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That's an interesting take, but I'm not sure what your point is on "the 737MAX treatment". The planes actually were catastrophically unsafe compared to their al

That's an interesting take, but I'm not sure what your point is on "the 737MAX treatment". The planes actually were catastrophically unsafe compared to their alternatives, in part due to what seems like corruption and possibly criminal negligence, and Boeing and airlines were basically gaslighting the public about them.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
>but I'm not sure what your point is on "the 737MAX treatment". The planes actually were catastrophically unsafe compared to their alternatives, Sure. But that doesn't mean literally everything about the aircraft after that point is newsworthy too Furthermore, the subset of the population to which such minutia is relevant is surely is smaller than the audience such minutia is currently getting broadcast to. People like reading that stuff because they get to bike shed and signal to their in-group. Knowledge of the events serves no "news" purpose. It is pure self-indulgant entertainment but with the plausible deniability veneer of being "well informed" on top. It will be brought up in the same contexts and for the same purposes in which the demographics who read tabloids bring up Kanye's marriage. How is a big ship stuck in the mud in Virginia or some random teething issue on the 737 of any more importance to the public (or the subset thereof that HN represents) than British royal family gossip? It's not. Any any argument you can make that it is relevant is going to necessarily be so many degrees removed from the actual subject matter that the same argument can be harnessed to apply to all sorts of junk. That said, I don't want to shit on tabloids too much. Constantly being shit on, called out, sued, has made them genuinely good at some aspects of their craft.
- mattbrewsbytes 5y ago
  It also has nothing to do with what used to be focus topics for HN. HN used to be thought of as "hacker news" as in - topics focused on software, startups, STEM, etc. and now it includes "news commented on by hackers"
- cjbprime 5y ago
  You seem a little nihilistic about the value of news. I would claim that excellent investigative journalism (I remember the Seattle Times) was critical to overcome the gaslighting and regulatory capture I'm talking about in the Boeing case. It also spurred Senate hearings and so on. It doesn't feel like royal family gossip to me. (As a Brit living in the US now, I think even some amount of royal family gossip is more impactful than you realize given the ambivalence of that country towards its monarchy, and the possible consequences of that ambivalence.)

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

>but I'm not sure what your point is on "the 737MAX treatment". The planes actually were catastrophically unsafe compared to their alternatives, Sure. But that doesn't mean literally everything about the aircraft after that point is newsworthy too Furthermore, the subset of the population to which such minutia is relevant is surely is smaller than the audience such minutia is currently getting broadcast to. People like reading that stuff because they get to bike shed and signal to their in-group. Knowledge of the events serves no "news" purpose. It is pure self-indulgant entertainment but with the plausible deniability veneer of being "well informed" on top. It will be brought up in the same contexts and for the same purposes in which the demographics who read tabloids bring up Kanye's marriage. How is a big ship stuck in the mud in Virginia or some random teething issue on the 737 of any more importance to the public (or the subset thereof that HN represents) than British royal family gossip? It's not. Any any argument you can make that it is relevant is going to necessarily be so many degrees removed from the actual subject matter that the same argument can be harnessed to apply to all sorts of junk. That said, I don't want to shit on tabloids too much. Constantly being shit on, called out, sued, has made them genuinely good at some aspects of their craft.

mattbrewsbytes 5y ago
It also has nothing to do with what used to be focus topics for HN. HN used to be thought of as "hacker news" as in - topics focused on software, startups, STEM, etc. and now it includes "news commented on by hackers"
cjbprime 5y ago
You seem a little nihilistic about the value of news. I would claim that excellent investigative journalism (I remember the Seattle Times) was critical to overcome the gaslighting and regulatory capture I'm talking about in the Boeing case. It also spurred Senate hearings and so on. It doesn't feel like royal family gossip to me. (As a Brit living in the US now, I think even some amount of royal family gossip is more impactful than you realize given the ambivalence of that country towards its monarchy, and the possible consequences of that ambivalence.)