I started this concept ten years ago. Dropped Facebook, no more economist subscription, no papers, never had TV. That doesn't mean holding a hard line and hiding your head in a pillow. There is enough overflow from HN, the radio, friends, occasional newspapers.
It seems I have a much healthier laid back attitude to work, friends, family. I see them all uptight about some event. Following news story breathlessly, fuming or arguing. Meanwhile, I'm trying to calm every one down, don't worry about it, it doesn't matter. Political parties change, administration doesn't. Think about long term goals, and affects you can have on that. Skip the day to day arguments.
There is so, much valuable news and information on HN, and so much valuable discussion, often from experts in their field. (More rare lately?)
You can gather your data, and solve most of your issues, from links provided in HN. So many interesting intellectual topics to pursue. For example:
Need covid numbers? Look at worldometers.com
Keep it up Dang.
Lucky for you that politics doesn’t have any direct influence on your life, but in the US having a semi-functional government during the Covid pandemic would have led to a lot fewer deaths and a lot less economic damage.
Nearly anyone is capable of voting, helping with voter turnout efforts, donating to campaigns and advocacy groups, and voicing their opinions in public or private regarding political situations and outcomes.
You can't conclude from "I don't have full control of the outcome" to "nothing I will do will matter".
For many upper-middle class technology professionals it may be true that the personal outcome is not evidently different (but you might be surprised), but for many people this is drastically not true.
That idea actually seems like a good demonstration of how corrosive politics actually is. Like, if you look at the actual evidence... France, whose current leader was hailed as the anti-Trump by the US media, is at about 1 Covid death per thousand (and they're not the worst-affected in Europe, not by a long shot), the US is at 1.2, former success story the Czech Republic is about 1.3. The evidence just doesn't seem to support the claim at all. Yet because the current President of the US is hated by the press, every right-thinking person knows otherwise.
The death rate doesn't capture the full impact of covid. As ICUs fill up, they delay treatment for patients that have non-Covid related illnesses that still require an ICU.
The criticism of the President comes from the demonstrable fact that he simply did not take it seriously, and constantly contradicted and undermined the scientific leadership in an attempt to prop up the stock markets long enough to win re-election.
Yeah no.
If you think that cherry picking facts counters the US government's waffling on basic preventative measures like mask-wearing, public contradictions of lifelong non-partisan health experts, and failing to muster sustaining economic relief then I don't have time to argue with you.
The fact that the richest country in the world has had the worst statistical response to Covid in terms of cases, deaths, and hospitalization speaks volumes.
And keeping up with politics changes that how? You have no power to change anything, no reason to enjoy the comfy seats on the train just because it is heading into a wall when you can't stop it.
These things fluctuate. Political stuff has been more intense lately, for obvious reasons—we can't expect HN to be immune from macro trends in society at large.
