8 ms·

If you click on toxic content, algorithm is going to feed it to you. Twitter is perfectly fine if you unfollow and block toxic influencers. There is propably e

If you click on toxic content, algorithm is going to feed it to you. Twitter is perfectly fine if you unfollow and block toxic influencers. There is propably even keyword based filtering. For news you can watch international news stations from India. Very realistic and refreshing.

tester34 5y ago
but what's the point of watching news? why bother?
- codeulike 5y ago
  Fact x Importance = News https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC4vPR9e9NA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC4vPR9e9NA
- Broken_Hippo 5y ago
  The point is to let you know a bit about the reality you share with others. The stuff on the news is often things that are affecting others directly (do you want to avoid the area of town with unmasked protesters?) and indirectly (Is your neighbor going to increase racism towards Asian Americans in part because of folks linking a virus to a country?). News doesn't always have the most important things to you, but it clues you in on the world.
  - tester34 5y ago
    It's poor deal, it's not worth. Just because I may learn some small things that probably does not affect me directly and additionally receive some news that make my mood worse due to hearing some yet another negative news about bad stuff / politics / yada yada, what's the point? 80% of the news I read is HN and some programming related websites and whenever I jump into "mainstream" media, then I feel like I'm reading some shit - click baits, tragedies, controversial stuff, drama seeking, celebrities it's irrelevant for me
    - throw737858 5y ago
      Most Americans do not realise how deep in their information rabbit hole they are. Denial is not solution. Outside perspective (indian news) improves your mental health and resistance. It is mainstream, but based perspective.
      - tester34 5y ago
        I'm not American, I think the only "purely American" news that I see is probably something about $BIG politics like election outcome, war, blabla.
    - fumblebee 5y ago
      Not all news is made equal, though maybe you implied this by using the term mainstream. There's a profound difference in what you get out of a curated editorial in the Economist and the talking heads on Fox News. I'd argue the former has tremendous value and isn't presented in a way that pokes at our anxieties.
    - bnralt 5y ago
      Indeed. The other problem is that the news is often filled with misleading narratives that lead people to be less informed than before, and that it creates a huge opportunity cost in terms of attention. When you cut out the news you start to notice a lot of things around you that you were glossing over before.
      - jiofih 5y ago
        How do you get informed on things happening on the other side of the world? (please don’t say Twitter!)
        tester34 5y ago
        Generally: a) Through friends b) It's so big that's almost everywhere and you cannot escape it c) I don't get informed (but may later in time) Of course it's not perfect approach
  - LAC-Tech 5y ago
    > The point is to let you know a bit about the reality you share with others. Best case scenario is that you are shown a select few fragments of reality, strategically arranged. Worst case scenario is the fragments themselves are questionable. I don't feel like someone is trying to inform me when I watch the news. I feel like someone is trying to manipulate me.
    - croon 5y ago
      > Best case scenario is that you are shown a select few fragments of reality, strategically arranged. Worst case scenario is the fragments themselves are questionable. 1) Things happen around the world that you can't observe. 2) People need to participate in democracy for democracy to work. 3) Things that happen elsewhere might affect things locally through latter order effects. Can we agree on those assumptions? If so, you may need to keep at least somewhat up to date on current events. How would you do so without news? Further; painting all "news" with the same brush is getting real old. It's not a single organism.
      - LAC-Tech 5y ago
        > Can we agree on those assumptions? Kind of 1 - Sure. But the idea that your news of choice gives you a representative, unbiased picture of that is laughable. 2 - I disagree. Casting ballots to potentially swap heads of governments - who are largely symbolic and functionally impotent - barely qualifies as participating at all. Power in modern democracies spread very thin, and most of it is not elected. 3 - Sure, I suppose.
  - douglaswlance 5y ago
    If your goal is to better understand your reality, you would learn more about the world by reading books than by watching the news.
    - Broken_Hippo 5y ago
      Books don't let you know that genocide is happening at the time, that the bars have been closed yet again, nor that you should probably postpone that trip due to bad weather. Books might capture the feelings of now: 1984 wasn't making predictions, but illustrated the concerns of the current time. Same for the things in "A Brave new World". Reading books about the history of cooking isn't going to give you much of a worldview, nor is it going to prepare you for a government restricting your ability to get birth control, abortion, or sterilization surgeries. Books also aren't worth much if you don't reflect on them - but once you do reflect, they aren't realistically all that much better or worse than other artistic mediums and you don't even have to read the books to get advantages (some visual adaptations are good, and there are always audiobooks too). It isn't to say that you cannot learn from them, but it isn't the same sort of information.
      - throw737858 5y ago
        And watching news will somehow help? Some genocides are happening right now, news are silent. Men are already prevented from using anticonception and abortion. Some countries ban DNA paternity tests. I do not see any news about that.
  - base698 5y ago
    Have you paid attention to the last two decades? The news is entirely garbage entertainment. It exists to rabble rouse the population into caring about causes that benefit the oligarchy. There is nothing actionable to be gained from the news. In a tragedy, victims have victim shit to do. They aren't learning what to do next by watching NBC. The authorities local to the incident manage the situation. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews
  - BeetleB 5y ago
    As a former news junkie, I can confidently state that getting a view of the (rest of the) world by watching the news will give you an extremely skewed view of the world. Just look at how much coverage they give to one event (e.g. the recent Israel-Gaza conflict) vs others with an order of magnitude more casualties to get an idea of the skewness. An exercise I came up with years ago: On a piece of paper write down the most important issues in the world. If they match the exposure that the typical news media provides, then you've lost the ability to have an independent perspective.
hnthrowaway2 5y ago
> For news you can watch international news stations from India. Very realistic and refreshing. Did you mean "if you are in India you can watch international news channels to get a better perspective"? If yes, I would agree with you.
- throw737858 5y ago
  No, I am in Europe and watch indian news about US politics etc.
pjerem 5y ago
> Twitter is perfectly fine if you unfollow and block toxic influencers. Not my experience tbh. I quit Twitter after having tried to follow only accounts that interested me. But once Twitter starts to be unable to create a sufficiently dense "infinite feed", its algorithm starts to artificially fill your feed and shows you the likes and answers (and not only tweets & RTs) of the people you follow or the hottest tweets of people followed by people you follow. I was totally unable to protect myself from the "Twitter's today shitstorm". So I quit.
- KittenInABox 5y ago
  I use Tweak New Twitter, which removes 'trending', reblogs, etc. from my feed. https://github.com/insin/tweak-new-twitter/ https://github.com/insin/tweak-new-twitter/

tester34 5y ago

but what's the point of watching news? why bother?

codeulike 5y ago
Fact x Importance = News https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC4vPR9e9NA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC4vPR9e9NA
Broken_Hippo 5y ago
The point is to let you know a bit about the reality you share with others. The stuff on the news is often things that are affecting others directly (do you want to avoid the area of town with unmasked protesters?) and indirectly (Is your neighbor going to increase racism towards Asian Americans in part because of folks linking a virus to a country?). News doesn't always have the most important things to you, but it clues you in on the world.
- tester34 5y ago
  It's poor deal, it's not worth. Just because I may learn some small things that probably does not affect me directly and additionally receive some news that make my mood worse due to hearing some yet another negative news about bad stuff / politics / yada yada, what's the point? 80% of the news I read is HN and some programming related websites and whenever I jump into "mainstream" media, then I feel like I'm reading some shit - click baits, tragedies, controversial stuff, drama seeking, celebrities it's irrelevant for me
  - throw737858 5y ago
    Most Americans do not realise how deep in their information rabbit hole they are. Denial is not solution. Outside perspective (indian news) improves your mental health and resistance. It is mainstream, but based perspective.
    - tester34 5y ago
      I'm not American, I think the only "purely American" news that I see is probably something about $BIG politics like election outcome, war, blabla.
  - fumblebee 5y ago
    Not all news is made equal, though maybe you implied this by using the term mainstream. There's a profound difference in what you get out of a curated editorial in the Economist and the talking heads on Fox News. I'd argue the former has tremendous value and isn't presented in a way that pokes at our anxieties.
  - bnralt 5y ago
    Indeed. The other problem is that the news is often filled with misleading narratives that lead people to be less informed than before, and that it creates a huge opportunity cost in terms of attention. When you cut out the news you start to notice a lot of things around you that you were glossing over before.
    - jiofih 5y ago
      How do you get informed on things happening on the other side of the world? (please don’t say Twitter!)
      - tester34 5y ago
        Generally: a) Through friends b) It's so big that's almost everywhere and you cannot escape it c) I don't get informed (but may later in time) Of course it's not perfect approach
- LAC-Tech 5y ago
  > The point is to let you know a bit about the reality you share with others. Best case scenario is that you are shown a select few fragments of reality, strategically arranged. Worst case scenario is the fragments themselves are questionable. I don't feel like someone is trying to inform me when I watch the news. I feel like someone is trying to manipulate me.
  - croon 5y ago
    > Best case scenario is that you are shown a select few fragments of reality, strategically arranged. Worst case scenario is the fragments themselves are questionable. 1) Things happen around the world that you can't observe. 2) People need to participate in democracy for democracy to work. 3) Things that happen elsewhere might affect things locally through latter order effects. Can we agree on those assumptions? If so, you may need to keep at least somewhat up to date on current events. How would you do so without news? Further; painting all "news" with the same brush is getting real old. It's not a single organism.
    - LAC-Tech 5y ago
      > Can we agree on those assumptions? Kind of 1 - Sure. But the idea that your news of choice gives you a representative, unbiased picture of that is laughable. 2 - I disagree. Casting ballots to potentially swap heads of governments - who are largely symbolic and functionally impotent - barely qualifies as participating at all. Power in modern democracies spread very thin, and most of it is not elected. 3 - Sure, I suppose.
- douglaswlance 5y ago
  If your goal is to better understand your reality, you would learn more about the world by reading books than by watching the news.
  - Broken_Hippo 5y ago
    Books don't let you know that genocide is happening at the time, that the bars have been closed yet again, nor that you should probably postpone that trip due to bad weather. Books might capture the feelings of now: 1984 wasn't making predictions, but illustrated the concerns of the current time. Same for the things in "A Brave new World". Reading books about the history of cooking isn't going to give you much of a worldview, nor is it going to prepare you for a government restricting your ability to get birth control, abortion, or sterilization surgeries. Books also aren't worth much if you don't reflect on them - but once you do reflect, they aren't realistically all that much better or worse than other artistic mediums and you don't even have to read the books to get advantages (some visual adaptations are good, and there are always audiobooks too). It isn't to say that you cannot learn from them, but it isn't the same sort of information.
    - throw737858 5y ago
      And watching news will somehow help? Some genocides are happening right now, news are silent. Men are already prevented from using anticonception and abortion. Some countries ban DNA paternity tests. I do not see any news about that.
- base698 5y ago
  Have you paid attention to the last two decades? The news is entirely garbage entertainment. It exists to rabble rouse the population into caring about causes that benefit the oligarchy. There is nothing actionable to be gained from the news. In a tragedy, victims have victim shit to do. They aren't learning what to do next by watching NBC. The authorities local to the incident manage the situation. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews
- BeetleB 5y ago
  As a former news junkie, I can confidently state that getting a view of the (rest of the) world by watching the news will give you an extremely skewed view of the world. Just look at how much coverage they give to one event (e.g. the recent Israel-Gaza conflict) vs others with an order of magnitude more casualties to get an idea of the skewness. An exercise I came up with years ago: On a piece of paper write down the most important issues in the world. If they match the exposure that the typical news media provides, then you've lost the ability to have an independent perspective.

hnthrowaway2 5y ago

> For news you can watch international news stations from India. Very realistic and refreshing. Did you mean "if you are in India you can watch international news channels to get a better perspective"? If yes, I would agree with you.

throw737858 5y ago
No, I am in Europe and watch indian news about US politics etc.

pjerem 5y ago

> Twitter is perfectly fine if you unfollow and block toxic influencers. Not my experience tbh. I quit Twitter after having tried to follow only accounts that interested me. But once Twitter starts to be unable to create a sufficiently dense "infinite feed", its algorithm starts to artificially fill your feed and shows you the likes and answers (and not only tweets & RTs) of the people you follow or the hottest tweets of people followed by people you follow. I was totally unable to protect myself from the "Twitter's today shitstorm". So I quit.

KittenInABox 5y ago
I use Tweak New Twitter, which removes 'trending', reblogs, etc. from my feed. https://github.com/insin/tweak-new-twitter/ https://github.com/insin/tweak-new-twitter/