5 ms·

I've come to a similar conclusion. I'm reconsidering the relative importance of different kinds of info I consume(timely and otherwise). I've concluded I've bec

I've come to a similar conclusion. I'm reconsidering the relative importance of different kinds of info I consume(timely and otherwise). I've concluded I've become way too passive in that decision, and that's clearly unhealthy. It's not that I want to be completely ignorant of e.g. US politics, but maybe I try a 30 minutes summary of concrete facts per week, rather than what I used to get when I would drop onto national news sites as a distraction or focus break. If I could just figure out a browser extension that intercepts search result links to reddit and gives me a quick LLM summary of the post and discussion instead, I will have cut out most of these sources of distraction.

throwup238 2y ago
In that vein I mostly consume the Wikipedia current events portal [1] for my global and national news. It’s relatively neutral and the pinned topics at the top give a good overview of the important stuff with the option to dive into more specific articles or primary sources. It still suffers from selection bias (i.e. Notre Dame reopening is at the top while the Syrian regime falling is a footnote at the moment) but it feels like the right signal to noise ratio. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events
- huijzer 2y ago
  In response to Wikipedia being “relatively neutral”: “Multiple studies have found a left-wing bias at Wikipedia in both article content and editor sanctioning.” [1] [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideological_bias_on_Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideological_bias_on_Wikipedi...
  - 20after4 2y ago
    Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
    - Y_Y 2y ago
      I think it's only fair to credit Stephen Colbert here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwLjK9LFpeo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwLjK9LFpeo For those of you unfamiliar, he was a well-known and serious political pundit who in recent years has been performing as a character (of the same name) who parodies milquetoast late night centre-left almost-comedy.
    - vacuity 2y ago
      If I interviewed someone I considered a "true liberal", and similarly a "true conservative", and we all had lots of knowledge (like scientific studies) and argumentation skills, I expect the liberal would tend to be more correct. I don't know if that should be called "bias". I think "liberal" and "conservative" are some of those words that were well chosen, perhaps because they are self-enforcing to an extent; I wouldn't know. More or less from first principles: a conservative prefers the status quo and the status quo is at least a local maximum for the conservative. Psychologically, conservatives tend to deal with fearful, uncertain things by clinging closer to the things they know are safe. On the other hand, liberals seek to change the status quo in the hopes of positive progress. They deal with uncertainty by embracing the source and taking a risk. The conservatives cling to the old teachings of the village that warn them to not eat white berries and to heed dreams of nebulous things. The liberals eat the berries and ignore the dreams, and sometimes they die (and bring death to the village) and sometimes they live. (Don't put too much stock in reading what I am saying using the colloquial connotations of the words. They will only be more confusing.) I do not say these things to disparage; although I of course have my own beliefs, I prefer understanding and no one is blatantly wrong for being a conservative or right for being a liberal. A conservative holds both right and wrong close to the chest; a liberal seeks them both out. When the conservative is right and the liberal is wrong, when the conservative is wrong and the liberal is right.... Three final points in this vein: most people will be conservatives; liberals will tend towards the truth; to be conservative and liberal are both qualities, with specific purpose and result, and as with all dual qualities there is a harmonious moderation. To return to the topic at hand, I think it is fairly true of this reality that there is plenty of good that can be, and therefore plenty of riches for explorers to bring back. It does not matter, and it can't be said, if the explorers themselves are foolish or wise; every truth lies exactly in the (conclusion of the) journey. It is what is made of the journey that speaks to right or wrong. For example, we have a lot of evidence that favors modern medicine. It follows that people should not advocate for "healing crystals" and the sort. To conclude, I will say that although I consider myself to favor being a liberal, and I tend to agree more with political factions that are ostensibly liberal ("the left", whatever that means), oftentimes I seem to align more with "the right". Take multiculturalism: I believe it is ultimately highly beneficial and scarcely harmful, but I agree with most of the short- and middle-term policies of a "right-wing" acquaintance on the topic. My reasoning diverges at some important points and my conclusion is quite different, but I think that is one of the closer agreements I would have with any of my acquaintances on short-term policy for multiculturalism. We each pursue that which we think is right. I admit many psychological biases, but I will say I try to be right and that I am a liberal, if I am to choose. But that is all I will say, and not words others may attribute to me.
  - gryzzly 2y ago
    to add to wikipedia’s biases - https://www.jns.org/wikipedias-anti-israel-propaganda-mocks-objectivity-and-destroys-its-credibility/ https://www.jns.org/wikipedias-anti-israel-propaganda-mocks-...
- Y_Y 2y ago
  I agree with this approach and would like to hear other ways that people avoid/ameliorate perverse (in the sense of incentives) editorialization in their news consumption One thing that I do when worrying about global conflict is look at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_confli... and sort by e.g. "2024 fatalities". It's not totally objective, or without its own issues, but going by the prior that the lives lost are of equal "importance" it's illuminating to see how well it lines up with mainstream news coverage. Until the start of the current hot wars in Ukraine and Palestine there was a large gulf between what was ending human lives and what was generating column inches, even allowing for geopolitics and local languages. My news diet mostly comes from the AP, national broadcasters in the EU, friends, and HN. I find surprisingly little interest in e.g. Sudan, Myanmar, Mexico, Yemen even allowing for the relative poverty and distance.
ben_w 2y ago
> It's not that I want to be completely ignorant of e.g. US politics For me, given I don't live on the continent let alone the country, I wish I was as ignorant of US politics as of Chinese politics. US tech news is relevant, and to an extent politics influences tech, but I really don't need to know when e.g. Florida has a fight with Disney. > If I could just figure out a browser extension that intercepts search result links to reddit and gives me a quick LLM summary of the post and discussion instead, I will have cut out most of these sources of distraction. Possibly a silly question, but presumably you've tried asking the LLM to write the browser extension?
- mmooss 2y ago
  > I really don't need to know when e.g. Florida has a fight with Disney. If Florida interferes in Disney's business - a very powerful company, especially powerful and important to the state of Florida - and if they get away with it, then, 1) such interference could have an enormous negative impact on the economy; 2) it empowers and entrenches corrupt people in power; 3) your business could be next by some other government; 4) it could spread to other aspects of your life. Today many businesses, including even prominent news media, are trying to appease Trump, who appears to be following Florida's precedent.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    > such interference could have an enormous negative impact on the economy My main economic risk right now is that the German government is a mix of people who want to declare the current situation an economic emergency because without that they have a constitutional obligation to not borrow enough to stimulate it, vs. people who don't want to do that. My second major risk is that if Ukraine and NATO collapses, Russian tanks may not stop until my house is a thousand kilometres in their rear view mirrors. Not only is the specific fight the state of Florida had with the corporation of Disney not important, the state and the corporation are also not important. But weirdly, I know about it.
    - mmooss 2y ago
      Of course, different things impact different people in different ways. People in Brazil are less impacted by Ukraine than people in Germany are, generally speaking. Still, other things being important doesn't make the Disney-Florida conflict less important. You denying or not seeing its importance doesn't make it less important.

throwup238 2y ago

In that vein I mostly consume the Wikipedia current events portal [1] for my global and national news. It’s relatively neutral and the pinned topics at the top give a good overview of the important stuff with the option to dive into more specific articles or primary sources. It still suffers from selection bias (i.e. Notre Dame reopening is at the top while the Syrian regime falling is a footnote at the moment) but it feels like the right signal to noise ratio. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events

huijzer 2y ago
In response to Wikipedia being “relatively neutral”: “Multiple studies have found a left-wing bias at Wikipedia in both article content and editor sanctioning.” [1] [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideological_bias_on_Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideological_bias_on_Wikipedi...
- 20after4 2y ago
  Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
  - Y_Y 2y ago
    I think it's only fair to credit Stephen Colbert here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwLjK9LFpeo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwLjK9LFpeo For those of you unfamiliar, he was a well-known and serious political pundit who in recent years has been performing as a character (of the same name) who parodies milquetoast late night centre-left almost-comedy.
  - vacuity 2y ago
    If I interviewed someone I considered a "true liberal", and similarly a "true conservative", and we all had lots of knowledge (like scientific studies) and argumentation skills, I expect the liberal would tend to be more correct. I don't know if that should be called "bias". I think "liberal" and "conservative" are some of those words that were well chosen, perhaps because they are self-enforcing to an extent; I wouldn't know. More or less from first principles: a conservative prefers the status quo and the status quo is at least a local maximum for the conservative. Psychologically, conservatives tend to deal with fearful, uncertain things by clinging closer to the things they know are safe. On the other hand, liberals seek to change the status quo in the hopes of positive progress. They deal with uncertainty by embracing the source and taking a risk. The conservatives cling to the old teachings of the village that warn them to not eat white berries and to heed dreams of nebulous things. The liberals eat the berries and ignore the dreams, and sometimes they die (and bring death to the village) and sometimes they live. (Don't put too much stock in reading what I am saying using the colloquial connotations of the words. They will only be more confusing.) I do not say these things to disparage; although I of course have my own beliefs, I prefer understanding and no one is blatantly wrong for being a conservative or right for being a liberal. A conservative holds both right and wrong close to the chest; a liberal seeks them both out. When the conservative is right and the liberal is wrong, when the conservative is wrong and the liberal is right.... Three final points in this vein: most people will be conservatives; liberals will tend towards the truth; to be conservative and liberal are both qualities, with specific purpose and result, and as with all dual qualities there is a harmonious moderation. To return to the topic at hand, I think it is fairly true of this reality that there is plenty of good that can be, and therefore plenty of riches for explorers to bring back. It does not matter, and it can't be said, if the explorers themselves are foolish or wise; every truth lies exactly in the (conclusion of the) journey. It is what is made of the journey that speaks to right or wrong. For example, we have a lot of evidence that favors modern medicine. It follows that people should not advocate for "healing crystals" and the sort. To conclude, I will say that although I consider myself to favor being a liberal, and I tend to agree more with political factions that are ostensibly liberal ("the left", whatever that means), oftentimes I seem to align more with "the right". Take multiculturalism: I believe it is ultimately highly beneficial and scarcely harmful, but I agree with most of the short- and middle-term policies of a "right-wing" acquaintance on the topic. My reasoning diverges at some important points and my conclusion is quite different, but I think that is one of the closer agreements I would have with any of my acquaintances on short-term policy for multiculturalism. We each pursue that which we think is right. I admit many psychological biases, but I will say I try to be right and that I am a liberal, if I am to choose. But that is all I will say, and not words others may attribute to me.
- gryzzly 2y ago
  to add to wikipedia’s biases - https://www.jns.org/wikipedias-anti-israel-propaganda-mocks-objectivity-and-destroys-its-credibility/ https://www.jns.org/wikipedias-anti-israel-propaganda-mocks-...
Y_Y 2y ago
I agree with this approach and would like to hear other ways that people avoid/ameliorate perverse (in the sense of incentives) editorialization in their news consumption One thing that I do when worrying about global conflict is look at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_confli... and sort by e.g. "2024 fatalities". It's not totally objective, or without its own issues, but going by the prior that the lives lost are of equal "importance" it's illuminating to see how well it lines up with mainstream news coverage. Until the start of the current hot wars in Ukraine and Palestine there was a large gulf between what was ending human lives and what was generating column inches, even allowing for geopolitics and local languages. My news diet mostly comes from the AP, national broadcasters in the EU, friends, and HN. I find surprisingly little interest in e.g. Sudan, Myanmar, Mexico, Yemen even allowing for the relative poverty and distance.

ben_w 2y ago

> It's not that I want to be completely ignorant of e.g. US politics For me, given I don't live on the continent let alone the country, I wish I was as ignorant of US politics as of Chinese politics. US tech news is relevant, and to an extent politics influences tech, but I really don't need to know when e.g. Florida has a fight with Disney. > If I could just figure out a browser extension that intercepts search result links to reddit and gives me a quick LLM summary of the post and discussion instead, I will have cut out most of these sources of distraction. Possibly a silly question, but presumably you've tried asking the LLM to write the browser extension?

mmooss 2y ago
> I really don't need to know when e.g. Florida has a fight with Disney. If Florida interferes in Disney's business - a very powerful company, especially powerful and important to the state of Florida - and if they get away with it, then, 1) such interference could have an enormous negative impact on the economy; 2) it empowers and entrenches corrupt people in power; 3) your business could be next by some other government; 4) it could spread to other aspects of your life. Today many businesses, including even prominent news media, are trying to appease Trump, who appears to be following Florida's precedent.
- ben_w 2y ago
  > such interference could have an enormous negative impact on the economy My main economic risk right now is that the German government is a mix of people who want to declare the current situation an economic emergency because without that they have a constitutional obligation to not borrow enough to stimulate it, vs. people who don't want to do that. My second major risk is that if Ukraine and NATO collapses, Russian tanks may not stop until my house is a thousand kilometres in their rear view mirrors. Not only is the specific fight the state of Florida had with the corporation of Disney not important, the state and the corporation are also not important. But weirdly, I know about it.
  - mmooss 2y ago
    Of course, different things impact different people in different ways. People in Brazil are less impacted by Ukraine than people in Germany are, generally speaking. Still, other things being important doesn't make the Disney-Florida conflict less important. You denying or not seeing its importance doesn't make it less important.