The more pressing problem is the voters who accept policies being put in place based on something going wrong one time without accepting that things go wrong and we have to tolerate problems to some extent. If policies were made after a bit of experimentation, maybe trying a few things in parallel [0] and with prescribed objectives they were to be evaluated against the legislative process would get better results.

[0] The results of experiments like Shenzhen are significant. The US used to be a lot better at letting people act independently too.

Nowadays I feel like it is contributing noise. The internet has become X, Reddit, AI, doomscrolling and group messaging.

Very little room for positive messaging. I don’t mean to harp about the theft of attention: the message itself is just not even contributing anything.

Negativity drives online news consumption - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35197587 - March 2023 (355 comments)

“What steps do you plan to take to reduce the conflict in the Middle East? Or the rates of inflation, crime and unemployment? What are your plans for preserving the environment or reducing the risk of nuclear war? What do you plan to do about NATO, OPEC, the CIA, affirmative action, and the monstrous treatment of the Baha’is in Iran? I shall take the liberty of answering for you: You plan to do nothing about them.”

https://www.nateliason.com/notes/amusing-death-neil-postman

I would like to look at one bad thing at a time, please, but I know that's likely not compatible with money making models.

closer to you gives higher rank in the feed, tighter blast radius lower rank.

example, events in your present location rank higher, events 100miles away rank lower. police stopping someone for a seatbelt and issuing a ticket, likely ranks lower, vs evacuation order for city ranks higher.

a cheap way of assessing relevance score.

Factfulness helped to show me that, despite our brain's bias, the world is actually consistently getting better.

"Turn off the news, love your neighbors"

But the author missed some key nuances.

- Whether a news is good or bad depends on the person.

- The same news is seen as good by one person but as bad news by another or not news by some. Good and bad is too general categorization.

- People seek out news naturally to expand the awareness. The author appear to make the point people are forced to know.

> The fix is to manage the consumption and the sources. …

> Containing news consumption to defined windows of time …

> Choosing depth over volume

Golden.

TBH, we must concentrate on what matters to us. When people cross that boundary, they not only hurt themselves, but end up hurting someone close by for issues from far far away.

Yes, a lot of the news is sensationalized and blown out of proportion.

But also YES, things are absolutely trending in the wrong direction and you should both be aware of that and be loudly screaming about it. Going to protests, boycotting companies run by these CEOs leading us into oligarchy, and letting people know your stance.

The idea that "I can't do anything about it, so I'll just bury my head in the sand" is the rhetoric that the people benefitting from rigging the system want you to have. It makes it easier for them to screw you over.

No, your brain was neven designed for this much bad news. It also wasn't designed for the Internet, tv, smartphones, processed food, soda, painting, sleeping in a bed, to infinity. It's a garbage argument that falls apart at first glance.

Edit to add: I highly recommend meditation and days off from technology. But the answer is not what many people in this thread are proposing. Steve Bannon's "flood the zone" strategy is winning.

https://leash.ax

- Patrick Bateman (as adapted by Mary Heron)

We're having too much of these look back to hunter-gatherer state of affairs to explain modern phenomenons. It feels like they didn't really bother looking for an actual relevant argument.

On one side, did hunters who analyzed the situation before moving actually not survive ? How would someone even prove such a claim ?

On the other side our brains have excelent plasticity and we're constantly surprised at how it can adapt to extremely impacting life events. Is our cognitive stuck to where it was hundred of centuries ago and couldn't adapt to the printing press or the internet ?

We might have social issues and huge problems to solve to better handle our current technical landscape, but going back to Neanderthals to find an explanation is a waste of time and good will IMHO.

There must be better science out there and people actually trying to tackle these kind of issues. What would be the Hank Green like people of these fields to who we should pay more attention?

When I stopped reading X, I had this thought one morning:

> The political crisis, the bloody war, the looming apocalypse only exist to distract you from the fact that you didn't fold the laundry.

The longer I live news-free, the more I find it true.

It is often said that the average person today has better food, shelter, health services, etc. today than a king had just a short while ago.

Bad news sells, though. Don’t buy it.

This insinuates that the human brain can not cope with overflow of bad news. That's wrong. For instance, I stopped consuming horrible news media for the most part. So I get fewer bad news in. I also don't watch everything on youtube either; rather than watching a video where person xyz lost family members abc in some crash, I watch and study surstromming reaction videos (these are fascinating to me, because of group behaviour and also individual's showing varied results here). I can select what I do and watch; the whole article feels as if someone had a need to publish a paper rather than make an objective observation. Publish or perish days...

Relentless overthinking, all that blood flow to the developing brain. Nutrition and oxygen to those cells at incredible rates.

My focus is insane when adrenaline hits.

I’ve been known to argue with takeout cashiers over portion sizing for a full day hit before tournaments.

I feel perfectly happy sorting by worst taking the top K and then understanding what can be mitigated etc

Not doing this is immoral IMO.

But I hear and understand certain kinds of people who say they can't deal with hearing about anything remotely unpleasant.

But then these same kinds of people seem to enjoy the kinds of horror or thriller movies I detest.

I feel alone and like an alien.

I have no doubt the waterfall of bad news could be good news if society were properly engineered in accordance with our scientific progress, rather than in accordance to the easiest accumulation of capital.

Thankfully the recent soccer World Cup is showing the world that America is the greatest country on earth. At least the foreigners will learn the truth (the democrats? That’s another story of perpetual self depression).