Maybe zero news is suboptimal for people in corporates, or who rely on it for networking. I buy that news is widely overconsumed though, and don’t buy that getting embarrassed by lack of news-knowledge is commonly a serious problem.
I’ve seen people get very embarrassed by this but perhaps that’s irrational on there part and due to social oversensitivity out of proportion to the actual social costs (hardly unheard of)
Thanks, Ryan, but years of reading the news have left me unable to process such a long, thoughtful piece about how years of reading the news will leave me unable to process long, thoughtful pieces.
I didn’t derive sufficient immediate pleasure from reading the news. But like eating one’s vegetables, I thought it was justified by long-term returns.
(Hoping someone now provides a reason I don’t have to eat my vegetables.)
I feel like not consuming news, television and facebook are really pretty good moves.
How about the prestige/social benefits of being up on the news? Or indeed some TV?
I figure they’re less than the benefits from other enjoyable activities like socialising, networking, or doing interesting projects.
In extremis, presumably the prestige costs of being totally uninformed about the news are worth avoiding?
Maybe. Zero food is obviously suboptimal...
Maybe zero news is suboptimal for people in corporates, or who rely on it for networking. I buy that news is widely overconsumed though, and don’t buy that getting embarrassed by lack of news-knowledge is commonly a serious problem.
I’ve seen people get very embarrassed by this but perhaps that’s irrational on there part and due to social oversensitivity out of proportion to the actual social costs (hardly unheard of)
What’s the argument for not consuming news? I don’t necessarily disagree, but it’s not self-evident to me.
I found Avoid News, Towards a Healthy News Diet by Rolf Dobelli quite convincing.
Thanks, Ryan, but years of reading the news have left me unable to process such a long, thoughtful piece about how years of reading the news will leave me unable to process long, thoughtful pieces.
My solution is listening to all the TED talks-only about a six-month delay and much more durable information.
Another option is Long News: https://www.ted.com/talks/kirk_citron_and_now_the_real_news And if you are into global catastrophic risks, you only need to spend about 10 minutes a month here: http://gcrinstitute.org/gcr-news-summary-june-2015/
This is the blog post that convinced me a few years ago.
I love it when reason points in a direction I already wanted to go but mistakenly thought it unreasonable. Thanks.
Why did you want to go that direction?
I didn’t derive sufficient immediate pleasure from reading the news. But like eating one’s vegetables, I thought it was justified by long-term returns.
(Hoping someone now provides a reason I don’t have to eat my vegetables.)
The paleo diet?
http://jayquantified.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-paleo-diet-follow-up-v.html
(But see http://lesswrong.com/lw/e9o/what_is_the_evidence_in_favor_of_paleo/ )
Haha, don’t be silly, I stopped eating solid food a long time ago.
[Was just joking about vegetables.]