How to read the news

[Mister Imperceptible]

Hanlon's Razor. Never attribute to malice what is adequately explained by stupidity (=here lack of context)

You are much more generous than I am with intentions. While Hanlon's Razor can ascribe a certain amount of non-curiosity, one can't ignore the consistency in which stories aren't fleshed out, always in favor of the institution providing the stories. It's a system that obviously works, but I would personally be embarrassed to label myself a journalist and not be able to perform basic fundamental tasks, or to purposefully ignore details not conducive to my paycheck. But that is my bias.

*Clarification of attribution

[ffj]

@MI

Thanks for that. I haven't used the quote button in years and it shows.

Interestingly, the Energy Secretary made a huge announcement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww9HHOtuCig

Without mentioning the laser component. Maybe she did elsewhere, I don't know. But she did say that Biden called it a BFD, haha.

And The Guardian did mention the laser issue in the 12th paragraph: https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ear-fusion


It just takes so much work to figure stuff out. You have to become a competent person in every subject you read about. Spin and omissions, and moneyed interests pollute everything. I work with an ex-Amish guy that just about knows nothing about external events, and certainly doesn't watch any news sources. He seems pretty happy. Maybe he's on to something.

[Seppia]

One part of FIRE subculture I never understood is the “low information diet” mantra.

There is zero upside in being more ignorant about what happens around us.

Of course you want to know what is relevant: knowing whoever is banging Kim Kardashian lately isn’t exactly life changing information.

Similarly irrelevant is the “politics porn” that dominates the mainstream news cycle.
One maybe entertained by the latest rant by Polarizing Crazy Person XYZ (I particularly enjoy Elon Musk’s sociopathy for example), but that should not be mistaken for “news”.

What was happening in wuhan in late 2019 is news
Germany burning coal and wood to stay warm after completely botching their energy policy is news.
SBF finally being arrested and what’s going on with tether is news

It’s our duty to filter for information.
We can learn this in the same way we learned not to take financial advice from coupon clippers.

[ffj]

@Seppia


"It’s our duty to filter for information. "




I agree. However, it takes a lot of life energy to filter and I'm suggesting that energy could be applied elsewhere in much more beneficial ways, but I'm jaded so accept what I have to say with that in mind. I'm just not so sure the effort is worth it most times.

Oh well, we've had this discussion before so I'll stop. If I have a need for a soapbox, this topic would be it. Apologies for the rants.

[Hristo Botev]

The more old books I read the less the "news" seems like news; history rhyming and all--e.g., I just read in Thucydides about the plague that decimated Athens right at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War as the Athens government brought all the Athenians into town from the countryside, resulting in overcrowding (sure sounds familiar). I then read a retelling of a fantastic debate between Nicias and Alcibiades about the wisdom of undertaking an interventionist military expedition into Sicily when the People's money could be better spent dealing with problems at home, which sounded like 100 similar debates I've read about in the "news" over the past 25 years or so. Many, many such examples.

Ultimately, though, it seems that the more resiliency one has the less need that person has for staying on top of the "news." I'm sure it's not a NOTHING BUT THE NEWS ALL THE TIME as opposed to NEVER CONSUME ANY NEWS EVER dynamic, but a spectrum debate like any other. But, for example, if you've got @Jacob's LUXE bidet along with one or more of the many water catchment and storage practices that have been discussed on this forum many times, and perhaps even some "cowboy toilet paper" growing in the backyard, then maybe you don't need to worry so much about when the next shelf-clearing run on toilet paper will take place. Same for following @Jacob's ~6-month food rotation practices; having multiple power options and also minimizing your dependency on power; minimizing your need for capital "H" Healthcare; etc.

We should assume that the following is going to happen, because it of course will, and much worse.

Hurricane, COVID, travel bans, student loans, health insurance, crypto fails, brownouts, cold snaps, heat waves, anti-government protests, etc.

And then when we do get around to reading the news, or learning about current events from someone at church, etc., you can just be overjoyed to find out that the world in fact has not yet completely fallen apart.

ETA:

I'm sure this is some sort of "color" thing, or whatever it is you ERE2 folks are always talking about, but I'm not necessarily sure that, depending on your perspective/priorities/station in life/etc., this:

knowing whoever is banging Kim Kardashian lately

is any less newsworthy than

What was happening in wuhan in late 2019 is news
Germany burning coal and wood to stay warm after completely botching their energy policy is news.
SBF finally being arrested and what’s going on with tether is news

As an example, I'm a father with an about-to-be teenage daughter, and I think it is much more important for me to have an idea as to the existence of someone like a Kim Kardashian, because she's the kind of personality who will be targeted at my daughter, and I need to know what's on the TV and on the social medias that my daughter may be consuming, even if she is consuming it through her friends.

[Seppia]

mmh
I am thinking you may be responding for the sake of arguing instead of out of a genuine interest for conversation.
If I say "for a young human being, getting a master's degree in economics is more useful than being 0.5 seconds faster on the 40yard dash" you can respond "what if the young man is an NFL wide receiver? Then it'd be more useful to be 0.5 seconds faster"
And it is of course true, but to what extent? 0.00000% of humanity is a (perspective or actual) NFL wide receiver

Anyway: my main point is (trying to synthesise)

I see no way where "avoiding to be informed" is additive to someone's life*. If the news one watches/reads are a net negative on his/her life, maybe the focus should be on getting better news.

*assuming the goal is not willful ignorance, but if that were the case, why exit plato's cave?

[Seppia]

"It’s our duty to filter for information. "

I agree. However, it takes a lot of life energy to filter and I'm suggesting that energy could be applied elsewhere in much more beneficial ways, but I'm jaded so accept what I have to say with that in mind. I'm just not so sure the effort is worth it most times.

I am fully with you.
I believe "filtering" includes the choice of deciding when to care and when not to care. Personally, I found most of the short term political stuff (90% of the "news") to be irrelevant

[M]

hmm..I use google news.

I'm not sure if I like the idea of simply not reading the news at all...although I could see the appeal of that.

I just wish there were some way to filter out the news to only read about what I'm interested in reading about...which is mostly just business, economics, and new scientific discoveries or achievements...and perhaps health.

If I could just find a news source that would filter out the politics, the actors and actresses, the entertainment section, the sports section, all of the various opinion articles and sections, whatever our current leader's opinion is of x thing, The 'Ask Amy' and other silly drama sections disguised as advice sections, all of the other various drama and personal story sections (Just skimming google news there is a 'news' article about 'the joy of living alone', 'Why I am a 32 year old virgin', 'how I discovered my husband cheating', etc.), anything with the word 'Donald' or 'Trump', 'horoscope', 'zodiac sign', 'astrology', etc.

It seems like the news is more and more designed to be a source of entertainment and emotionally charged drama to attract and retain attention for as long as possible for monetary reasons.

Maybe I just need a different news source. Or maybe google news has filtering options and I'm not aware.

[Mister Imperceptible]

If the the goal is to filter out everything you did not want to see and to receive only prescriptions for action items, one is seeking a master, not news.

[Myakka]

... maybe the focus should be on getting better news.

Finding better news is really challenging. At the moment my main strategy is to find somewhere to scan headlines and then (if I am interested in knowing more) looking up the matter on Wikipedia. On major news stories some of the best coverage is there.

[jacob]

In terms of setting up filters, it might be useful to keep in mind that "news" = "information that makes a difference".

If you group information into types, there are likely information-types that consistently do not make a difference. These can be excluded right away. For example, I don't follow science, technology, sports, or celebrity news. These are both irrelevant to what I do in my own life and what I talk to others about. Conversely, many normies are interested in sports and celebrities and so not knowing "who won the game" or "who divorced who" would leave you completely out of normie water cooler small talk and as such would make a difference. Ditto nerds when it comes to STEM news.

[Hristo Botev]

I am thinking you may be responding for the sake of arguing instead of out of a genuine interest for conversation.

Is arguing not conversing? What's wrong with a good argument?

My point was simply that you equate relevance with newsworthy (and irrelevance with non-newsworthy), but I can't say whether I agree with you or not because I don't know what you mean by relevance in that context--relevant to who, relevant to what? (I can hear Socrates' admonishment to define your terms.) How can you say that who Kim Kardashian is currently banging and/or the latest rant by Polarizing Crazy Person XYZ is universally and objectively irrelevant (and therefore un-newsworthy), but that SBF being arrested or whatever is universally and objectively relevant (and therefore newsworthy)? Regarding Kim Kardashian, Kanye/Ye may be a little (or a lot) off his rocker (or maybe not at all, I have no idea and I'm not on Twitter), but he has some things to say about his failed marriage that I think are relevant as to the state and condition of society and culture and marriage and fame and family and human nature on a larger scale. Whereas I'd never heard of SBF until a week or so ago, and I'm still not particularly clear why so many people seem to really want me to care about him.

[Henry]

Using the topic of Kanye in another way -on the one hand you can make the case that he is just another entitled, narcissistic celebrity who is paying the price for entering the Kardashian vagina turnstile. On the other hand, one can make the case that he is suffering from serious mental illness and is being manipulated by the likes Milo Yiannopolous to use celebrity endorsement as a way of increasing the sales of Holocaust denial. As Holocaust denial is (a) really a statement that you want the Holocaust to happen again and (b) a litmus test to determine the acceptable norms governing public discourse, one can make a case that from this vantage point, Kanye is extremely relevant.