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- Hacker News
- I only read local news. It’s pretty nice I don’t feel stressed at all. Turns out random shit far away has no significant effect on my life. And even if it did it’s not like I can do anything about it
- You're here on Hacker News too though.
If there's a way to find happiness without social media, unfortunately, it won't be posted on social media.
by inigyou - I wish my local news wasn't mostly filled with people going missing and fires but at least balanced it with "this new restaurant just opened". If anything my local news is more fear driven than the national news.by PaulKeeble
- I agree with the sentiment generally, but there have been lots of times in history when recognizing that you should leave a place turned out to be life or death. The start of WW2 was random shit far away for a lot of people until it wasn’t.by pfannkuchen
- The closing of Hormuz caused fuel prices to go up around the globe. Voting differently in the US could have prevented it.
So yeah, random shit far away can have significant effects, and sometimes you can do things about it.
That said, focusing on local news does sounds like a great approach, but international news still needs some attention.
by standeven - I was talking to my aunt, who has never been much for technology, during covid. Never really had a tv in her home, etc. She's late 70's maybe early 80's now. Anyway, I was asking her how she was doing with all the chaos and she was just like "umm well I just live my life. I go out and volunteer and go camping, not much has changed...". She was just very unbothered by all of it (and she was a nurse for decades, so not in a "masks are criminal, social distancing doesn't work" way).
I more and more identify with that ethos. I want to be informed, but I don't want to be miserable from the bombastic 24/7 news cycle being shoved in my face when I can't do much about any of it.
- I used to read local news until they made an article "Top Ten dangerous places in our city" where they just listed a bunch of places that someone considered scary based on vibes.by anal_reactor
- I live in Baltimore county and most of our local news is homicides and stuff like that.
I know some people who moved to Delaware beaches and they told me that there the local news is just folks talking about government administration stuff, which was pretty mind-blowing to me. I would like to check this out.
by timcobb - What's your last local news source? I'm jealous of you that you have one. The place where I live had their local newspaper bought out and (in effect) shut down by Alden Global Capital (google them) nearly a decade ago. There's nowhere to go to learn about what goes on in city council or school board meetings, short of attending or logging into their streams - which, at least it's good we have those, but is hardly practical for most residents.by eszed
- gives me the idea, rank news items according to geographic distance, and "blast radius"
closer to you gives higher rank in the feed, tighter blast radius lower rank.
example, events in your present location rank higher, events 100miles away rank lower. police stopping someone for a seatbelt and issuing a ticket, likely ranks lower, vs evacuation order for city ranks higher.
a cheap way of assessing relevance score.
by rolph - Avoiding the news and consuming it on your own terms infrequently is a fantastic way to solve this problem. Step 1: cut your cable and use your television as a computer monitor only. Source: myself.by willmadden
- One thing that really helped me was to start viewing my news media in black and white. Without the colored dressing, a lot of (especially partisan political) articles have much less emotional impact on me. Note: this worked particularly well for written media and less well for vocal mediaby failrate
- For US-centric news, I really like the text only https://text.npr.org/1001by bigmadshoe
- Also applies to reading comments and replying to them. You don’t know these people.
- This message is going to be read with a lot more of strangers than one. It is intentional.by eimrine
- But if it's a subject that interests you, you should participate.by Pooge
- A past thread about one of the papers linked to in the OP:
Negativity drives online news consumption - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35197587 - March 2023 (355 comments)
by dang - I don't know, I am a naturally anxious person even before I started reading the news daily, and I'm fine. Seeing the brutal chaos of the world definitely makes me appreciate the peace at home more. It's a grounding experience to be aware of the good and bad things that happen in the world.by rf15
- I have no way to prove this, and likely you don’t either, but it’s likely it is affecting you but you are simply not aware of it.by sph
- Neil Postman called this the “Peekaboo World”.
“What steps do you plan to take to reduce the conflict in the Middle East? Or the rates of inflation, crime and unemployment? What are your plans for preserving the environment or reducing the risk of nuclear war? What do you plan to do about NATO, OPEC, the CIA, affirmative action, and the monstrous treatment of the Baha’is in Iran? I shall take the liberty of answering for you: You plan to do nothing about them.”
by spking - I have always thought of this as a "broken superman." Superman has super-hearing that allows him to hear anyone asking for help anywhere in the world. Super-speed to get there in an instant. And super-strength to solve all the problems.
Media only gives you super-hearing.
by AlienRobot - Practically, focusing on the things you can change (mostly small scale evils in your community) will have the highest degree of positive effect, rather than focusing on stuff you are bombarded with online that is out of your control (mostly large scale evils).
However, don't think you get vindicated from duty just because the task is impossible. You are as just as much responsible for yourself, your family, your friends, your community, as you are responsible for the person living on the other side of the globe. Whatever you decide to do with that information is up to you, but you will suffer with any of those who suffer, whether that be in life or death. Only the delusional think they can escape righteous judgment.
by landdate - One man's spite against this type of self-satisfied, evidence-free opinion is what got the 27th Amendment passed.[1]
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-seventh_Amendment_to_th...
by jancsika - Er... I got an electric car does that count? Based on $ keeping the old car is cheaper. Also divestment, purchase choices, charity donations, solar install.by uberex
- I plan to be informed about causality and effect - and im voting accordingly to put an end to causes that affect me negatively. So understanding something, not mythologizing or idealizing anything, is a absolutly necessary pre-requisit to voting.
- > inflation, crime and unemployment?
Here's a subject I want to explore; the statistical vs individual view of the world. Because those things do matter - to the individuals they happen to. People care about the price level every time they get paid or go grocery shopping. People care if a crime is committed against them - it can be a lifelong trauma. And so on.
They're also likely to care when things happen to their immediate social circle. What about their broader community? However that is defined?
On the other end of that, the ability to do something about things: isn't that ultimately why people value democracy, because it is actually possible to change things, even sometimes for the better?
by pjc50 - > the “Peekaboo World”
What a great analogy. And IG/Tiktok reduce it into an even purer state - endless random videos, barely if at all connected, ephemeral stimulation you can't even remember 30 seconds after seeing it.
I know 50 year old adults who can spend entire hours just in this mesmerized state of flicking through these random feeds, seeing but not seeing, like some kind of drug induced hypnosis. I wonder what Postman would write today, were he still with us.
by sho - Postman wrote this in context of television, which is a broadcast channel with no means to interact with it. But in times of social media, your reaction to the news is something you can broadcast yourself, at the very least to your online followers (if we are talking about story feeds). Now, a lot of groups enforce their members to take political stances and show action as a sign of belonging. These might be anything from a writing circle to a raver collective. Everyone already shares the group opinions (sincerely or not), but then they need to perform token activism to maintain their image as a "safe" person to have in the group. Examples of such actions I've seen recently would be:
- A special edition of a writing workshop dedicated to writing poems which can be used by people protesting against the ICE in the US. We are thousands of kilometers away from the US, by the way.
- A street protest against whatever the most recent armed conflict is. The protest has a DJ, a great sound system and everyone is just dancing while singing the slogans.
- A charity party collecting donations for a very narrowly defined vulnerable population in a war-torn area, most often someone the participants can personally identify with.
Case in point is that the vast majority of the population has no power to drive any meaningful change, as Postman rightly noticed. But then, the new source of mental load comes from the fact that you have to be performatively concerned if you don't want to lose your status in a group.
- "There are a lot more important problems than Sri Lanka to worry about. Well, we have to end apartheid, for one, slow down the nuclear arms race, stop terrorism and world hunger. We have to provide food and shelter for the homeless and oppose racial discrimination and promote civil rights, while also promoting equal rights for women. We have to encourage a return to traditional moral values. Most importantly, we have to promote general social concern and less materialism in young people."
- Patrick Bateman (as adapted by Mary Heron)
- I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Back in 2010 I gave a TEDx talk about how the internet can be an extension of your mind.
Nowadays I feel like it is contributing noise. The internet has become X, Reddit, AI, doomscrolling and group messaging.
Very little room for positive messaging. I don’t mean to harp about the theft of attention: the message itself is just not even contributing anything.
by tetrisgm