Living in Poland ruled by trumpists for 8 years I have these experiences:
- Get subscription of high value newspaper or magazine. Professionals work there, so you will get real facts, worthy opinions and less emotions.
- It is better to not use social media. You never know if you are discussing with normal person, a political party troll, or Russian troll.
- It is not worth discussing with „switched-on” people. They are getting high doses of emotional content, they are made to feel like victims, facts does not matter at all. Political beliefs are intermingled with religious beliefs.
- emotional content is being treated with higher priority by brain, so it is better to stay away from it, or it will ruin your evening.
- people are getting addicted to emotions and victimization, so after public broadcaster has been freed from it, around 5% people switched to private tv station to get their daily doses.
- social media feels like a new kind of virus, we all need to get sick and develop some immunity to it.
- in the end, there are more reasonable people, but democracies needs to develop better constitutional/law systems, with very short feedback loop. It is very important to have fast reaction on breaking the law by ruling regime.
You nailed it. For ages, we've known that we can be hacked by anything that solicits an emotional response from us. People who set their sights on abusing that power have only gotten better at doing it, so much so that often the victim of the manipulation has no idea they've been manipulated.
There is still an alarming number of people out there who do not seem aware that this is even possible, let alone actively being done on almost all media fronts.
I think acknowledging this makes my outrage fatigue worse, because I am also forced to admit that it can (and does) happen to me, despite being aware of it. This renders me automatically suspicious of any news being reported from any source, regardless of liberal or conservative bias. So, on top of being outraged, there's layers of paranoia which is tiring in and of itself, especially now that it seems more justified.
That’s also an alarm bell right there. If the answer to the question “Does this article/headline want me to feel anything?” is Yes, than it’s emotional bait. If its “boring” than it’s probably more neutral.
Emotional reactivity is the psychological name I believe. High reactivity means more anxiety, stress and sometimes sign of a disorder.
If it bleeds it leads has been a core tenet of journalism essentially since it has existed. And certainly a staple of rumor mills since long before that.
I'm going to commit a netiquette faux-pas and, as a fellow European, simply wholeheartedly acknowledge all you just said, from politics to media to psychology and neurology.
I don't know if the internet is just mirroring the general state of society, or if it contributes negatively to it, but talking specifically about the net, this dystopia really isn't what I had envisioned in the '90s. Even rats in cages being subjected to psychological torture are better behaved than this.
> Get subscription of high value newspaper or magazine. Professionals work there, so you will get real facts, worthy opinions and less emotions.
I struggle with this. It's incredibly challenging to find reliable, unbiased news sources these days, especially with the perceived slant of many major outlets. It's discouraging when even subscriptions to reputable publications like the NYT and WSJ leave you feeling like you're not getting the full story. It's also concerning when editorial content undermines the perceived objectivity of the news reporting, specially with WSJ. So what are people reading?
I’ve been sticking to the weekly edition of The Economist for years to stay informed while escaping the news cycle. The US coverage is remarkably good. The weekly cadence mean I’m often a week behind the news, but to me that’s a feature. The editorial pieces (those expressing “the opinion of the newspaper”) are kept separate as “Leaders” and I read them last, if it all; I usually read each issue back-to-front following a tip from HN years ago.
For US-interested people, I’d also like to recommend Checks and Balance, a podcast by some of The Economist’s US reporters.
I years ago read The Economist, and found a characterization of "Fleet Street cocktail party" useful for anticipating distributions of expertise and dysfunction across topics.
I've not read it regularly, but some suggest the Financial Times.[1][2]
The NYT... sigh. "All the foreign bureaus have closed" (geographic and topical; so superficial, confused, and pre-framed); and "correctness is a local property attained by wordsmithing" - an apparent belief that bad reporting can be "fixed" by local tweaks, so sentences in isolation aren't utterly wrong, even if most readers without overriding expertise will still be left badly misled. After all, it's "news" not analysis. My daily reminder that "Journalism hasn't yet had the 'we suck at this' epiphany which sets up a field's many-decade struggle towards high reliability organization" - we know what a safety/reliability culture looks like, and journalism very isn't it.
The Economist is not exactly a neutral source of information, and is very much pro-big business, which has caused it to take horrible positions on many important issues throughout its long history, such as overthrowing democratic governments, supporting dictatorships, etc.
I’d say it’s pro economic development. Like they express concerns around the decline of anti-trust enforcement.
I’m sure it’s true that they used to advocate dictators, but in the 30 years of reading it as my primary news source, they’ve always seemed to me to be very consistently on the side of liberalism (in the older sense of the word) and very concerned about democracy
I've been liking AllSides. They aggregate news from all parts of the spectrum, so you get stuff ranging from Jacobin / Daily Beast all the way to Fox News / Breitbart (I'm not commenting on the truthfulness of or recommending any of these sources, just using them as an example of how wide ranging the sources being pulled from are)
For each headline, they pick a left, center, and right source and show that headline. They also show various headlines either side misses along with which side of the media is covering it. And other stuff, but mostly I just care about the news.
It helps with avoiding echochambers. One side's doomerism usually ends up being what another side's cheering. Given the current political climate that's been especially helpful to my stress levels.
Focus on outlets that prioritize reporting. You can't find a "neutral" outlet -- all human beings have biases, and that gets magnified once we're talking about collective human endeavors such as newspapers, magazines, etc. But we can at least avoid solipsism ("the view that the self is the only reality") by grounding ourselves in outside, shared reality. That's what reporting is -- actually being at a place in real life, talking to actual people involved. Sure, the transmission of those observations will inevitably be shaped by the human reporter's own biases, but you're still getting access to shared reality. Even if the opinions aren't ones you share, you can at least see what they're based on and so have some ability to make your own evaluation on if the implicit conclusions the reporter is drawing match up with the base facts they are sharing.
Don't have a specific advise, but generally I don't consume nor trust news articles about given country, from given country. So I read about my central European homeland from neighboring news, or BBC/Guardian for example.
Its more difficult with US since every fart affects rest of the world, sometimes massively, but some sort of averaging in my mind does it for me. Or at least I think it does, what is truly objective is a goal worthy of maybe academic discussions, I don't think individual can easily even get to it and realize 'this is it'.
Almost every story has sides. Multiple at a time. Depending on people and their cultural background involved or observing. Ask one people about a story, and might say completely different things than another. This is just the nature of humanity, nothing novelty was said here.
Choose something where they at least try.
My long time favorite is The Economist. They have writers there committed to a certain kind of message, true, like everywhere, putting on a glass supporting their preconceptions, yet the overall tone is somewhat analytical, at least trying to look behind and around, trying to use multiple viewpoints. If they miss some, you might add yours pretty easily (on your own or from other sources), and so you will be empowered by better vintage point at the matter than without their help. That's much more than nothing, at least compared to the vast majority (I believe).
I am sure there are even better alternatives where the being emotional first and professionally outraged all the time is frowned upon too. Definitely avoid bbc.co.uk despite their facade of being in depth and balanced. They actually say nothing more than repetition of the events mixed with lots of emotions nowadays, even their selection of topics are outrage oriented.
There is no such thing as an unbiased new source. Rpoerting only articles with pure fact there is still selection bias in what topics are covered and what facts are presented. Giving equal coverage across articles and within results in both sides reporting which can seriously tilt the article.
Choose reputable sources and read with an understanding of the corespondent's perspective as well as the publication's. Diversify your choices to not isolate yourself.
So many once great media outlets were bought by billionaires and now all have the same editorial slant. It's extremely frustrating. In there modern world where would Woodward and Bernstein work? Propublica? Even where there is a will to do that kind of work the funding is even harder to secure. The reporters have to pick and choose their stories.
I don't think there's a single source of news that is going to satisfy a need for full context. I read both for balance, and add The Economist to the mix for even more context.
They aggregate stories and report on who's reporting on the story and how, detailing bias and factuality. They do international stories and probably also stories in your local area (in the US, perhaps less likely elsewhere).
Frankly I find the NYT fine. Does it have its deficiencies? Sure. But journalists are but human and subject to their biases. Much better to listen to an NYT journalist than some hysterical X poster. WSJ and NYT have recently had social media outrage aimed against them and I think that's the point: the very folks who are most emotional about the media are angry that NYT isn't as emotional as they are.
Yeah I agree with this. Local news sources work as a good filter, only bringing national stories that have a local effect, plus you get more local news, plus your subscription goes to a news room of probably no more than a few dozen people who live in the same area as you depending on what city or state you're in.
What do you mean by an “unbiased news source? What dimension does it not have a bias against?
If you are talking about political ideologies, reality has a well-known liberal bias. So you have to choose one or the other.
There was a comment recently about how Gemini won’t tell you some Chili recipe from Obama because that might see political. So Google seems to be heading towards politically neutral direction. Contrast that with many years ago when a Google image search would bring up Trump’s image when you searched for “idiot”.
Out of curiosity-- does "trumpists" mean PiS? Are the "trumpists" still in power? What is the current trend (toward trumpists or away?).
> Get subscription of high value newspaper or magazine. Professionals work there, so you will get real facts, worthy opinions and less emotions.
This is excellent advise. I'm worrying that post-paper news have a really strong incentive nowadays to drive outrage, and that the current level of reporting we see online is the new normal.
See also social acceleration [1], from German sociologist and political scientist Hartmut Rosa. Rosa argues that this current culture leads to a crisis in democratic self-determination, as the current quick demands of modern society often conflict with the slower, more reflective processes that democracy requires. The pressure to respond quickly can make democratic governance appear dysfunctional, as governments find it increasingly difficult to react to the complex issues of today within tight time constraints.
> Get subscription of high value newspaper or magazine. Professionals work there, so you will get real facts, worthy opinions and less emotions.
But, definitely understand what you are getting into here: Paraphrasing Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who notes that if you'd like to be cured of reading newspapers, read last years' newspapers.
I think they're good for understanding "what people are talking about these days" as well as any statements that are literal facts, but anything in-between will be pretty fraught with the same issues as e.g. social media.
I would add consume less news in general. It has the same problems as social media, just less acute. Its better to spend that time reading more in-depth things such as books.
> - It is better to not use social media. You never know if you are discussing with normal person, a political party troll, or Russian troll.
Completely valid, but there is a middleground of very deliberately curating your social media:
- Avoid using services that are engineered for outrage and views
- be ruthless with who you follow and block (someone trying to drum up some unimportant javascript outrage? get them off your feed)
- for twitter-likes, mute phrases from your timeline like crazy (included in my muted words is plainly trump, kamala, elon, gop, democrats, doge, dei, covid, etc)
- always be skeptical that everyone else online is some PSYOP effort, even those that share views you politically align with
It is possible to use social media, but you must have agency over it and not allow it to just happen to you. That's why I'm much more enthusastic about decentralised/open and non-commercial social networks because they currently give users much more control.
Don't disagree with you, but I'll counter with 2 big issues:
1. the services themselves continually change, and are incentivized to get much more manipulative, and much, much worse. I used to use LinkedIn as an employment network, and now it's a full-on social media hub (though weirdly positive in a very phony way...) even HN has changed for the worse (despite the efforts of dang)
2. won't someone think of the kids? in seriousness though, they're struggling to build agency over themselves; how can they be expected to control social media, and to pile on, it's the only world they've ever known?
Nothing is perfect, and nothing is immune to change, but that's why I'm attracted to open, and non-commercial social networks. Non-commercial networks have less incentives to enshittify, and being decentralised/open can act as a relief value to give more control to users (like Bluesky's labellers) and help counteract any changes they do make for the worse.
> won't someone think of the kids?
not me. I don't see why I children using social media should impact my decision about how I spend my time?
Can you give some examples of decentralized/open and non-commercial networks? I would be very interested to use such platforms but I don’t know of them (nor do the people in my life, unfortunately)!
This is too complicated. There's a much shorter working plan:
- fact check exceptional claims
- report factual failures to the source
- if the source doesn't apologize publicly in the same channel, permanently remove it from trusted sources
edit: ok, after the rage comment I realized that one more item is missing: discarding sources with systematic reporting bias (when it is obvious they aren't reporting things that you care about that are happening)
I don't necessarily see a problem with "outrage fatigue". It sounds like a self-solving problem: if a source gives you such fatigue, you will stop reading it naturally.
> if a source gives you such fatigue, you will stop reading it naturally.
That is not not at all how this works out in reality.
People are not subconciously opposed to being driven to outrage, especially if it reinforces their biases (the reverse appears to be true!).
Sanity check:
If evoking outrage was driving away media consumer, there would be very strong selection pressure against that, and media would stop doing it or fail.
This is not what we observe: Almost all media is becoming increasingly outrage-inducing, because it works. It drives clicks, and it does not deter people from coming back.
Just consider CNN, FOX news, MSNBC , etc-- you can see the same trend over time, regardless of the position on the political spectrum.
> in the end, there are more reasonable people, but democracies needs to develop better constitutional/law systems, with very short feedback loop. It is very important to have fast reaction on breaking the law by ruling regime.
What’s wrong with the separation of powers in the USA? There’s plenty of situations where judges issue injunctions that are in effect until the case is resolved.
Lack of enforcement mechanisms, captured courts, feckless political stooges, gullible public.
E.g.
Virginia governor illegally purged voters within a certain time window. Courts said "yeah that was illegal, you need to stop" VA attorney gen said "no I don't." And while the court of appeals agreed with the lower court "yeah simple violation of the law. Reinstate revoked registration." The VA supreme court was like "nah fam, let's let the governor do his thing and we can figure this all out after the election." And everyone kinda stopped talking about it.
As a poll worker I had multiple people who had voter ID cards come in last November but required filling out paperwork to re-register them and have them cast a provisional ballot. Feels like they were connected as I hadn't dealt with that in the near dozen elections I've worked prior.
> Lack of enforcement mechanisms, captured courts, feckless political stooges, gullible public.
> e.g., Virginia governor illegally purged voters within a certain time window. Courts said "yeah that was illegal, you need to stop" VA attorney gen said "no I don't." And while the court of appeals agreed with the lower court "yeah simple violation of the law. Reinstate revoked registration." The VA supreme court was like "nah fam, let's let the governor do his thing and we can figure this all out after the election." And everyone kinda stopped talking about it.
You can't claim the result of a case is "illegal" simply because you don't agree with it. Or is the very act of appealing a ruling itself an illegal act because you do not immediately bend the knee to the first judge that sides with your opponents?
> As a poll worker I had multiple people who had voter ID cards come in last November but required filling out paperwork to re-register them and have them cast a provisional ballot. Feels like they were connected as I hadn't dealt with that in the near dozen elections I've worked prior.
Were they people who checked the box on their driver's license form explicitly stating that they are not a US citizen? Because those are the people who were removed from the voter rolls by that clean up.
Your whole argument basically falls apart with this logic: "Republicans wanted to cheat to put a Republican in power, until they were stopped by a court of law, and when defeated, appealed to powerful Republicans, who voted along party lines to give more power to Republicans."
> Your whole argument basically falls apart with this logic: "Republicans wanted to cheat to put a Republican in power, until they were stopped by a court of law, and when defeated, appealed to powerful Republicans, who voted along party lines to give more power to Republicans."
Alternatively: "Republicans wanted to clean up the voter rolls by removing self-declared non-citizens. Democrats wanted to cheat by allowing those non-citizens to vote so they went judge shopping till they found one that was willing to temporarily stop the effort. Republicans followed the process and appealed through the court system. And the final ruling by the highest court in the land agreed with the Republicans that the action was legal.".
So I'd argue the Democrats challenging the case are the ones that ended up on the illegal side.
"...Justice Department and advocacy groups sued, contending that the state had in fact purged at least some eligible voters and that it did so in violation of a federal law that bars systematic removals from voting rolls in the 90 days prior to an election. Specifically, the 1993 National Voter Registration Act creates a “quiet period” within 90 days of a federal election.
"A federal district court agreed, ordering Virginia to restore the approximately 1,600 voter registrations that were cancelled. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that order. Virginia then appealed to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to allow the state to strike the voters purged in the 90 days prior to the election.
"The state contended that the lower courts “misinterpreted the NVRA.” They argued that the “quiet period” cannot apply to noncitizens, since they are already ineligible to vote. Even if the “quiet period” did apply here, the state argued, the program was sufficiently individualized, not systematic."
So where is the cheating? Is it "cheating" to use the courts to resolve legal disputes? Or to misinterpret the law? Were both of the lower courts in on the cheating?
Republicans didn’t want to clean up the voter rolls, as you allege. They wanted to tip the election to Trump by any means necessary. This is so obvious that you’re likely to tell me not to believe my own eyes.
Can you prove that the entire list of cleared votes, was indeed 100% of people who were ineligible to vote?
Judge shopping is the GOP's favorite passtime. I hate both parties but it's been the GOP's tactic for ages. Go read up on Donald Trump judge shopping until he got a stooge to clear him for possession of intelligence documents he was unable to keep. Bear in mind, that some of those documents were our intelligence files on Israel's nuclear weapons program. Why do you think the Saudis sponsored a fucking golf tour on Trump's courses once they had access to those documents?
Illegality is a meaningless term when the separation of powers is compromised specifically to make what would normally be illegal legal.
Or put another way: there’s a subreddit called something like /r/EmpireDidNothingWrong that puts forth the idea that nothing the Empire did in the Star Wars universe was illegal. In fact it was quite legal, as Palpatine famously says “I’ll make it legal”.
A fictional example sure, but if you can’t make the leap here, well, then you’re the one being disingenuous.
At least in my area of VA, the elections board does a great job supporting it's poll-workers.
If you have the capacity (I understand it's not compatible with everyone's schedule or capacity) I would recommend looking into it in your area as they usually need help, and it is a paid gig. It's easy to sign up the next time you go to vote, just ask the poll workers for the signup sheet.
I try to make it fun and make food for my precinct. Usually some bbq fresh bread and some sides, then feed any of the county voting board members who check in on us as well.
> What’s wrong with the separation of powers in the USA?
Once the same party controls the Senate, House, Presidency and Supreme Court, the powers are no longer meaningfully separate. Which is now the case.
(state powers are still separate; I'm guessing we'll see action from state AGs against sudden Federal actions which have disadvantaged their state)
Also, as Musk has figured out, the simple power of fait accompli. If you don't comply with a court order, someone has to make you. All of whom are Federal employees. Who are on the OPM payroll. Which he controls.
> Once the same party controls the Senate, House, Presidency and Supreme Court, the powers are no longer meaningfully separate. Which is now the case.
Three out of four of those are the direct will of the voters. And the fourth is the indirect will of the voters as expressed by their President.
I think insisting that they always be at odds with each other is unrealistic and goes against the fundamental idea that people have a right to form a government that represents them.
It's like insisting that someone who is appointed to run a given department (e.g., Education, Interior, or EPA), is required to promote more spending or expansion of that department. There's no requirement like that and the decision to pare things back and limit the scope of a department again falls in line with the will of the voters. There's no rule that government is only allowed to grow bigger.
> I think insisting that they always be at odds with each other is unrealistic and goes against the fundamental idea that people have a right to form a government that represents them.
Sure, but then there's no longer meaningful separation of powers and you've converged on a UK-like system where a majority, no matter how narrow, conveys all the power - but with a politicised court (UK SC is still generally agreed to be nonpolitical).
It's a really serious problem for the US that lots of very important rights like, say, interracial marriage in Loving v Virginia, came about as court cases despite and often against the will of the voters.
This is why we need reinforcement of the governmental structures and guardrails. The good faith handshake approach is broken, as we can see through current events. It is not resilient against a malicious executive.
> Part of the problem is the incredible corruption at the Supreme Court. The courts increasingly can't be trusted to be a stopgap.
Just because a body disagrees with your desired interpretation of the law does not mean its corrupt. I disagree with the liberal justices on just about every split decision, but I don't think they're on the take. They simply have a different philosophy of the law.
I challenge you to find any specific court case taking up by the SCOTUS where you think the outcome was the result of corruption.
> Then you have the current administration making veiled threats against senators to ensure they vote as intended.
I'm more concerned about the other direction where the (at the time) Senate majority leader expressly threatened the SCOTUS to vote a particular way or they will "you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price": https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/rare-rebuke-c...
The context of the Supreme Court choosing to reverse 50 years of precedent regarding abortion is pretty important there. Especially as the justices involved were going against their explicit answers from their confirmation hearings, that it was settled law. Schumer also did not threaten violence.
I fail to see how this is a valid example of a corrupt decision.
And if you're going to start prosecuting Presidents for official acts, we definitely should start with the one that was executing US citizens via drone strikes without a trial.
> The context of the Supreme Court choosing to reverse 50 years of precedent regarding abortion is pretty important there. Especially as the justices involved were going against their explicit answers from their confirmation hearings, that it was settled law.
So a judge can never change their mind on anything? And once a ruling is decided, it's carved in stone forever?
By that bankrupt logic we'd be stuck with Plessy v. Ferguson.
> Schumer also did not threaten violence.
I'd love to hear what other consequences you think he was eluding to when he said they will "pay the price". It's clearly not at the ballot box as SCOTUS are appointed for life.
>Just because a body disagrees with your desired interpretation of the law does not mean its corrupt.
Have you heard of a gentleman by the name of Clarence Thomas? If you have, I'm sure you've heard about some of the gifts he's been given by people who had upcoming business before the court?
I think the first question to ask is, if the U.S. had a democratic president during the time of this judgement, would the vote granting presidential still have been 6-3 along party lines?
Perhaps if it had been a democrat president more of the liberal justices would have voted for it too, but that still indicates a corrupted court. It's just corrupted the other way.
There was additional appearance of corruption in that Alito refused to recuse himself even though he projected a clear bias towards the Jan. 6 riots by both flying a flag supporting the rioters [1].
It's nine un-elected people with no term limits who make up a third of our government. No matter who is in charge it's going to be a little corrupt I'd say.
> I think the first question to ask is, if the U.S. had a democratic president during the time of this judgement, would the vote granting presidential still have been 6-3 along party lines?
> Perhaps if it had been a democrat president more of the liberal justices would have voted for it too, but that still indicates a corrupted court. It's just corrupted the other way.
Eh? Biden, a Democrat, was President during the time of that judgement.
The primary benefactor of the outcome of the case is clearly Trump as he's the one with open Federal lawsuits, but the POTUS at the time was a Democrat and the 2024 election had not happened yet either. So whatever immunity power the court granted, it was granting on an ongoing basis to Biden.
> There was additional appearance of corruption in that Alito refused to recuse himself even though he projected a clear bias towards the Jan. 6 riots by both flying a flag supporting the rioters [1].
There's an incredibly blurry line between bias an opinion. Having an opinion is not grounds for recusal. If he was at the capital or somehow involved with a lower court interaction, that'd be a conflict.
> It's nine un-elected people with no term limits who make up a third of our government. No matter who is in charge it's going to be a little corrupt I'd say.
I really don't think they're corrupt at all. There's just this sad framing of "us v.s. them" that makes people think that the only way someone could disagree is they are corrupt. I don't see it like that though. I just see a core difference of opinion (and I happen to side with one side much more than the other).
> Eh? Biden, a Democrat, was President during the time of that judgement.
Sorry, bad typing. The judgement was for the ex-president while Biden was in office and my point was that the spread might have been different if the case was against a Democrat.
I agree about your line between bias and opinion, and I might have my own biases telling me when an opinion is a bias. However the judge for life thing we have here is not good for anybody.
Separation is a good idea, but the implementation in the US needs some work. As majgr said, the feedback loop needs to be short. It's good that policy takes a while to change, because that allows debates, public comments, investigative reporting, etc. But the checks on power need to be fast, because if a president goes outside the legal framework, there's no debate or anything for as long as it takes to file a court case.
IANAL, but I believe that a judge can only order an injunction if a suit is filed by somebody who can show they have been out will be harmed by the action. It'd be nice if judges could be proactive for procedural or Constitutional violations.
> What’s wrong with the separation of powers in the USA?
From an outsider's perspective, it doesn't look like it's working very well for you.
I'm not just talking about Trump - the "separation of powers" seems like a recipe for government shutdowns, pork-barrel spending to buy support, a politicised justice system, and being unable to hold politicians to account for failing to deliver their promises.
"It is not worth discussing with „switched-on” people. They are getting high doses of emotional content, they are made to feel like victims, facts does not matter at all. Political beliefs are intermingled with religious beliefs."
This is fascinating to watch in the current environment. People are decent in real life for the most part but on social media its as if all manner of restraint are removed. Post anything disagreeing with the overall narrative of the site and its like a scene out of World War Z. Just attacked by crowds of people actively calling for your death. Never seen anything like it.
On X they will insult your intelligence or pull the "we tried to tell you and this is what you get you [insert explicative here]. On Reddit they will quite openly hope someone murders you.
Social media has truly insidious powers and I don't think people realize they are under its spell until its too late.
> Social media has truly insidious powers and I don't think people realize they are under its spell until its too late.
Which is why there's now the disastrous government-by-meme plan directed at fighting the people a social media site's owner spends his time fighting with on social media. Plus a few crank theories of his own.
you don't even need to compare the same IRL people with social media. Tuck them behind a car windshield/windscreen and any social relationship is dead.
Sincerely,
A bike rider who commutes in traffic with the same people he works with every day.
The constitution (any constitution) and laws are just words on paper. They only matter when the people in the system make it matter. And larger society is part of that system.
Having a system which incentivizes people to not allow this to happen certainly helps - but corruption is inevitable and requires constant work to correct.
This is a wonderful list and I’m going to hold onto it, thank you.
I love the concept of a “switched on” person and I’ve been struggling to define and name this myself. They’re all across the political spectrum and often outside its binaries, but they all bring an agitated personalized combativeness to the slightest of provocations. They’re deeply enmeshed in, whatever it is. I’m starting to see them as, almost, mentally ill. But I’m still developing my understanding and approach here. So thanks for the food for thought.
What do you mean by “trumpists” precisely? In Poland, two centrist parties take turns in power. One uses more conservative and pro-American rhetoric, while the other is more liberal and pro-European. However, if you focus on what these parties actually do, there is no fundamental difference between them. Both raise taxes, expand bureaucracy, and limit freedom. And neither of them represents Polish interests.
And yet, people supporting one or the other party are furious at each other. It’s like a battle between warring tribes.
I'm referring to actions that can be observed in the vast majority of countries. There are two main cases here, which, surprisingly, are rarely discussed in the media.
The first case is when the state openly violates certain rights concerning individuals or groups, often under some pretext. An example could be a situation where you run an independent political website, and suddenly, it gets taken down by your ISP because they have received an ORDER from the intelligence agency, claiming that what you write is dangerous propaganda. Meanwhile, your constitution guarantees you freedom of speech. Another example might be someone being imprisoned for several months without a verdict or a concrete charge. Simply because they have fallen out of favour with the wrong people and are punished for it. I know this may sound like something that only happens in a 3rd-world country, but it is occurring in nearly all Western nations - it's just that the media choose not to report on it.
The second case is when a law is introduced, usually under a very appealing name - something like "The Environmental Protection Act". After all, who wouldn't want to protect the environment? Then, you suddenly discover that you are not allowed to build a private hydroelectric power plant on your own land because it is deemed illegal. This is happening in almost every country. When was the last time you heard about a law that removed restrictions? One that expanded civil liberties? Probably a long time ago. And yet, new laws are constantly being introduced.
OK. I mean not to excuse the arbitrary enforcement or bad laws but seems logical that your freedom stops where my freedom begins and as time passes more edge cases are found along those lines. Ditching unneeded/bad restrictions is good and not adding restrictions is good but in total idk if I expect the number of restrictions to go down unless people stop being selfish jerks
Yes, this is a good idea.
Alternatively, instead of reading "news"^ go to source and read/listen/watch it yourself. Then make your own mind.
^: which somehow became someone else's opinions in last decade. There's still opinion column. But there's no difference these days. It didn't use to be like this in the past. Journalists used to report events and facts without commentary or would add commentary in the end with some label on it.
You can consider as many dimensions as you want. As I mentioned, for some time we had three papers regularly delivered, for additional perspective.
However typically, a single dimension is a useful first-order approximation[1], and so that's what's done in politics as well. As with all approximations, sometimes it works well and other times it does not.
Seems like Norway has also many constituencies which can favor dominant parties. However unlike US you have also leveling seats which balances it a bit.
I think it is fair, because professionals do not use cheap tricks, but at least they are trying to distance themselves when writing a report. I like discussions when Sławomir Sierakowski (from Krytyka Polityczna) is present, because he always have some new ideas, new ways to describe reality. Although, I do not follow Krytyka Polityczna.
> When someone is hired into a professional job, is there something in the laws of physics that prevent them from doing wrong?
No, but work of journalists is highly visible. Probably, this creates more incentive to write according to rules of the trade. There are examples of journalists who went with ruling regime and got monetary prizes. Some are switching to it now, betting that regime change again and their dedication will bring rewards.
It is very funny how humans experience reality eh? Like, the literal assignment of a word to something can cause the representation of it in a person's mind (aka the reality) to change. Also weird: it is essentially not possible to talk about the phenomenon in a serious way (participants range of possible actions become highly constrained, and therefore highly predictable).
I really wonder if this normative phenomenon will be able to survive in the age of AI.
> Get subscription of high value newspaper or magazine. Professionals work there, so you will get real facts, worthy opinions and less emotions.
All printed papers in the US that I’m aware of serve corporate political interests so I lost you there. Then you have magazines that are aligned with various think tanks and lobbyists. The truth isn’t somewhere in the middle of all this, it’s with totally independent journalists on new media like Rumble.
How do you arrive at this conclusion? Individuals don't have to tell you where their money comes from. They might even be easier to influence/buy than the people inside the big news institutions.
Mostly by observing the sacrifices they make for their coverage, especially over several years. There’s always an element of trust, that’s life. I’d direct anyone to Seymour Hersh, Glenn Greenwald, and Matt Taibbi for example.
There are some left if you look. The Texas Tribune[0] is a bright spot for issues related to Texas; a state that has been doing trumpism before trump ever became a thing--but with less calls for succession these days.
I don't think the point is high value publications lack agendas or bias, but that they're targeted at an audience with much more respect; i.e. they'll try to convince you will argument and evidence, not outright lie or gaslight you. If you combine as few as 2 or 3 sources - intentionally looking for alternative views and angles - you will have a much more balanced understanding. You're still allowed to land on strong, passionate positions, just don't start there because you've been manipulated by a social media echo chamber.
It doesn't have to be printed in the US. The Guardian is backed by a non-profit and there's a US (digital) edition plus a printed weekly international edition.
The Guardian is not the example I would have chosen. They are among the most politically biased publications you could have chosen. Simply being backed a by a non-profit doesn’t mean they can’t be pushing an agenda.
Truthful doesn't mean unbiased. Different people who agree on the facts but have different values may come to different conclusions about what is or isn't newsworthy and worth mentioning.
It's the British style, but it doesn't make it bad journalism. You don't have to read or like it (or the opinion pieces), but their members clearly do. I was responding to the topic of "serving corporate political interests".
The guardian openly states on their website that they are anti-trump. So going to posit they may be less that neutral.
From the banner on their home page:
"From Elon Musk to the Murdochs, billionaire owners control much of the information that reaches the public. Meanwhile, increasing numbers of bad actors are spreading disinformation that threatens democracy"
also
"After Trump remarked that “in this term, everybody wants to be my friend,” The Guardian blasted out a defiant fundraising email stating, “Trump, we don’t want to be your friend” and urging readers to contribute a year-end gift."
With the overwhelming trends towards winner takes all, regulatory capture (or elimination) and western oligarchs this seems like a valuable perspective. Some of the balance we need is on the other side of the scale from the power; I'd like to subscribe to a paper that always stakes out oppo the current ruling party & power.
Last I am going to post on this, but its fascinating the pushback even on this site against what I wrote. Everything I wrote is literally from the Guardian's site. People are insistent though, not that they did not post it but that I am still somehow wrong and that my posting it is evidence of some sort of bias. We have become so echo chambered that we demand that others ignore the evidence of their own eyes. Some even arguing that it's right for news to be biased as long as its against Trump.
I want all news sources to be honest, that lack of neutrality is exactly what led us to the current situation where there isn't a single trust worthy news source. You cant go anywhere just to get the facts. You want another Trump, a biased media is exactly how you get it.
If you read carefully, that's not anti-Trump, that's nuanced. A newspaper isn't supposed to be friends with politicians - it's supposed to report on them critically and truthfully.
A newspaper is supposed to be neutral, if you think Trumps prior behavior absolves them of neutrality then they are not a newspaper they are an opinion paper. Which is fine, as long as everyone acknowledges the slant. Not really sure why you are upset that I want my news to be neutral
You claimed that Guardian's banners state that they are anti-Trump. They don't. Game over.
And when Biden was elected, I'm pretty sure he didn't say “in this term, everybody wants to be my friend,” hence I'm pretty sure the banners were also different.
Friend, I'm not sure I follow you. My claim is still they are anti--trump based purely on their statements. You may attempt to twist their words however you like but taken at face value, they are clearly anti-trump. Their banner literally states: "This is what we're up against"
Friend, I am not really sure what you are arguing. There website fundraising banner literally says they are against Trump, Musk and the rest. I'm not the one saying it, they are. If you disagree, your argument is with the Guardians editors.
This take seems to me to be a classic case of the US tendency to irrational suspicion as first described in the Hofstadter essay The Paranoid Style in American Politics.
I'm not American but I do subscribe to The Atlantic, which seems to be owned by some kind of philanthropic trust with a do-gooding billionaire at the helm. As a European, that's plenty good enough for me. Financial incentives are important but they're not everything. We also sometimes need to trust in the good faith of professionals who take their jobs seriously. In this case journalists. Journalism is itself a corporate body of sorts, i.e. a guild. Its mission is to seek truth, just as the medical guild's mission is to heal. Personally, I choose to take both groups of professionals at their word.
A subscription to The Atlantic is a great deal, by the way. The volume of content is manageably low and the quality is consistently excellent.
I’m saying if you don’t seriously consider that someone is talking shit about their ex when talking to someone, until proven otherwise, you’ll be easy to fool eh?
And the Editor in Chief is Jeffery Goldberg, of Iraq WMD conspiracy theory fame. I’m not saying they don’t publish good pieces, but seriously, talk about not a reliable source.
Then you are not aware of all printed papers. As someone outside the USA, my local university library already stocks two - Harper's Magazine and The New York Review of Books (not related to the NYT book section at all). They both have an independent editorial board and decades of dedication to journalism.
- Get subscription of high value newspaper or magazine. Professionals work there, so you will get real facts, worthy opinions and less emotions.
- It is better to not use social media. You never know if you are discussing with normal person, a political party troll, or Russian troll.
- It is not worth discussing with „switched-on” people. They are getting high doses of emotional content, they are made to feel like victims, facts does not matter at all. Political beliefs are intermingled with religious beliefs.
- emotional content is being treated with higher priority by brain, so it is better to stay away from it, or it will ruin your evening.
- people are getting addicted to emotions and victimization, so after public broadcaster has been freed from it, around 5% people switched to private tv station to get their daily doses.
- social media feels like a new kind of virus, we all need to get sick and develop some immunity to it.
- in the end, there are more reasonable people, but democracies needs to develop better constitutional/law systems, with very short feedback loop. It is very important to have fast reaction on breaking the law by ruling regime.