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Not that person, but I'm the same way. You just... stop caring. The only two good reasons to pay attention to news are if it affects you in some way, or if you
by blep_ 4y ago
Not that person, but I'm the same way.
You just... stop caring. The only two good reasons to pay attention to news are if it affects you in some way, or if you can do anything about it. The vast majority of news is in neither group.
That's the first pass. From there, you adjust your definition of "affects you". I'm in the US, for example, and our government does plenty of bad things I do not approve of. But most of them, even the ones that ostensibly should affect me, don't actually noticeably change anything in my life. After a while, it all blurs into "my team scored a point" or "the other team scored a point".
Is this privileged? Of course. But it's also a requirement for my mental health. Paying attention to it wouldn't even improve anything for the people who are suffering, so there's not even any sort of utilitarian tradeoff. It would just be making my life worse for no reason, so I don't.
- H8crilA 4y agoWorks until it doesn't - see the high amount of dead Russian soldiers, especially the mobilised soldiers. They delegated political decisions until someone literally grabbed them from their workplace and sent them to die in a ditch. I.e. somewhere along the way they found out that despite them not having an interest in politics the politics found some serious interest in them.
- swader999 4y agoYou think the ones in Russia that followed the news are any better off?
- enraged_camel 4y agoUh, absolutely. They saw the way things were going and fled the country before they could be pressganged.
- H8crilA 4y agoAlso this would not have happened had they actually acted on time and had they cared. The level of depoliticisation and degeneration of that society is insane. Consider the practice of hiring an ambulance to get through traffic quickly. Yes, it is a thing. Now you and me would think that it is completely unacceptable to abuse the system in such a way and protest. But many Russians see that and think "gee, I should have that kind of money too". Timothy Snyder half-jokingly asks whether Russia is even a country. Sure, it exists as a state (for example it can wage a war, ineptly but still), however the civil society is nearly entirely demolished. It wasn't always so.
- InitialLastName 4y agoThat passes both of our ancestor's tests: - it affects you in some way and - you can do something about it
- girvo 4y agoYes. They left the country.
- sidewndr46 4y agoYour personal opinions, feelings, thoughts, and emotions aren't going to matter in the least bit to someone who is going to send you off to die in their war.
- SamoyedFurFluff 4y agoI think this is helpful and honest. For example this kind of disengagement is much harder for my female friends of child birthing age in certain states, but it is also emotionally exhausting for them even when they feel like they can’t disengage because… yknow… lol
- blep_ 4y agoAs someone in another often-politically-attacked group... yeah. It sucks when it's things that actually do affect you. Those are the times I'm glad I saved my mental energy so I can properly deal with it. I'll admit to sometimes taking this too far and continuing to ignore things that I probably shouldn't. Eventually, someone mentions the actually important things to me, so I continue to get away with it.