<story><title>Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company</title><url>https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2023/08/01/news-avoid-depressing/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tekla</author><text>&amp;gt; That opinions pdf on supremecourt.gov is 237 pages long. I need to read multiple news articles and then a novel just to have an opinion on something now? That&amp;#x27;s cool, I just won&amp;#x27;t then.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s incredibly hard to have a conversation on a complex legal document if you do not read the legal document.</text></item><item><author>starttoaster</author><text>&amp;gt; There was no need to follow the result of every individual rocket volley in the Ukraine or each individual comment from a politician.&lt;p&gt;This is really it. Who has the time or the emotional bandwidth to spare for following all of this? I was talking to somebody about the overturning of affirmative action, and their response to me was basically &amp;quot;if you haven&amp;#x27;t read the Supreme Court opinions on this matter, we can&amp;#x27;t have a real conversation about this.&amp;quot; That opinions pdf on supremecourt.gov is 237 pages long. I need to read multiple news articles and then a novel just to have an opinion on something now? That&amp;#x27;s cool, I just won&amp;#x27;t then.</text></item><item><author>sylens</author><text>I was recently listening to a podcast recapping a television show set in the early 2000s, where a current college aged student basically said &amp;quot;I wish I had the experience of being a teenager in that time period - it seemed much simpler as you weren&amp;#x27;t aware of every bad thing that was happening around the world&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;And that&amp;#x27;s really the way it used to be. It was even better before 24 hour news networks, as your evening news would give you the stories of the day, and then you would buy the next morning&amp;#x27;s newspaper if you wanted to read about it more in depth. Sometimes multiple newspapers if it&amp;#x27;s a topic you really wanted to sink your teeth into. There was no need to follow the result of every individual rocket volley in the Ukraine or each individual comment from a politician.&lt;p&gt;As more people turn away from the news, it seems that they rely on their own smaller, informal communities to filter and signal boost the topics they really should pay attention to. Articles that get shared in a Discord catch my attention more than anything on Drudge or even Hacker News.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>koube</author><text>Lawmakers don&amp;#x27;t even read the bills the vote on, they have legal experts explain the implications to them. Would you have a better understanding of a system if you skimmed the source code or if you watched a presentation from the author?&lt;p&gt;237 pages of legalese is way beyond what most people can handle, this is why lawyers exist. If you&amp;#x27;re saying people shouldn&amp;#x27;t have an opinion unless they read complex legal documents you&amp;#x27;re just saying you don&amp;#x27;t think people should have opinions.</text></comment>
<story><title>Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company</title><url>https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2023/08/01/news-avoid-depressing/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tekla</author><text>&amp;gt; That opinions pdf on supremecourt.gov is 237 pages long. I need to read multiple news articles and then a novel just to have an opinion on something now? That&amp;#x27;s cool, I just won&amp;#x27;t then.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s incredibly hard to have a conversation on a complex legal document if you do not read the legal document.</text></item><item><author>starttoaster</author><text>&amp;gt; There was no need to follow the result of every individual rocket volley in the Ukraine or each individual comment from a politician.&lt;p&gt;This is really it. Who has the time or the emotional bandwidth to spare for following all of this? I was talking to somebody about the overturning of affirmative action, and their response to me was basically &amp;quot;if you haven&amp;#x27;t read the Supreme Court opinions on this matter, we can&amp;#x27;t have a real conversation about this.&amp;quot; That opinions pdf on supremecourt.gov is 237 pages long. I need to read multiple news articles and then a novel just to have an opinion on something now? That&amp;#x27;s cool, I just won&amp;#x27;t then.</text></item><item><author>sylens</author><text>I was recently listening to a podcast recapping a television show set in the early 2000s, where a current college aged student basically said &amp;quot;I wish I had the experience of being a teenager in that time period - it seemed much simpler as you weren&amp;#x27;t aware of every bad thing that was happening around the world&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;And that&amp;#x27;s really the way it used to be. It was even better before 24 hour news networks, as your evening news would give you the stories of the day, and then you would buy the next morning&amp;#x27;s newspaper if you wanted to read about it more in depth. Sometimes multiple newspapers if it&amp;#x27;s a topic you really wanted to sink your teeth into. There was no need to follow the result of every individual rocket volley in the Ukraine or each individual comment from a politician.&lt;p&gt;As more people turn away from the news, it seems that they rely on their own smaller, informal communities to filter and signal boost the topics they really should pay attention to. Articles that get shared in a Discord catch my attention more than anything on Drudge or even Hacker News.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>starttoaster</author><text>You&amp;#x27;re absolutely right. However, we&amp;#x27;re not lawyers discussing law. We&amp;#x27;re random people that play video games discussing personal opinions in an informal setting. The point is we&amp;#x27;re getting hose fed &amp;quot;news stories&amp;quot; and I&amp;#x27;m one mere person with a wife who I give much of my attention to, a job that I probably work more than my 40 hour share of a week at, hobbies that take more of my time, etc. Do you think it&amp;#x27;s reasonable to expect everyone with an opinion to have read a 237 page opinion piece on supremecourt.gov? Much more likely we&amp;#x27;re reading some editor&amp;#x27;s cut to speed along the process of absorbing enough information to be dangerous. I think it&amp;#x27;s fair to point out I might be missing some nuance of a judge&amp;#x27;s opinion because I didn&amp;#x27;t read their individual 45 page opinion, but in about 10 minutes I&amp;#x27;m going to be reading a news story about China launching a real Death Star into orbit, and I need to get my brain ready to consume knowledge on that one, and then in about 25 minutes I&amp;#x27;ll be reading about covid-23.</text></comment>