IlliniDave wrote:
Do friends, colleagues, neighbors, and family members who either fought or worked overseas in relevant areas as contractors count as "news" sources that are excluded per your groundrule?
To quote myself:
jacob wrote:
If such knowledge is of no interest to you, I'd say you don't have much need for so-called "news". Consider not following any news at all. Almost all of it doesn't matter anyway(*). If it's important, you'll figure it out from some other source.
Specifically, if you know people directly involved, it's important to them and by relation probably to you, and you'll figure out from them that something is going on. If you do not know ... and have no personal impact ... it's probably not important to you regardless of whether it's headline material.
News is some combination of signal and noise and the ground rule says that for standard news sources noise >> signal to the point that what newspapers consider important is almost irrelevant to you. Whereas for the things you pick up yourself and from your relations, signal >> noise so this is what you should be paying attention to.
I only responded because of your peculiar choice of a topic to call out as you "favorite example" of a topic that apparently you think has no real relevance to to those of us engaged in "first word living" despite it's presence in the news. I simply listed a small handful of ways it has been relevant to me on a personal level, and didn't even mention association with people that got a ride on an airplane into the WTC or the people I know in Boston who had a manhunt for terrorists sweep through their backyard not so long ago (two events that had direct impacts on huge numbers of people). Apparently you meant that remark as a rhetorical question. I am happy for those who can say none of that has impacted or is relevant to their lives in any meaningful way, and if they want to avoid the news and pretend like nothing's happening, it's their prerogative.
I don't disagree that the SNR of "news" can be rather small at times, especially when it gets immersed in political bickering. Nevertheless, if a person has an astute and agile filter, they can occasionally extract value. I use news media (primarily NPR as I mentioned above, due to convenience as it airs during my commute both mornings and evenings) deliberately to expose myself to topics that I don't have a preexisting interest in. Most of it goes in one ear and out the other, but a few things stick that I follow up on later. An example is climate change. To date it has not affected me personally or anyone I'm connected with in any significant way that I'm aware of. But it's prominence in the news was the genesis of an interest in the topic on my part, albeit a relatively passive one.
IlliniDave wrote:
I only responded because of your peculiar choice of a topic to call out as you "favorite example" of a topic that apparently you think has no real relevance to to those of us engaged in "first word living" despite it's presence in the news. I simply listed a small handful of ways it has been relevant to me on a personal level, and didn't even mention association with people that got a ride on an airplane into the WTC or the people I know in Boston who had a manhunt for terrorists sweep through their backyard not so long ago (two events that had direct impacts on huge numbers of people). Apparently you meant that remark as a rhetorical question. I am happy for those who can say none of that has impacted or is relevant to their lives in any meaningful way, and if they want to avoid the news and pretend like nothing's happening, it's their prerogative.
I don't disagree that the SNR of "news" can be rather small at times, especially when it gets immersed in political bickering. Nevertheless, if a person has an astute and agile filter, they can occasionally extract value. I use news media (primarily NPR as I mentioned above, due to convenience as it airs during my commute both mornings and evenings) deliberately to expose myself to topics that I don't have a preexisting interest in. Most of it goes in one ear and out the other, but a few things stick that I follow up on later. An example is climate change. To date it has not affected me personally or anyone I'm connected with in any significant way that I'm aware of. But it's prominence in the news was the genesis of an interest in the topic on my part, albeit a relatively passive one.
Dave- That's unfortunate that you are connected to both incidents. But you have to realize that you're the outlier here. In both of those events combined, less than 4,000 people died. Tragic, yes. But for the 300 + million Americans that's a very small number. A very small amount are connected on a personal level. The same goes for the wars in the middle east. The vast majority do not know someone serving. It is for that reason that Jacob's point stands.
You also have to realize that news today is formatted for entertainment. As someone said above or elsewhere, if it bleeds it leads. There's a book that goes into depth on this. It's linked on the forums here somewhere..
theanimal wrote:
Dave- That's unfortunate that you are connected to both incidents. But you have to realize that you're the outlier here. In both of those events combined, less than 4,000 people died. Tragic, yes. But for the 300 + million Americans that's a very small number. A very small amount are connected on a personal level. The same goes for the wars in the middle east. The vast majority do not know someone serving. It is for that reason that Jacob's point stands.
You also have to realize that news today is formatted for entertainment. As someone said above or elsewhere, if it bleeds it leads. There's a book that goes into depth on this. It's linked on the forums here somewhere..
I'm a little less restrictive on my definition of "connected", I suppose. You don't have to have died or personally known someone who has died for an event or topic to have some degree of relevance. I doubt if many residents of the NYC, Washington DC, or Boston areas were unaffected by those two incidents or otherwise disinterested. So right there you have probably at least 15 million people who had a significant event occur in their "hometown". Once you start tracing the network of people who have some connection to those 15 million people; then start adding in the military, contractors, and their respective families, along with the network of people associated with them, it makes me not so much of an outlier. If there is any way that I am an outlier it might be in the degree of sympathy/empathy I maintain for those outside my immediate circle. "Connections" that I have awareness of in my own life very well may not rise above the noise in most people's lives, to borrow Jacob's analogy.
I don't think I am naive enough to be duped by sensationalism in the news, so forgive me if I decline to make the effort to educate myself per your suggestion. It has been decades since I watched TV news aside from the odd minute or two trapped in a waiting room or something, so that title is of little use or interest to me. I do listen to NPR news as I mentioned, and I would contend it is a far different animal than your typical Fox/CNBC fare.
First, I mean it in a generic sense and not in an interest sense or a water cooler talk sense which is similar.
As an example of interest-news, I'm interested in geopolitics and thus I derive information based on how the same events are reported in different countries. I'm also interested in the private space industry. These are personal hobbies of mine. As another example, many people are interested in Kim Kardashian's ass and so they watch ass-related news. These kinds of news serves as the input for a hobby.
An an example of watercooler news, these are the news that other people within your sphere care about. I know few friends, colleagues, etc. whom I can directly discuss geopolitics or private space launches with. Water cooler news is the kind of news that you're ONLY interested in BECAUSE OTHER PEOPLE are ... and they feel the same way. You stay on top of this solely because others do. The default topic is typically front page news. This is the kind of news that has no impact on people's lives other than people know it because they like to say "they informed citizens" because they read the newspapers, etc.
What do I mean by impact on people's lives? I mean things that determine when you get up in the morning; when you go to sleep; how you get around transportation-wise; what you eat; what kind of bills you pay and services you get; what your focus in life is; what you need to do when you get home from work; what kind of work you do; ...
I submit that the "war on terror" did not impact people's lives. It did not change how most people live their day to day lives. In that regard, the invention of the smartphone was a supremely important piece of news.
If I had ignored all news for the past 15 years, how would I know about the war on terror? As far as I can tell, the principal difference is that airport security is more of a hassle now. As far as the military goes, they went on tours in the 1980s, the 1990s, ... etc. nothing has changed there except that the camo coloring went from olive drab to desert tan. Ditto suppliers. They might have increased demand and profits ... or decreased ditto. This is military-interest relevant news on par with private space flight news. It matters if you're in the business yourself ... or in the water-cooler sense if you're related to someone who are (I am) ... but it doesn't change the patterns of daily life for anyone except those who are directly in it and so it's only the kind of news that people talk about and not the kind of people act on.
Now it might/will change how people feel about it. But then we're back to the propaganda(*) purpose. In that sense the average American lost their innocence.---That one can not run a colonial empire (starting from the end of the Cold War the situation changes) supporting foreign regimes without some blowback. Blowback is/was all known in Europe because practically all European countries have some historic/cultural experience as colonial powers. So terror is not news to the average ex-colonial European. It's literally the cost of doing business so to speak. It wasn't news to the intelligence agencies either. Of course, if you ask the average American what blowback is, I'd bet you'll still get a blank stare. Despite 15 years of "news". In that sense, the propaganda worked. The belief is "they hate our freedoms" ... just like the European propaganda for several decades of failed immigration policies is "they hate our freedom of speech". Nowhere [in the news] is any fundamental understanding of the situation conveyed in the news.
(*) It's such an ugly word, so of course I mean the way "they" present the news. Not how we do it.
Hence, my recommendation that "front page news" is mostly noise that's irrelevant to how people live their day to day lives. It's mostly irrelevant except to provide water cooler topics.
In particular, it takes time to follow. For example, the main interesting thing about climate science news is not the news itself. First of all, practically all science news are actually journalists writing about something that was published 6-12 months ago. To anyone who reads the journals, it's old news already. Also, none of the conclusions that are being presented have changed materially since the mid 1960s. The main piece of news here is that "climate science is now considered news". This suggests that the demographics interested in climate science is increasing. However, you can learn far more about climate science by reading a 101 textbook from 30 years ago than you can from news. Ditto about the imperial blowback we call the war on terrorism.
In short, reading a 200 page nonfiction textbook will make for a much better informed person than 15 years of newsreading.
Now what is actually relevant news? Relevant news to the average person's life are things like the weather forecast, that the main commute at 8:32am is currently blocked by a traffic accident on X street; that the police has manhunt in your particular backyard; that the tax laws are changing; that the electric company is installing new lines in your neighborhood; that RE taxes are going up in your county; ... because these are things that would affect actual behavior rather than just talking points, interests, and hobbies.
You can add some interest/watercooler news to this in order to feed your interest or be able to relate to other people who are interested in this ... but that would be the only reason. In particular ... you have access to other sources. For your own interests, you're better off with a book. For other people's interests, you're better off with them in the first place. Those with military connections already know that you get much more useful information directly from them than what you can read in the papers.
In any case ... anybody can read what they want. I'm just saying that if you followed no news at all, you wouldn't be materially more uninformed than someone who voraciously read all news.
Tim Ferris's "Four Hour Work Week" has a whole section on doing an information diet that covers everything that Jacob is also pointing out. There's really no point in actively following news, twitter, facebook, etc, since you will hear about anything that's actually important from talking to people near you. EDIT: by osmosis*
That said, at work I often check out http://news.ycombinator.com (hacker news) which keeps me abreast of technical news. It's not ideal, I would rather have something much more tailored to what I want to know about - but I think that's not yet solved, probably would require a web app that used machine learning to learn from my news preferences.
Last edited by JamesR on Thu Mar 05, 2015 4:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I work in an organisation and in a field that are featured in the news almost daily. It is scary how the news coverage mostly fails(*) in both informing and explaining about the events and developments. I might simply conclude that it's specific to this topic and be done with it, except that I've seen it once before, in a different field and with a different topic. This experience makes me want to agree with Jacob -- I don't think you can really *learn* anything from the news.
(*) This is not necessarily only the journalists' fault, their sources and their audience can be blamed just as much.
PS. Those with an IT background might be familiar with what I mean if they've ever seen a hacking scene in a Hollywood movie. It's just a scene and a part of the story for the director and for most of the audience, but for you it sort of spoils the whole thing, doesn't it?
jacob wrote:You can learn a lot more by inserting a 5 year delay. Start reading any news paper archive from 5+ years ago.
This might be really interesting. I subscribed to the Economist for a few years, it is delivered once a week. I was always a few numbers behind, so I was effectively reading news from three weeks to a month ago. A quite different experience from the instantly delivered news most people seem to "need".
I can second this, that it is a different experience. I have been irregularly reading The Economic Times with a one day delay (on the next day's evening) since 2009 after my father used to bring it home at night after work. I don't have much use for it but read it when I got bored of studying.
I can't keep up (filter out the crap fast enough) with that one. I don't mind reading if linked to an article, though.
DId y'all see that ZH was listed as (at least echoing) Russian Propaganda?
Along similar lines, you have:
https://www.sovereignman.com/ - a lot of articles are really just advertisements for their services, but occasionally there is a good article on current economic events. Ticks me off every sentence is a new paragraph..
http://www.doomsteaddiner.net/blog/ (about: 1, 2) - new kid on the block. Haven't gone through the back-log yet but so far some entertaining truth that isn't too nutters (think I've mostly read RE's articles). There seems to be a forum as well which I haven't dug into yet (though it seems some threads are curated, orienting towards news and can be subscribed to via RSS).
@bryan - ZH is like operating a powertool w/o the safety shield. They're about the fastest out there that is free/not a bloomberg terminal.
I see that Charles Hugh Smith is also listed there
Their FAQ suggests that they think that US propaganda^H^H^H"strategic communications efforts" only serve to "lawfully" support "democratic governance, human rights, economic equity, and the rule of law". It's those evil guys we have to worry about, not us good guys. There are also some very specific (for a random independent bunch of "concerned American citizens" anyway) suggestions about booting Russia out of the SWIFT system as a form of retribution.
I would also suggest that what we're getting from these two (ZH and CHS) is not news (ala facebook's "OMGWTFBBQ Hungry Hillary Tried To Eat A Baby But Tremendous Trump Came To The Rescue" share-bait) as much as analysis that is not exactly on the same page as anyone who believes that US foreign policy only serves to lawfully support democratic governance, human rights, economic equity, and the rule of law.
jacob wrote:You can learn a lot more by inserting a 5 year delay. Start reading any news paper archive from 5+ years ago.
This might be really interesting. I subscribed to the Economist for a few years, it is delivered once a week. I was always a few numbers behind, so I was effectively reading news from three weeks to a month ago. A quite different experience from the instantly delivered news most people seem to "need".
I can second this, that it is a different experience.
I second your second, fiby41. When we lived in the woods for 10 years, I also subscribed to the Economist (actually, my brother subscribed for me because he was afraid that my brain was rotting so far from civilization). Most crises were past by the time I read about them, and the delay was comforting.* Kind of like letting the radiator cool before you take the cap off. We didn't even know about 9/11 until I called a friend to wish her happy birthday.
Now that we have the full complement of electrons and OTA TV signals, DH often watches the news from 4:00 to 7:00. FIrst it's local news, then BBC, then PBS, then some Japanese news station (in English). He has all sorts of opinions about what's going on in the world. I find it depressing to care too much.
* Extra delay, since the magazine came to our PO box in the nearest town and might not get picked up for a week or two.
I don't know of any "news" sources, but I try to distill my news from reading about the same story from various propaganda outlets. For example, read about a situation in the Washington Post or NY Times, then also read about it on Zero Hedge, assume both sides are skewing it heavily in one direction, and that the reality lies somewhere in the middle.
The crazy conservative sites like Breitbart and the Libertarian or alt-right bloggers, will often report details or perspectives that MSM leaves out, and vice versa, so I can average them into a more likely picture than either side. For example, I didn't know who Steve Bannon was. MSM told me he was an anti-semitic white nationlist. Breitbart told me he was a friend to the Jewish people and champion for peace. A little far apart to be useful, but at least I know he's not likely to be either of those things. Strikes me as a rich libertarian doomer who doesn't like immigration and sometimes says offensive things.
Another aggregator I like is Rice Farmer. Slightly less tin-foil-hat than ZH (slightly).
