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> There is literally nothing that happens if I know what’s going on there. > Nothing at all. It distracts me from my family, friends, work, and myself. > I ha

> There is literally nothing that happens if I know what’s going on there. > Nothing at all. It distracts me from my family, friends, work, and myself. > I have no interesting insights or original thoughts about it, and if I did, > absolutely no one would care. So why read it? Do you vote or participate in politics in any way or do events in the news directly affect your life? One reason it's rational to read the news: If you don't read the news, then you're at risk of lacking important contextual knowledge about society and social norms. It's pragmatic to keep track of these conversations to avoid embarrassment and to not behave in ways that might offend others. I find it useful to be aware of contentious issues on which I might have a side or a stake.

gernb 4y ago
> > I tend to feel disturbed by how little it presents as reporting, and instead, how much it appears to have an agenda. > If you don't read the news, then you're at risk of lacking important contextual knowledge about society and social norms. Unfortunately there's very little news that doesn't have an agenda. So I'm not getting the news. I'm getting someone's opinions with various facts spun in a way so as to try to get me to vote one way or another. Is that a better way to be informed on how to vote?
- unfoldedCravat 4y ago
  As Mark Twain once said "If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed." I guess it's up to the individual to choose what they prefer.
  - mdp2021 4y ago
    You may note that it is substantially symmetrical to "To be, or not to be ...: Whether 'tis nobler ... to sleep No more ... [or] in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" I.e.: if you want to participate, then some degree of effort is involved.
shaky-carrousel 4y ago
I'm too old to feel embarrassed over what other people think about me. And I already gave up the game of trying not to offend people. I say what I think, and if it happens that I offend someone, I'll consider it when it happens and apologize or ignore it, depending on if it makes sense to me.
GoblinSlayer 4y ago
There's a story how an ancient egyptian priest complained about contemporary youth being disrespectful to elderly. Social and economic circumstances differ, but it feels like the theory of ethics was mostly the same.
joshspankit 4y ago
> If you don't read the news, then you're at risk of lacking important contextual knowledge about society and social norms. It’s been at least a decade since news has been a reflection of social norms (I’m in Canada). It feels more and more disconnected and like they’re either pushing agendas or simply filling airtime so they can serve the right amount of ads.
- steve_adams_86 4y ago
  This is what I find most troubling. It really does seem to be a spectacle that’s meant to capture attention, only rooted in reality insofar that it’s based off of real-world topics we all recognize and only ostensibly care about.
ohCh6zos 4y ago
Interestingly if you everyone went dark news driven social norms would have to disappear.
steve_adams_86 4y ago
A lot of news is extremely hard to avoid and I’ll inevitably be exposed to it. If it seems important like the types of topics you’re describing, I’ll carve out some time to find out if it’s actually important. Most of it is a spectacle and my actions and point of view are entirely irrelevant to it. Frankly, I don’t believe a lot of the news is even rooted in reality. To have a point of view on it, or to have feelings about it, would be to lend legitimacy to something I sincerely believe is part of a bizarre, performative, ephemeral blob of social invention. I don’t mean to sound absurd or like a conspiracy theorist at all; I really can’t see how much of what’s in the media is remotely objective or connected to any kind of shared reality that is practical and sane. As far as being embarrassed, I find I can get by with simply listening to people and letting them get their ideas across. They like to express themselves and I’m content to listen. I typically won’t be embarrassed because no one really cares what I think or what I think I know, too. No one asks unless I say something in the first place. I think we’re encouraged to believe it’s some other way, but if you keep to yourself you’ll find very quickly that indeed, almost no one cares. Even here on hacker news, the vast majority of readers don’t care about what I wrote. It’s irrelevant to them, and that’s okay. It’s probably a good thing. The only people in my tiny corner of all of this who have any remote concerns about me are right here, near me, in my life. The rest is mostly a spectacle. If it can effect me, the chances that I can effect it in any meaningful way are infinitely tiny. I do vote, too, but again… I’m not convinced it means what people think it means, or that it leads to things I hope it will. On the other hand, by working on local concerns I can actually make a difference. The changes we can make like restoring a watershed to improve wildlife diversity, reduce erosion, improve runoff capacity, and so on can be a real model for improving these features of other municipalities. That can matter many times more than a vote for the leader of my country; it can lead to real data that people turn to improve the places they live in. It seems totally uninteresting and pointless compared to the notion of democracy and national governance, but from my point of view, it’s far more pragmatic and connected to reality. I agree with you overall. I want to be aware of contentious issues on which I might have a side or a stake too. I think the difference between us is only that I think the scope of these issues is extremely small; there’s very little I come across in my day where it truly matters at all what I believe, and any stake I may have is almost exclusively relevant to me alone.

gernb 4y ago

> > I tend to feel disturbed by how little it presents as reporting, and instead, how much it appears to have an agenda. > If you don't read the news, then you're at risk of lacking important contextual knowledge about society and social norms. Unfortunately there's very little news that doesn't have an agenda. So I'm not getting the news. I'm getting someone's opinions with various facts spun in a way so as to try to get me to vote one way or another. Is that a better way to be informed on how to vote?

unfoldedCravat 4y ago
As Mark Twain once said "If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed." I guess it's up to the individual to choose what they prefer.
- mdp2021 4y ago
  You may note that it is substantially symmetrical to "To be, or not to be ...: Whether 'tis nobler ... to sleep No more ... [or] in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" I.e.: if you want to participate, then some degree of effort is involved.

shaky-carrousel 4y ago

I'm too old to feel embarrassed over what other people think about me. And I already gave up the game of trying not to offend people. I say what I think, and if it happens that I offend someone, I'll consider it when it happens and apologize or ignore it, depending on if it makes sense to me.

GoblinSlayer 4y ago

There's a story how an ancient egyptian priest complained about contemporary youth being disrespectful to elderly. Social and economic circumstances differ, but it feels like the theory of ethics was mostly the same.

joshspankit 4y ago

> If you don't read the news, then you're at risk of lacking important contextual knowledge about society and social norms. It’s been at least a decade since news has been a reflection of social norms (I’m in Canada). It feels more and more disconnected and like they’re either pushing agendas or simply filling airtime so they can serve the right amount of ads.

steve_adams_86 4y ago
This is what I find most troubling. It really does seem to be a spectacle that’s meant to capture attention, only rooted in reality insofar that it’s based off of real-world topics we all recognize and only ostensibly care about.

ohCh6zos 4y ago

Interestingly if you everyone went dark news driven social norms would have to disappear.

steve_adams_86 4y ago

A lot of news is extremely hard to avoid and I’ll inevitably be exposed to it. If it seems important like the types of topics you’re describing, I’ll carve out some time to find out if it’s actually important. Most of it is a spectacle and my actions and point of view are entirely irrelevant to it. Frankly, I don’t believe a lot of the news is even rooted in reality. To have a point of view on it, or to have feelings about it, would be to lend legitimacy to something I sincerely believe is part of a bizarre, performative, ephemeral blob of social invention. I don’t mean to sound absurd or like a conspiracy theorist at all; I really can’t see how much of what’s in the media is remotely objective or connected to any kind of shared reality that is practical and sane. As far as being embarrassed, I find I can get by with simply listening to people and letting them get their ideas across. They like to express themselves and I’m content to listen. I typically won’t be embarrassed because no one really cares what I think or what I think I know, too. No one asks unless I say something in the first place. I think we’re encouraged to believe it’s some other way, but if you keep to yourself you’ll find very quickly that indeed, almost no one cares. Even here on hacker news, the vast majority of readers don’t care about what I wrote. It’s irrelevant to them, and that’s okay. It’s probably a good thing. The only people in my tiny corner of all of this who have any remote concerns about me are right here, near me, in my life. The rest is mostly a spectacle. If it can effect me, the chances that I can effect it in any meaningful way are infinitely tiny. I do vote, too, but again… I’m not convinced it means what people think it means, or that it leads to things I hope it will. On the other hand, by working on local concerns I can actually make a difference. The changes we can make like restoring a watershed to improve wildlife diversity, reduce erosion, improve runoff capacity, and so on can be a real model for improving these features of other municipalities. That can matter many times more than a vote for the leader of my country; it can lead to real data that people turn to improve the places they live in. It seems totally uninteresting and pointless compared to the notion of democracy and national governance, but from my point of view, it’s far more pragmatic and connected to reality. I agree with you overall. I want to be aware of contentious issues on which I might have a side or a stake too. I think the difference between us is only that I think the scope of these issues is extremely small; there’s very little I come across in my day where it truly matters at all what I believe, and any stake I may have is almost exclusively relevant to me alone.