4 ms·

Hnews is the only thing I read lately. I had to remove reddit, CNN, nytimes, fnews, fb. And honestly I'm a lot happier. I'm sad because I no longer an doing m

Hnews is the only thing I read lately. I had to remove reddit, CNN, nytimes, fnews, fb. And honestly I'm a lot happier. I'm sad because I no longer an doing my civic duty to stay informed and have an educated opinion but part of gaining that opinion I would get materially angry at the otherside that they were "being so stupid, obviously you shouldn't think like that". It got bad enough it was affecting me personally and how I interacted with my family. I'll start up again eventually because it matters to me but for now I need to stay happier.

MrGinkgo 2y ago
Funny enough, Hacker News is the only place I've been going to get my news for about a year now, and ever since I started experiencing anxiety bad enough to where I needed to start limiting my exposure to it. But like you said, focusing on family, friends, and local things happening in your immediate community definitely help, and only recently have I realized that. A friend and I were discussing this recently, and he put it very succinctly: "the view from high above is great, but it's hard to not worry about falling."
jader201 2y ago
> I'm sad because I no longer an doing my civic duty to stay informed and have an educated opinion To me, and I know not everyone agrees, but I feel nearly all forms of news media (particularly the ones you listed) are way too biased and have agendas to consider the information you consume from them helping you "stay informed and have an educated opinion". Rather, they're opinion is forming your opinion. I think it's nearly impossible to stay truly informed these days, unfortunately. I've seen some comments in this thread talk about consuming only boring facts, and I think this is our best bet. Because most of the time, the truth is boring. So if you find yourself being negatively impacted, ask yourself if you're hearing unbiased facts, or if you're actually just hearing opinionated agenda. I also think this is a large root of "the otherside being so stupid". Except it happens to all sides.
- beej71 2y ago
  > To me, and I know not everyone agrees, but I feel nearly all forms of news media (particularly the ones you listed) are way too biased and have agendas to consider the information you consume from them helping you "stay informed and have an educated opinion". Strong agree. The goal is to make money by keeping your eyeballs on the ads. And they keep you coming back with all this shocking stuff. What I would like, and probably with the GP would like, was a news source that just stuck to the facts. It could be consumed in a very short time, and if you wanted to know more, you can go find it. Such a news source is bound to fail in the face of the grab-your-eyeballs news sources. It's just going to be boring because it doesn't hit your brain in the same way. One thing I noticed when I switched to Mastodon was that it was actually kind of "dull", for lack of a better word. I follow tons of hashtags I'm interested in, and the feed has good stuff in it. But after scrolling for 10 minutes, I kind of feel like doing something else. I still use Mastodon. That's how I'like my news to be, as well. The closest I found is wikipedia, like some people have said, and the raw news feeds from news syndicates (I'm not sure if anyone hosts these anymore). Another thing to make news less insane is to just go to the local news. In my town of 100,000, it's news that actually impacts me, isn't sensationalistic, and is low traffic. I have a deep link to get there that just bypasses the front page of the news site. Also their comment section is horrible, so I've turned off JavaScript for it.
tommiegannert 2y ago
> I'm sad because I no longer an doing my civic duty to stay informed and have an educated opinion At the same time, you must have been questioning whether you were staying informed, or was used as a democracy puppet by lobbyists. It takes a lot more energy to stay informed than to just read news. Here in Switzerland, the people vote on lots of things, four times a year. But the participation rates are always 40-60%. It's almost like people only need to stay informed about the particular questions they care about. I find it a refreshing organisation, compared to my native Sweden. When I only vote for politicians, I need to know their opinions on everything. That, I find, is exhausting.
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  > compared to my native Sweden. When I only vote for politicians, I need to know their opinions on everything. That, I find, is exhausting. I am surprised to hear this. For most parliamentary democracies, political parties publish a political platform statement before each election. Isn't the summary enough to make a decision?
  - Etheryte 2y ago
    That very strongly depends on which issues are important to you and which aren't. The more nuanced your opinions about any given topic, the harder it is to take anything useful away from a summary. Political platforms as summaries tend to be too broad in my opinion, e.g. reduce this or that or improve this or that, but without saying on account of what. In politics, everything is a trade off and if you want to increase spend on something then that money has to come from somewhere else, whether that's increased taxes, reduced spending on some other topic, or etc. Saying they want to increase the spend on something without saying how they're gonna get there is not useful.
    - throwaway2037 2y ago
      Do you really think your vote matters that much? You are overthinking it. Your vote, while important to a functioning democracy, does not matter that much in an election.

MrGinkgo 2y ago

Funny enough, Hacker News is the only place I've been going to get my news for about a year now, and ever since I started experiencing anxiety bad enough to where I needed to start limiting my exposure to it. But like you said, focusing on family, friends, and local things happening in your immediate community definitely help, and only recently have I realized that. A friend and I were discussing this recently, and he put it very succinctly: "the view from high above is great, but it's hard to not worry about falling."

jader201 2y ago

> I'm sad because I no longer an doing my civic duty to stay informed and have an educated opinion To me, and I know not everyone agrees, but I feel nearly all forms of news media (particularly the ones you listed) are way too biased and have agendas to consider the information you consume from them helping you "stay informed and have an educated opinion". Rather, they're opinion is forming your opinion. I think it's nearly impossible to stay truly informed these days, unfortunately. I've seen some comments in this thread talk about consuming only boring facts, and I think this is our best bet. Because most of the time, the truth is boring. So if you find yourself being negatively impacted, ask yourself if you're hearing unbiased facts, or if you're actually just hearing opinionated agenda. I also think this is a large root of "the otherside being so stupid". Except it happens to all sides.

beej71 2y ago
> To me, and I know not everyone agrees, but I feel nearly all forms of news media (particularly the ones you listed) are way too biased and have agendas to consider the information you consume from them helping you "stay informed and have an educated opinion". Strong agree. The goal is to make money by keeping your eyeballs on the ads. And they keep you coming back with all this shocking stuff. What I would like, and probably with the GP would like, was a news source that just stuck to the facts. It could be consumed in a very short time, and if you wanted to know more, you can go find it. Such a news source is bound to fail in the face of the grab-your-eyeballs news sources. It's just going to be boring because it doesn't hit your brain in the same way. One thing I noticed when I switched to Mastodon was that it was actually kind of "dull", for lack of a better word. I follow tons of hashtags I'm interested in, and the feed has good stuff in it. But after scrolling for 10 minutes, I kind of feel like doing something else. I still use Mastodon. That's how I'like my news to be, as well. The closest I found is wikipedia, like some people have said, and the raw news feeds from news syndicates (I'm not sure if anyone hosts these anymore). Another thing to make news less insane is to just go to the local news. In my town of 100,000, it's news that actually impacts me, isn't sensationalistic, and is low traffic. I have a deep link to get there that just bypasses the front page of the news site. Also their comment section is horrible, so I've turned off JavaScript for it.

tommiegannert 2y ago

> I'm sad because I no longer an doing my civic duty to stay informed and have an educated opinion At the same time, you must have been questioning whether you were staying informed, or was used as a democracy puppet by lobbyists. It takes a lot more energy to stay informed than to just read news. Here in Switzerland, the people vote on lots of things, four times a year. But the participation rates are always 40-60%. It's almost like people only need to stay informed about the particular questions they care about. I find it a refreshing organisation, compared to my native Sweden. When I only vote for politicians, I need to know their opinions on everything. That, I find, is exhausting.

throwaway2037 2y ago
> compared to my native Sweden. When I only vote for politicians, I need to know their opinions on everything. That, I find, is exhausting. I am surprised to hear this. For most parliamentary democracies, political parties publish a political platform statement before each election. Isn't the summary enough to make a decision?
- Etheryte 2y ago
  That very strongly depends on which issues are important to you and which aren't. The more nuanced your opinions about any given topic, the harder it is to take anything useful away from a summary. Political platforms as summaries tend to be too broad in my opinion, e.g. reduce this or that or improve this or that, but without saying on account of what. In politics, everything is a trade off and if you want to increase spend on something then that money has to come from somewhere else, whether that's increased taxes, reduced spending on some other topic, or etc. Saying they want to increase the spend on something without saying how they're gonna get there is not useful.
  - throwaway2037 2y ago
    Do you really think your vote matters that much? You are overthinking it. Your vote, while important to a functioning democracy, does not matter that much in an election.