allow us to ignore any and all criticism of the president. This certainly helps assuage any cognitive dissonance, which as we all know is a leftist plot. Do make sure to read this extremely informative article from the eminently neutral Washington Times (here misidentified as the Washington Post, in what was surely an honest mistake) and while doing so keep in mind, that all politicians have a god-given right to exactly 50% positive coverage. This is as true for Trump as it is for Maduro, who as you know we laud precisely as much as we denigrate. Just remember, anyone telling you that Donald Trump is going to reject any non-landslide loss and claim tens of millions of fraudulent votes without a shred of evidence, merely because he's told us this with his mouth, is clearly suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome, their brain fried by a surfeit of orangeness.
• SubiculumCode 6y ago
  These days, instead of reading the news in the evening, I play a game of chess. I check the headlines on news.google once per day, but don't delve in much.
• loughnane 6y ago
  The economist is great for this. Views aside, getting a single bolus of well-considered, well-written news once a week is wonderful. You “miss out” on the “did you hear what X said” water cooler talk, but the gains in understanding and attention are significant
  • baron816 6y ago
    I think more should adopt The Economist model. Yes, they definitely have an opinion, and they push it, but they're open about it and are fair to other sides. It's much better than feigning impartiality, or doing a half-hearted "both sides"ing.
    • fma 6y ago
      I love the Economist. I used to pay for it but then ended up having a stack of unread magazines because I tried to read every page. I really should renew my subscription as their articles are in depth and I'm often amazed how can they crank out so many great articles within a week. Having said that - I see many tech people complain about pay walls even though many of us make $100k+. Pay walls on websites aren't that expensive. Wait till people find out how much the Economists costs.
      • baron816 6y ago
        I just get the digital versions. Their app includes high quality audio recordings of all their articles, which makes it much easier for me to listen to all I’m interested in. I also got my subscription through discountmags and locked in the price, so it’s only $50/yr in perpetuity for me.
      • loughnane 6y ago
        Honestly the biggest bummer about the cost is that it makes the content less accessible to many, and I’m unaware of any cheaper options of the same quality.
  • robk 6y ago
    In the past five or size years the Economist has sadly become quite partisan and unreadable..in their trump derangement they've lost a lot of the even keel view they'd previously had over the prior decades I'd been a reader. Sadly I still read but effectively skip all politics as the new Eric Schmidt led board have certainly co-opted the formerly drier view the editors formerly would have taken in exchange for a more activist view which is far out of character for them. Sad because it was once a must read end to end to years for me. Now it's a skim for 35-45% unique content type of publication.. No one else covers the breadth of intriguing topics like African politics but the anti Brexit UK and anti Trump US political angle ruins most of the other content for the major western economies.
• gaze 6y ago
  Sorry but what exactly is non-political news? I’m convinced that people who talk about “politics” as a thing external to them are just refusing to engage with the parts of the world that are uncomfortable to them.
  • SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    Looking at the CNN front page for a good source of examples, non-political news would be things like: * Evacuations ordered in Colorado and Utah as crews battle new blazes * NFL reports no new positive Covid-19 tests * Preorders are open for the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro When people discuss political news, they're referring to stories like "Biden is putting red states in play" or "Mexican restaurant takes political stand with sign declaring 'No Love, No Tacos'" - stories which are fundamentally about partisans doing battle with each other.
    • guscost 6y ago
      “Political news” very often consists of what Daniel J. Boorstin called “pseudo-events”, actions taken by people for the purpose of generating news. Today’s example: https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/18/politics/pelosi-stimulus-talks-election/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/18/politics/pelosi-stimulus-talk... In a profound sense, most political news really is “fake news”.
      • asdff 6y ago
        I think less 'fake news' and more like spitballing, personally. The article even ends in a 'could.' I think there is space for postulating on the implications of an event. We only see brief windows into what actually happens in discussions on capitol hill anyway, so idle speculation based on what we do see is expected.
  • MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
    I don't engage with politics online seeing as the psychotic leftist sentiment doesn't allow for an honest discussion of the current democrats. Also if anybody simply says they vote for trump, theyre labeled online as if some sort of abhorrent miniscule group.
• 0xmohit 6y ago
  Much of it isn't "news". It is mostly propaganda. Quoting Garry Kasparov: "The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth."
  • tumblerz 6y ago
    But Garry, why not both? I concur, however. Like others, on this thread, I (slowly) eliminated nearly all news from my life over the last two years. Doing this has had a profound effect on my perspectives, but has also ruined a lot of "conversation" for me. Previously, I played along in various forms of political shittalkery, but now, I find it disturbing to hear/see. Increasingly, I am concerned by the tone, content, and purpose of many (American) people's strongly-held positions. On occasion I have found that voicing a contrary opinion results in estrangement, but more worryingly, merely not voicing a validation is enough to achieve some alienation.
    • nradov 6y ago
      We have moved from free speech to compelled speech. If you fail to perform the necessary virtue signaling then your loyalty to the tribe is questioned.
  • jariel 6y ago
    That's a great quote, but I would characterize what's happening now as 'Narrative Propaganda' in that, there is no authoritative source dictating the terms, but a gaggle of groups fixing the language, narrative, establishing the 'Overton Window' of what is acceptable to talk about - and anyone who has reasonable arguments against said narrative is just suppressed.
  • deleted 6y ago
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• rootsudo 6y ago
  >Don't read the news, don't stay informed. >If you read too much news, it's bad for you. I do enjoy the idea of a newsbubble, as it really does not add much to your everyday life, knowing something bad happened here, or there - because the news is a marketing machine of commercials and local interests that sell your attention to sell stuff. But, it's also hilarious how they say too much is bad, it's akin to buzzfeed saying these websites are good, these that don't agree with us is bad. -- I use a pihole, but you can just add a rule into your HOSTS file or local firewall to block access and untrain your body. I used to always be on reddit, consuming, not really contributing much. Then I realized I spend way to much time, reading, which itself, is not a bad thing, but then I realized the communities of the people who may post in them may not be the best or really useful/smartest and then some communities turn into a "selfie" parade to whomever has some small budget can easily swing conversation. Then I stopped going, and missed nothing. Once I realized the people online wouldn't be the ones I would normally want to be "seen" with or socialize with, it helped break the distinction and neutrality of a screen with words on it. Now I'm more careful of whom I read articles from online, and forums, it's pretty much hit or miss, good for opinion swaying but any true info I make sure to verify and not rely solely on Google/AMP links, but if they are published and which vector of publishing are they on (from New York Times to Dailymail for example.) And even then it isn't enough, all news suck and really does not matter to you. Stoicism is best.
  • MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
    What purpose does it serve for you to be well informed about the democrats and republicans, what they vote on, who they elect, etc, when you have no control over their actions afterward? Same goes for voting. None of the research you do and the research others don't do will alter the outcome of the election.
    • TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
      It's not widely appreciated that the point of being well-informed is to influence what happens between elections. That's when the politics gets done - the lobbying efforts, candidate selections, control of local political groups, agenda and policy design, and so on. Elections are just a process to rubber-stamp decisions that have already been made by groups of people who understand this.
• pedro1976 6y ago
  News with its focus on recent fata only is quite weird concept, given its popularity. The implication that recent data is relevant totally ignores all the former news that would still be a relevant source of information.
• mrfusion 6y ago
  If you don’t read the news you’re uninformed. If you do read the news you’re misinformed. — unknown
  • fsagx 6y ago
    I believed this was a Mark Twain quote. Turns out I was misinformed! (I always thought it sounded a little Mencken-esque too)
• andrewmcwatters 6y ago
  I stick with I stopped reading The Atlantic because they keep pushing these rag newspaper articles. What's on the front page of The Atlantic right now? "Evangelicals Made a Bad Bargain With Trump" and "After Trump, the Republican Party May Become More Extreme." Garbage. I stick with Reuters, PBS NewsHour, and others because I want news and not think pieces.
  • watwut 6y ago
    Why are those two garbage? I am not American and here local religious conservatives adopted Trump. Reading American radical evangelical writings, they are pro Trump too. Open support of Biden is superrare. And whether the Republicans become more radical is interesting question
    • augustt 6y ago
      Guy is uncomfortable with a commentary magazine's commentary that evangelicals should not love a thrice-married pornstar-fucker because it's like, clearly liberal bias.
    • andrewmcwatters 6y ago
      It's not "news." Call it whatever you want, but it's definitely not that. No matter what your political stance.
      • TomSwirly 6y ago
        The Atlantic is a _monthly magazine_ with articles about "Literature, political science, foreign affairs, lifestyles". These articles are political science. For me, a European, they are a valuable analysis of your collapsing country, so I can get out of the way of the pieces as it crumbles down.
        • andrewmcwatters 6y ago
          And yet they still conflate themselves with news. “ We see it as part of our job to help keep our audience up-to-date on the most important news and current events across the United States and around the world. But the bigger part of our job is to work out—through reporting, argument, and debate—what that news means now, and what it could mean for the future.” —The Atlantic > These articles are political science. For me, a European, they are a valuable analysis of your collapsing country, so I can get out of the way of the pieces as it crumbles down. OK.
• ajoy 6y ago
  We launched https://www.thefactual.com https://www.thefactual.com over a year ago, to solve exactly this problem. Get a daily email that informs you of the main events with multiple perspectives, with a sprinkling of interesting articles. We are a paid service ($1/month, with a 2 week trial), no ads.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• aj7 6y ago
  I.e avoid suffering or accept it or deal with it, rather than cure its causes. What a fine recipe for well-being, enlightenment, and humanity.
• kleton 6y ago
  This perennial story pops up regularly whenever there is news someone powerful doesn't want people to see.
• mark_l_watson 6y ago
  Actually, watching “news” on TV is even worse that reading news. I spend five minutes every morning reading The Guardian’s morning email to US subscribers and I think that is time well spent. I have fright spend a couple of hours a day obsessing and watching the news, and I politely tell them their behavior is idiotic.
• paul7986 6y ago
  This coming from a highly partisan outlet. To me all sides are a joke with both of their arbitrary soap opera drama (Hunter Biden, the Impeachment, the russia collusion junk, PizzaGate (lol that one). Stop with the madness and made up crap... tell voters what you will do for them and the issues that matter! Politics doesn't need to be reality TV but that's what it has become and not just because of only the reality tv star in office; again both sides feed this madness/reality tv drama b.s. The Atlantic ... is a joke just like the majority outlets feeding this reality tv narrative! Which is just about each and everyone of them; most local news isnt as bad, though.
• vinbreau 6y ago
  I reconnected with an old friend from childhood a few years ago. I knew he was politically opposite from me so I kept politics out of our conversations... do you know how hard that is? It's hard enough that it requires effort, effort that he noted. He accused me of being closed off and never saying what I really wanted to. I made it clear we should not go there. He told me that several years ago watching the news made him physically ill and his GP told him to avoid news. His health improved. In 2016 he admitted to me he does not watch any news, read any news, but he believes in voting. I asked him how he could vote if he hasn't educated himself on the candidates. How a person like me who thinks you either eat politics or it eats you, sees an uninformed voter, proudly ignorant of the candidates, but voting with his gut, what am I supposed to say? This deeply offended him. He then accused me of living in a bubble despite the fact I read news from all over and he reads none. I asked him how should educated voters feel about gut-feeling voters with uneducated opinions? I think his response was "Fuck off". We do not talk anymore because any subject he brought up that had any hint of politics to it was an empty conversation. I would bring up things related to the subject and he would default to making jokes. Serious conversation was beyond him. Tone deaf, dumb, and blind. He eventually said he found all women of my wife's race "unattractive" and then could not understand why I was upset at him. Ex-Navy man, ex-Nuclear Engineer, ex-friend.
  • casefields 6y ago
    Who do you think the get out the vote targets? It's people that barely have an opinion nor care enough to get off their butt and vote. >Just because one has the right to vote does not mean just any vote is right. Citizens should not vote badly. This duty to avoid voting badly is grounded in a general duty not to engage in collectively harmful activities when the personal cost of restraint is low. Good governance is a public good. Bad governance is a public bad. We should not be contributing to public bads when the benefit to ourselves is low. Many democratic theorists agree that we shouldn’t vote badly, but that’s because they think we should vote well. This demands too much of citizens. >Most voters have no idea what is going on–they may not even know who their leaders are, and certainly do not know who is the best candidate. Imagine that someone asks you for directions to a local restaurant. If you have no idea where the restaurant is, you should not make it up. You should not tell the person some guess that seems sort of plausible to you. You should tell them you don’t know and let them get directions from someone more knowledgeable. >Ignorant voting is even worse than ignorant giving of directions, because voting is an exercise of political power (albeit a very small one)–to vote for a policy is not only to make a recommendation, but to request that the policy be imposed on others by force. [Polluting the Polls: When Citizens Should Not Vote](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00048400802587309 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0004840080258730...
• kyle_martin1 6y ago
  Reading too much negative anything is bad for the psyche. It just so happens that the MSM is full-on TDS and they can't seem to let go. Trump is the blackhole for MSM, everything is somehow connected to "Orange Man Bad". Moreover, the Washington Post reported that 90% of Trump's coverage is negative [1]. Do you know anyone that is 90% terrible? I doubt it. Taking a step back from one's political views, which is hard for a lot of people, it becomes obvious that there's little honest and unbiased reporting going on within MSM. Sure it's fine to read information with a particular viewpoint (be it conservative or liberal), as long as the reader is made aware that the "facts" are framed from a particular viewpoint. Otherwise it's just brainwashing and intellectually dishonest. I think any rational person can get behind this sort of "zero-trust framework". [1] https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jan/15/a-broadcast https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jan/15/a-broadcast...
  • kyle_martin1 6y ago
    Downvotes but no comments for an honest discussion? I'm not surprised given the culture of young, white, male SF liberals :)
    • augustt 6y ago
      New conservative gaslighting strategy detected: Trump is good because it's statistically impossible for him to be so bad
• jader201 6y ago
  I’ve come to realize that if someone is making money from delivering news, it’s not news in the sense of the priory being to deliver facts. The priority is to make money, with news and “facts” being secondary (or even further down the list). Most of the time, facts are uninteresting and therefore not prone to gain a lot of viewers — at least not when there is competing “news” that is more about being interesting than factual. In other words, I no longer trust viewership and/or ad-driven “news”. Which pretty much means almost all news of all forms, including TV, web-based, and social media.
  • scotchmi_st 6y ago
    I agree, but there also exist papers, magazines and news sites that have capitalized on the fact that literally anyone can report the news these days, to provide news at a slower, more accurate rate. The Atlantic's Coronavirus coverage has been excellent for example, and the FT (while I don't always agree with the opinion pieces) has some of the most accurate and sober reporting around- often at the expense of being the first paper to a story. When the price of information drops to near-zero, the niche papers can fill is to provide _trustworthy_ information. This could be where every reputable paper goes in the future.
• theonemind 6y ago
  About 15 years ago, it didn't seem like the news added anything of value to my life, so I stopped actively consuming news. You get some from the environment if you don't live in a cave, but I don't go to any news sites, listen to or watch news, even click one-off news links on HN or reddit. I've stopped all active news consumption. I was right. It really didn't add anything of value to my life. I've never missed it.
  • sethammons 6y ago
    Very similar on my end. Active talk news radio consumer. I stopped around 2012. Like you, I’ve noticed nothing missing but am generally happier. I was so out of the loop that I was surprised to hear Trump had not only gotten the republican nomination but won the bid for president. I thought about getting back into things and watched the presidential debate. Oh lord, what a mess.
• caseysoftware 6y ago
  As I've noted here a few times: Just over 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-...
  • hef19898 6y ago
    It always surprises me to what degree US cable news, as opposed to print, seems to treat politics like entertainment and sports coverage. At least from an outsider's perspective. Maybe no surprise a reality TV star became President.
    • bigbubba 6y ago
      Commercial television news is very manipulative and the intent of the manipulation is to keep eyeballs glued to the screen to sell ads. They use lots of elaborately animated transitions with bright colors, swooshing sound effects and musical cues to mesmerize viewers, just as slot machines in Vegas use such things to mesmerize gamblers. It's the same sort of graphical bullshit they pad out televized American football with. And the talking head personalities emotively reading from teleprompters are there for viewers to form parasocial relationships with, to keep viewers coming back to that channel. Before social media was invented, the term was created to describe the asymmetric relationships television viewers have with television personalities. The whole industry has manipulation down to a science and I think anybody would be better off reading newspapers instead. Public funded news channels may be better, I remember PBS's News Hour was okay. But is there any value in watching CNN instead of reading the NYTimes? I don't see any.
• plafl 6y ago
  We must be detached to think clearly but we must care to do something. So it's either we act foolhardy or we do nothing.
• qwerty456127 6y ago
  Egoistically, the less you care about politics - the better it is for you. Caring about politics is actually a duty, a contribution (of your time and health in particular), but in reality, for most of the people who seemingly care, it's merely a drug.
  • cortesoft 6y ago
    Yeah, I feel like you could write a similar article: "You will have more money if you don't donate to charity"
• robd003 6y ago
  Anyone else find it funny that this is being published just after the Joe Biden corruption was released? https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/email-reveals-how-hunter-biden-introduced-ukrainian-biz-man-to-dad/ https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/email-reveals-how-hunter-biden...
  • mapme 6y ago
    The article posted was published in October 8th while the nypost piece about Hunter was published on October 14th, so clearly not the case.
• jokethrowaway 6y ago
  Political news just expose the selfish nature of human being. It is mostly a continuous attempt at manipulating people into thinking your party is good and that you should vote for this guy vs another. It shows how corrupted and dishonest people become, the more power they get. It's unhealthy by definition. I disagree that the answer is ignoring the problem or tuning out politics as if it's something we can't control. Sure, we're powerless inside the golden prison of democracy, believing the lies of the current psychopath leading the country and without a real choice. But we need to be aware of how rotten the situation is, fight state mandated indoctrination and hope enough people over time are going to reach the understanding that the root problem is centralisation of power, not what's the name of the current buffoon in charge of spending half of your salary. I may be reading too much into this article; this is probably just another new age attempt at getting people to ignore whatever bombshells are being dropped between candidates before the elections.
• tehjoker 6y ago
  Yes, spectating is bad for your well being. If you want to feel better, join a political organization that accommodates discussion, education, strategizing, and action. I recommend most socialist outfits as they take democracy seriously. Even just having a regular live discussion of the news with close friends is a good start. Here are some good books to read: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_People%27s_History_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_People%27s_History_of_the_Un... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent - https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/democracy-incorporated-2 https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/democracy-incorporated-2 - https://www.versobooks.com/books/2426-the-end-of-policing https://www.versobooks.com/books/2426-the-end-of-policing - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Understanding_Power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Understanding_Power
• x87678r 6y ago
  The Lindy effect: The Lindy effect is a theory that the future life expectancy of some non-perishable things like a technology or an idea is proportional to their current age, so that every additional period of survival implies a longer remaining life expectancy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect From that I reasoned that breaking headlines are really not much use for anything. Concentrate on old books or documentaries if you want to know what is going on in the world.
• ImaCake 6y ago
  If you have a decent income you should consider getting your news from magazines and history books. I subscribe to Australian Geographic which covers issues I actually care about. Another good source for global news is Delayed Gratification [0]. Aside from the coronavirus pandemic, if you live in a stable developed country (not the USA) there is pretty much no piece of news you can't wait a while to become informed about. I have found I know much more about politics now that I read history books and biographies rather than Sydney Morning Herald headlines. 0. https://www.slow-journalism.com/ https://www.slow-journalism.com/
  • ceejayoz 6y ago
    Australian Geographic is a truly wonderful magazine. I wish it were easier to obtain in the States.
• kazagistar 6y ago
  Not being informed enough to be politically involved is often the worst possible thing for your wellbeing in the long term. If you don't fight for your wellbeing, someone who is fighting for theirs might do so at your expense. But of course, news is a pretty questionable source for this goal, because its always filtered through an ideology that might not really have your wellbeing in mind.
  • JakeTheAndroid 6y ago
    I'm curious if it's because political news is so messed up. Like, if we read tons of positive articles regarding good things being done, I doubt we'd see the same impact. Which highlights your point imo. If we change the way politics is done, then we can eliminate this issue. But it requires being politically informed.
• Dahoon 6y ago
  Luckily news isn't near as bad most places as in the US. Fox news wouldn't even be allowed to call itself "news" in lots of places.
• blisterpeanuts 6y ago
  I've all but quit reading Facebook and Twitter and Parler. I use Facebook Messenger on my Mac to keep in touch with a couple of friends. I've stopped bringing my phone to bed. Leave it in the office downstairs. The only device upstairs is a Kindle loaded with a lot of fiction and some nonfiction. It's a start, anyway. I now believe that it's possible to be too well informed, be exposed to too much information of an ephemeral nature. Our brains aren't really designed for it.
• aokiji 6y ago
  Isn't The Atlantic busy attacking the credibility of the Nobel Peace Prize because Trump was nominated for it?
• ziml77 6y ago
  I stopped using Twitter for a couple weeks because the trending section that's forced you was always showing political garbage. It was driving me insane. When I came back, I installed an extension to get rid of the trending section and some other garbage on there. It's been so much nicer since then (Retweets can still be problematic, but I don't want to block them entirely because I use Twitter as a way to follow artists that were forced to flee Tumblr. Retweets are how those artists share art from others that they like) In the time that I was off Twitter, I didn't fully disengage from the news. I checked Apple News+ to stay up-to-date, but that was only once or twice a day instead of dozens.
• olivermarks 6y ago
  'News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier' Ralf Dobelli UK Guardian 2013, changed my life https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/apr/12/news-is-bad-rolf-dobelli https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/apr/12/news-is-bad-ro...
• yazaddaruvala 6y ago
  This article seems well written but not critically examined. Based on the data presented, the article seems to conflate “correlation as causation”. Specifically, there is no mention of eliminating selection bias. Typically if people are currently fortunate and aren’t in need of social safety nets, these people are both more likely to be happier and, given the lower risk, they can afford to be politically agnostic. Meanwhile, when people are in need of social safety nets/political change in general, they are likely to be less happy with their current lives and also more politically opinionated. So while the article’s data says: political agnosticism is correlated with well being, the article’s narrative incompletely/incorrectly creates a causal link between being politically opinionated and a level of well being.
  • SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    Empirically, the dynamic of "can afford to be politically agnostic" doesn't seem to happen. Data I've seen (https://www.hofstra.edu/pdf/academics/colleges/hclas/cld/cld-rlr-fall12-incomeinequality-waldman.pdf https://www.hofstra.edu/pdf/academics/colleges/hclas/cld/cld... is the clearest presentation I can find off-hand) indicates that complete political disengagement - never discussing or following politics - is much more common in lower income brackets. I'd argue that this is what we should expect from an abstract perspective too. If someone has to struggle just to put food on their table, it's going to be pretty hard to convince them that the goings-on of some political candidate are worth spending their time on.
    • yazaddaruvala 6y ago
      Again, this is falling into the trap of incomplete statistics. “Given people discuss politics not at all, 40% make less than 30k per year.” But we aren’t told how many people fall into “the given”. What would be interesting for this discussion, Given people’s income brackets, how often (the median, ideally also p90 and p99) do they discuss politics per month?
• protomyth 6y ago
  If you are frustrated by politics but do want to know what the US government is doing, might I once again recommend the Federal Register. https://www.federalregister.gov/ https://www.federalregister.gov/ You'll find some stuff that probably affects you that isn't being reported on at all. The "Proposed Rules" section is always interesting.
  • octoberfranklin 6y ago
    > Current Issue: 119 documents from 44 agencies (268 Pages) Srsly? I mean, that's the problem with the federal register. Sure, it's all out there in the open, in public. Buried beneath 267 pages of three-column 8-point-font crud.
    • protomyth 6y ago
      The synopsis on them is pretty short, and a lot of it is "nope" so its pretty easy to go through to find the interesting items.
• cosmiccatnap 6y ago
  Tell that to HN this week...
• RickJWagner 6y ago
  Coming from The Atlantic. That's rich.
  • guscost 6y ago
    They should put a big WARNING: THIS TRASH ROTS YOUR BRAIN on the front of every issue, like cigarette boxes.
• jariel 6y ago
  NPR is a little biased but the tone is really quite demure and it's fairly factual. Since they are not blasting information in your face and they have different incentives, I find it reasonable. Also, read 'other countries news' about your home country. And then read the local news, which tends to be more matter of fact.
• blendo 6y ago
  “Yet ah! why should they know their fate? Since sorrow never comes too late, And happiness too swiftly flies. Thought would destroy their paradise. No more; where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise.” Thomas Gray https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44301/ode-on-a-distant-prospect-of-eton-college https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44301/ode-on-a-distan...
• r00tanon 6y ago
  Social Media and 24-hour Cable News were designed for addictive effect. it's all based on fear. Fear of missing out mainly. The monkey brain wants constant reassurance. Then, to be assaulted with ads while consuming these "information sources" on top of the crap. It's designed to sell you things you don't really need or want, and if your mental health suffers as a result, well, neither the producers or the advertisers give a shit.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • unityByFreedom 6y ago
    I don't blame them. They're not responsible for managing how much media we consume. We are.
    • abootstrapper 6y ago
      Eh, sounds like cigarette manufacturers defense. Social media is addictive. They know it is, they leverage that to make money. They have some responsibility for their products affect on people.
      • unityByFreedom 6y ago
        Tobacco companies knew smoking contributed to a rise in lung cancer and hid that from the public. If there is something like that being hidden about social media, then they should be held accountable for it. However, I doubt that's the case as we're all here discussing it. We already know it's bad to consume news in excess.
• thebordella 6y ago
  I rarely post, so apologies if this has been posted here before, but this excerpt from a letter by Thomas Jefferson in 1807 seems relevant. In short, the problems described about modern news media are entirely true, but - frustratingly - not at all novel. "To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted so as to be most useful, I should answer ‘by restraining it to true facts & sound principles only.’ yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. it is a melancholy truth that a suppression of the press could not more compleatly deprive the nation of it’s benefits, than is done by it’s abandoned prostitution to falsehood. nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. the real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knolege with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time: whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. general facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will &c &c. but no details can be relied on. I will add that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. he who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false." https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/99-01-02-5737 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/99-01-02-5...
  • unityByFreedom 6y ago
    Yes, history repeats itself. However I guess the person who "never looks into a newspaper" remains informed through people who do read it at least from time to time. I would wonder why "Europe is now at war", even if it's speculation, since that sort of thing is often highly subjective (see: Armenia and Azerbaijan right now). IMO, getting "nearer to truth" is possible through collective effort. If we all make no effort at this, then it is simple for a despot to take over. Democracy's burden is that some responsibility is placed upon all of us to contribute to sensible policy through discussion and voting. It is on us to interpret which part of history lines up with today. And I'd argue reading opinions is helpful too to practice learning how to influence others. One take away from Jefferson's opinion here is "don't listen to them, listen to me."
• hevelvarik 6y ago
  Well then that’s bad news because boy have things changed. Growing up in Cali in 80s with a robust social life, I cannot remember having or hearing a single political discussion at all. Now I think it’s the norm for kids to have deeply felt political views. I wish I knew how that changed. Maybe it’s the teachers because I also cannot recall any political discussion in me elementary or high school classrooms.
• neerajk 6y ago
  _Now_ you tell me?
• mhneu 6y ago
  The author, Arthur Brooks, is the past president of a Republican thinktank, AEI. Republicans have a strong incentive to encourage citizens to ignore the political news, because their policies are deeply unpopular. Republicans rely on a non-engaged citizenry for votes. Brooks is one of the Republican elites who shapes Republican political strategy. He has a deep conflict of interest when he tells you to stop reading about politics.
  • SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
    > [Republican] policies are deeply unpopular Well, this is demonstrably untrue with people at large. You know, about 50% of the country or so. Are you sure you are thinking outside of your bubble. Those polices may be unpopular with you or I but clearly people support right-wing polices.
    • mhneu 6y ago
      Republican voters believe lies about the Republican agenda. Take for example pre-existing condition protections. Republicans want to cut pre-existing condition protections. Between 2010 and 2016 Republicans passed over 50 repeal bills. They have no replacement. Now they are fighting in court to cut these protections. And they have lied about it. They say they don't want to cut them. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/10/01/trumps-health-care-stance-is-so-bad-that-his-voters-cant-believe-he-holds-it/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/10/01/trumps-he... And this pattern repeats for many policies - tax cuts for the wealthy, trade policies, minimum wage suppression. Republican politicians have to lie about what they're doing because their policies are unpopular. So Republican voters believe lies.
  • rayiner 6y ago
    > Republicans have a strong incentive to encourage citizens to ignore the political news, because their policies are deeply unpopular. Republicans rely on a non-engaged citizenry for votes. Conservatives outnumber liberals in every age bracket above 30, among both men and women, in every income bracket, among every education class except folks with post-graduate degrees, in every region, and among both non-Hispanic white and Hispanic people: https://news.gallup.com/poll/275792/remained-center-right-ideologically-2019.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/275792/remained-center-right-id....
• anonu 6y ago
  News is akin to social media. Its engineered to capture your attention, albeit, in maybe a psychologically more damaging way. Everything is breaking and urgent, everything is going to kill you, fear and death are around the corner. Otherwise, what's the point of reporting things at their face value?
• m0zg 6y ago
  Says the publication whose sole raison d'etre is to get you to read fake news as much as possible.
• a_imho 6y ago
  Too much is bad by definition. How much is too much according to the author? tldr; The solution is to ration your consumption of politics, and set proper boundaries around where you talk about it. I recommend limiting the consumption of all news—not just politics—to 30 minutes a day
• sixstringtheory 6y ago
  I discovered The Congressional Digest at my public library and thoroughly enjoy it. It’s a monthly publication that picks a topical issue and presents pro and con arguments from various publications and officials. https://congressionaldigest.com/ https://congressionaldigest.com/
• Accacin 6y ago
  I like many others also decided to effectively dodge the news as much as possible. For the last three years, I subscribed to the British magazine called 'Private Eye' which comes out fortnightly which keeps me up to date, but I see no reason for me to know what's happening at a higher frequency than that.
• TomSwirly 6y ago
  Imagine you're in a revolution in some country, and every day people are marched out in front of your window to be executed. This is bad for your well-being. But blaming the window for your problems is false to the fact.
• egberts1 6y ago
  That’s why we have seasoned geezers on porch saying “Get off my lawn!”
• beefield 6y ago
  Not only political. And likely not only "too much" but "any" See book "Don't read the news" by Rolf Dobelli.