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I don’t think that’s a universal law. Reading the news to develop an understanding for politics or economics isn’t for naught, I would argue. The less people t

• TeMPOraL 2y ago
  > The only Defense against manipulation like that is having read different view points on complex societal concerns, shaping your own opinion. I don’t see how that would be possible without reading the news I see this meme repeated all the time, but I have my doubts. First of all, approximately no one does it anyway - one would have to take effort finding out sources from opposite ends of political spectrum (vs. "opposite" but really just the same), and then force themselves to read all of them (vs. just the most enjoyable one or two). It's possible as a form of study It's definitely not what's happening when you see people reading the news with their coffee or on the bus. Secondly, opinions aren't like waves that cancel out. You read a thing in source A and then the opposite of it in source B, it's not like you're left with enlightened lack of opinion. You just expended twice the energy to read twice the amount of lies. Lies which will stay with you and pop into your consciousness when thinking or talking about the topic they pertain to. Human mind has no problem remembering mutually exclusive thoughts, or believing them individually. This recommendation feels like saying, you need to consume a balanced variety of poisoned foods, so the poisons cancel each other out. How about not touching any of that in the first place?
  • 9dev 2y ago
    > First of all, approximately no one does it anyway - one would have to take effort finding out sources from opposite ends of political spectrum It's enough to just read a proper newspaper regularly. There will be content written by a variety of people, so you'll automatically be exposed to different opinions, It doesn't need to be the full spectrum, even. > You just expended twice the energy to read twice the amount of lies Are you claiming that all news sources publish lies exclusively here…? Other than that, opinions don't need to cancel each other out. You just need to be aware of a different view on things to even consider that some other viewpoint might resonate with you more. If you only ever heard, say, abortion opponents, their arguments may seem reasonable and sound to you, so much that you don't question their claim to be right; but the moment you get exposed to critical voices, you're in the position to even decide which side's arguments convince you. If, instead, you opt to just blindfold yourself, you stop participating in democratic processes—which is a civic duty—and let other people decide for you. Every human has beliefs, compassion, morals, a sense of what's right and wrong. If we don't fight (intellectually) for those, we can equally well just drop them altogether.