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This story might be helpful to those tearing their hair out about the news lately:
I grew up believing that following the news makes you a better citizen. Eight years after having quit, that idea now seems ridiculous—that consuming a particularly unimaginative information product on a daily basis somehow makes you thoughtful and informed in a way that benefits society.
But I still encounter people who balk at the possibility of a smart, engaged adult quitting the daily news.
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A few things you might notice, if you take a break:1) You feel better
A common symptom of quitting the news is an improvement in mood. News junkies will say it's because you've stuck your head in the sand.
But that assumes the news is the equivalent of having your head out in the fresh, clear air. They don't realize that what you can glean about the world from the news isn't even close to a representative sample of what is happening in the world.
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2) You were never actually accomplishing anything by watching the newsIf you ask someone what they accomplish by watching the news, you'll hear vague notions like, "It's our civic duty to stay informed!" or "I need to know what's going on in the world," or "We can't just ignore these issues," none of which answer the question.
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A month after you've quit the news, it's hard to name anything useful that's been lost. It becomes clear that those years of news-watching amounted to virtually nothing in terms of improvement to your quality of life, lasting knowledge, or your ability to help others. And that's to say nothing of the opportunity cost. Imagine if you spent that time learning a language, or reading books and essays about some of the issues they mention on the news.
Read on for the rest of the list.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 14 2016, @02:39PM
I concur that would be preferable. We all have to work together to make it happen, though. We've arrived at a moment of epochal historical change. The post-WWII consensus that kept the peace in Europe and America and other select parts of the world is crumbling before our eyes. In America the social contract that held the country together since the Civil War is evaporating, and the bedrock legal principles cast in the Constitution mean nothing anymore. Against that backdrop it's tough to keep bobbing merrily around on the top like a cork.
Even on topics of science and technology the Manichaean struggle the media is engaged in with the incoming administration will invade, because science and technology require funding and so much of that funding comes from the government.
I believe there's another reality that can rise from the ashes of the old system. I see it in FOSS, in knowledge sharing, in the Maker Movement, in distributed energy production and additive manufacturing. It's a massively multipolar world built on consensus rather than centralization, concentration, and domination. We'll still need government to do the big things we can't do alone or as small hamlets, but if we recast it according to that different ethos it will be better in essence than the one constituted to enshrine the power of centralized wealth.
That's utopian, but it's good to keep your eyes fixed on a glimmer of hope to get you through all the ugliness that is and will be around us for the forseeable future. Else, we might as well lay down in the mud and die, right?
Washington DC delenda est.