A Patently Obvious Problem - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/16/opinion/16Lichtman.html <comment><USER2> A few observations:

1\. This is a sleeper case (i4i v. Microsoft) that has drawn relatively little attention in the public's eye. In reality, the stakes associated with it are _huge_ and the interest it has drawn from key players in the tech industry is commensurate with those stakes.

2\. The reason it is not a particularly exciting case from a headline standpoint is that it deals with what appears to be a specialist technical issue of patent law, that is, what is the proper "standard of proof" to be applied when a patent is challenged as being invalid? Should it be a "clear and convincing" standard or a "preponderance of evidence" standard?

3\. In fact, the _practical_ effect of this case on patents will be far greater than that of, say, _Bilski_ , which dealt with the question of what constitutes patentable subject matter. _Bilski_ covered business method patents only. The _i4i_ case affects basically every case pending in the courts in which the validity of a patent is being challenged.

4\. Among those in the tech world, just about everybody who is anybody has weighed in with a "friend-of-the-court" (amicus) brief asking the Supreme Court to throw out the clear-and-convincing standard in favor of a preponderance standard. The parade includes Google, Apple, Facebook, Intuit, Yahoo, Intel, Dell, HP, and others. A group of 36 law professors specializing in IP have also asked that the standard be changed, as has EFF. A superbly informative summation of the amicus briefs seeking to undo the clear-and- convincing standard is found here: [http://www.law.com/jsp/cc/PubArticleCC.jsp?id=1202472695453&...](http://www.law.com/jsp/cc/PubArticleCC.jsp?id=1202472695453&Patent_Litigation_Extra_Heavy_Hitters_Back_Microsoft_Supreme_Court_Bid_in_ii_Case). A good discussion also appears here: [http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2010/09/challenging-the- clea...](http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2010/09/challenging-the-clear-and- convincing-standard-of-proof-for-invalidating-patents-in-court.html).

5\. By the way, the other side of the argument is well-articulated here: [http://ipwatchdog.com/2011/03/13/supreme-court-patent- watch-...](http://ipwatchdog.com/2011/03/13/supreme-court-patent- watch-i4i-files-brief-in-microsoft-case/id=15745/).

6\. So why is this so important and why do some companies (such as Apple) that frequently rely on patents to protect their competitive positions side with Microsoft in wanting to make it easier to find patents invalid? The simple answer: trolls. In essence, when a patent's validity is challenged and a jury is instructed to uphold it unless it finds "clear and convincing" evidence that it is not valid (owing to whatever ground, whether it be obviousness or existence of prior art or any other recognized ground for declaring a patent invalid), the challenge will almost certainly fail in the average case. The jury is basically told that the patent is presumed valid unless they can clearly find compelling evidence to invalidate. Since, in most cases, what is offered is conflicting evidence of varying types, jurors (typically not wanting to sort through a maze of technical evidence) will simply shrug their shoulders and say that the patent stands. If, on the other hand, the jurors are instructed that they are to determine the issue based on which way the preponderance of evidence tips, then they are to give no deference to the findings of the USPTO in upholding the patent but are to look at it fresh to decide whether the evidence shows that it is more likely than not that a patent is invalid. Thus, under current standards, trolls come into court heavily armed with law that says, in effect, uphold what the USPTO did unless you find a hellava reason not to. Microsoft, and the other tech companies, want this changed so that trolls have no built-in advantage when it comes to a litigated dispute over patent validity, i.e., they want a "level playing field" once the fight is on.

7\. On the technical issue, patents laws are governed by statutes enacted by Congress but no existing statute requires that a clear-and-convincing standard be applied to this issue. The parties dispute the issue but Microsoft's position is that no such standard had been applied by federal courts (at least not with any consistency) before Congress created the Federal Circuit court to oversee patent disputes. Microsoft argues that the Federal Circuit has skewed patent litigation by arbitrarily making it more difficult to invalidate patents than Congress had intended. This was the same court, by the way, that had adopted the _State Street_ test that led to a wild proliferation of business-method patents and that was struck down in _Bilski_. The Supreme Court is now being asked to bring a bit more sanity to the related area of standards for determining patent invalidity.

It is hard to say which way this one will go. The patent bar is in an uproar that issued patents might not be deemed presumptively valid when challenged but might be much more vulnerable to challenge going forward, and so too are the trolls. Pretty much everybody else favors reform, including most of the tech industry heavyweights. My own sense is that this one is going to tip toward Microsoft and that we will get some measure of reform here. This would be a significant and very practical step toward undercutting a good measure of the power currently held by the trolls.

<comment><USER3> Do you have any thoughts on SCOTUSblog's take on it, that it revolves around a question of whether the standard of review should depend on whether the USPTO considered a particular piece of evidence? --> [http://www.scotusblog.com/2011/04/court-takes-up-standard- of...](http://www.scotusblog.com/2011/04/court-takes-up-standard-of-patent- validity/)

Their take is that Microsoft is only asking for the standard to be lowered with regard to prior art that was not considered by the USPTO. Microsoft argues that the case for deference is greatly weakened if the USPTO never evaluated the specific prior art in question; but that deference _should_ still be given w.r.t. anything that the USPTO considered.

IBM's amicus brief opposes that approach, because they argue it'll create a mess if the standard of review depends on details of a specific patent's administrative record, and because it will encourage patent filers to just dump huge reams of potential prior-art into the USPTO record, to make sure that anything that could possibly be found will count as having been already considered by the USPTO.

<comment><USER2> I think that a half-way approach would only create chaos and would satisfy no one. Its main appeal is that it would give the Court a middle ground by which it could say, consistent with general principles of administrative law, that the USPTO should be accorded great deference but not insofar as it did not in fact consider the evidence subsequently used to challenge its decision. That works logically but, as noted by IBM, would likely only complicate the issue beyond bounds as a practical matter.

Microsoft likely fashioned its petition along these lines owing to a dictum in _KSR v. Teleflex_ that said as much and also to try to appeal to the incremental jurisprudential approach of the current Supreme Court (decide only what is absolutely necessary for a given case and leave it to future cases to do more). The irony of this is that Chief Justice Roberts, who seems to specialize in incremental jurisprudence, has recused himself from the case and will not participate in the decision.

I believe the half-way argument is weak and will not hold sway. If the Court goes for reform, there is no reason it should not go all the way on this issue. This is particularly true given that nothing in the statutory language limits the Court's power to set an appropriate standard. Unlike _Bilski_ , where it faced a challenge to business method patents in a context where Congress had _expressly said you could have them_ , there is nothing here that stands in the way of the Court's making a coherent ruling based entirely on what is appropriate for the case. I am hopeful, therefore, that this case will help bring some sanity to this troubled area of the law.

<comment><USER4> One of the amicus briefs urged that courts should give deference to the examiner's decision _only as to prior art that had been discussed in writing by the patent examiner,_ thus providing a written record of reasoned decision- making that could be reviewed by a court. That brief relied on the Supreme Court's holding in the _Zurko_ case [1] that the standard of review in the Administrative Procedure Act applies in appeals from decisions by the USPTO just as much as in other administrative appeals.

Footnote: The _Zurko_ patent [2] was one of the early software patents, for a method for executing trusted commands in an untrusted environment. The lead inventor was Mary Ellen Zurko, aka "mez," who then worked for Digital Equipment and is now with IBM. (Disclosure: I drafted that patent.)

[1] _Dickinson v. Zurko,_ <http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/98-377.ZO.html>; see also _In re Zurko,_ [http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate- courts/F3/111/...](http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate- courts/F3/111/887/630610/)

[2] <http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6507909.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My law firm (which is arguing Microsoft v. i4i before the Supreme Court) is hosting an event on the morning of May 4 in Palo Alto to discuss i4i along with two other major patent cases before the Supreme Court this year. Both of the attorneys who are arguing the case will be there.

If you are interested in attending, get in touch with me.

</comment><comment><USER6> Once again, reporter engages in static analysis to ignore a good solution. Article confidently states that they get so many inventions that a thorough review would cost too many billions for fees to support. But why isn't charging whatever a proper review actually costs a good option? Raise fees a bit, raise standards a lot, and this half a million each year volume problem goes away too.

I can't stand the idea that the patent office is so bad that we should only consider courtroom based solutions. Courtrooms are terrible too - way too much expense, too much uncertainty, and too large $s getting risked on what a jury decides or when a judge last had a snack break. They should have their place, but it shouldn't be the first line of defense or general solution for the problem.

<comment><USER7> surely raising the fee is just going to screw over anyone without corporate backing, and do nothing to the corporations who already can afford to file most of the spurious patents?

<comment><USER8> Not if the money from the fee actually goes to paying competent personnel to analyze whether the patent is spurious.

<comment><USER9> In which case, validating and ensuring the flow of patents coming in doesn't stop becomes a business interest to them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Seems like a stopgap to actually fixing the patent problem though. This might help medium/large companies that are the victims of patent trolls, but small business/individuals would still have to deal with the realities of litigation and possible loss.

<comment><USER11> That's nonetheless a step in the right direction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If one of the conceptual problems with a jury over-ruling a patent's validity is their lack of expertise, what if the jury in patent cases were composed of practitioners or experts in the field at question?

</comment><comment><USER13> It mentioned in the article that it costs the patent office more money than what they charge for processing patent claims. Why is that? Why don't they just charge the full amount?

<comment><USER14> Today, you can file a patent for under $1,000(not including attorneys fees) depending on how many claims and drawings you have. If they charged the $10B they said it costs to review the number of applications they get now(around 500,000) your $1,000 becomes $20,000. At that price most independent inventors couldn't(or wouldn't) file. Remember that the entire purpose of the uspto is to encourage innovation and if it costs you a year's salary to get a patent on something that might not ever make you a dime then you're not going to be encouraged to innovate.

<comment><USER15> > Remember that the entire purpose of the uspto is to encourage innovation

While patents could in principle be reformed, in practise any reform is unlikely to work because people would game the system. The best way to encourage innovation would probably be to abolish patents altogether.

<comment><USER16> Abolishing patent system would be an overkill, but shrinking it, say, ten- fold, would help.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Affinity Publisher (an InDesign competitor) in public beta - <AUTHOR> https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/publisher/ <comment><USER2> Hooray! Been looking forward to this for ages. Serif are doing amazing stuff at the moment.

I can now completely drop Creative Suite...</comment>


Attention early adopters. KUKU.io, a new social media app, is looking for you - <AUTHOR> http://kuku.io/

<comment><USER2> 504 Gateway Time-out nginx/1.8.0

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry for that! The issue has appeared because of the update deployment. You are more than welcome to try open the page once again :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hey, Dont mean to offend but white text on light grey background is just not readable on mobile

Hope this helps

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much for your feedback! Could you please clarify which text on the landing page was while on the light grey background? It would help us a lot because we can't repeat this issue on our devices.

Thank you so much in advance!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How does this differentiate itself from Buffer?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much for your interest and your question!

Building KUKU, the team wanted to create an application, which would be extremely user-friendly and easy to get started, so even newcomers could start scheduling and publishing their posts in a few seconds after a login. BTW, we love Buffer and its helpful features for social media and content managers but the main mission of the KUKU team was not to build a giant social media management system like Buffer, but to win everyone's hearts with its functionality, intuitiveness and neat UI.

I would be happy if you could become a KUKU's early adopter, suggest us additional features, which would be helpful for you in future, and make a decision whether KUKU differs from Buffer.:)</comment></comment>


A trip out to SEA - <AUTHOR> http://sortieenmer.com

<comment><AUTHOR> I like the idea, but it is not believable for someone who is at home with the sea life. For the rest of the audience, it should work.

</comment><comment><USER2> I'm sure this is wonderful, but I really can't care. I have work to do, films I want to watch, books I want to read, friends I want to meet with.

Why should I sit and watching this with _zero_ idea of what it is? Is it entertaining? Drama? A demonstration of technology? An interactive "film"?

Maybe you have time. I don't. I'm going back to making things.</comment>


I wrote a command-line Ruby program to manage EC2 instances for me - <AUTHOR> https://www.codewithjason.com/wrote-command-line-ruby-program-manage-ec2-instances/ <comment><USER2> Dude, thank you so much. This looks like exactly what I need for a project I'm on.</comment>


You can load a die but you can't bias a coin (2002) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/diceRev2.pdf <comment><USER2> If you go beyond the title and read the paper carefully, what it states is if you spin a coin rapidly in the air with a horizontal spinning axis and catch it in the air, then weighting the coin doesn't bias it. If you throw a coin in other ways (e.g. let it land on a surface), then you can of course bias a coin.

</comment><comment><USER3> That's why cypherpunks each bring their own coin and XOR the heads. Or flip a biased coin twice. If you get HH or TT, discard and start over. If you get HT or TH, take the first flip of the pair.

More to the paper, I liked the point about using unexpected results to drive student engagement. In one of the early episodes of Very Bad Wizards, they described some aspects of teaching as like a magic show. I think it's a good analogy.

[http://verybadwizards.com/](http://verybadwizards.com/)

<comment><USER4> "Or flip a biased coin twice" \- TFA argues that there is no such thing.

> _That 's why cypherpunks each bring their own coin and XOR the heads_

I'm not sure what part of the article you are referring to here, but this is more about the XOR being decorrelated from either of the inputs than about anything to do with the efficacy/existence of a biased coin, right?

<comment><USER3> > a biased coin ... TFA argues that there is no such thing.

The article repeatedly admits biased coins exist, it just adds a flipping protocol that can mitigate this bias, a protocol that can only be verified by a nonflipper who can accurately measure the angle of spin and number of rotations with the naked eye in under a second.

You can instead generate unbiased "flips" through math, rather than physics and trusting someone else's thumb.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I still think you manufacture a (slightly) unfair coin: [http://www.win- vector.com/blog/2015/04/i-still-think-you-can...](http://www.win- vector.com/blog/2015/04/i-still-think-you-can-manufacture-an-unfair-coin/)

( The post got truncated by a bad character in my blockquote paste (sorry!). It should be legible now (and include two figures). )

</comment><comment><USER6> This is only with solid coins. I'm pretty sure with a liquid centered coin, with sufficient tinkering, it would be possible to design a biased coin using the changing weight distribution to keep the flip biased to certain positions.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's already biased towards the face that is facing up to start. With practice or by accident, you can toss it so that it wobbles but doesn't actually flip over. A casual observer cannot tell the difference.

Explained in [http://www.amazon.com/Heads-Or-Tails-Gary- Kosnitzky/dp/B00FM...](http://www.amazon.com/Heads-Or-Tails-Gary- Kosnitzky/dp/B00FM0IALE)

<comment><USER8> TODO: Build a robot with precise enough control that it can flip a coin (properly flipping, not just wobbling) and then catch it in a desired state (either heads or tails) with substantial accuracy.

<comment><USER9> That reminds me of the rock-paper-scissors robot from a while ago that always "wins" by watching the human hand to see what sign they are throwing, then throwing the countersign faster. It is so fast that unless you are watching it on high-speed film, you can't tell that it is cheating.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nxjjztQKtY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nxjjztQKtY)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This needs a 2002 in the title.

</comment><comment><USER11> > The biased coin has long been part of statistical folklore, but it does not > exist in the form in which it is imagined.

Sure it does, just abstractly. You can simulate a coin if any bias using a fair coin.

</comment><comment><USER12> Got a lot of respect for Andrew Gelman, but it's too bad he didn't cite Persi Diaconis: [http://statweb.stanford.edu/~susan/papers/headswithJ.pdf](http://statweb.stanford.edu/~susan/papers/headswithJ.pdf)

<comment><USER13> The Gelman-Nolan paper is from 2002; the Diaconis et al. paper is from 2007, and cites Gelman-Nolan. Gelman and Nolan are pretty smart, but they don't have a time machine.

<comment><USER5> Indeed Diaconis et al. cites Gelman-Nolan.

<comment><USER14> The nut of the citation is worth reading:

"In light of all the variations, it is natural to ask if inhomogeneity in the mass distribution of the coin can change the outcome. [Lindley, 1981] followed by [Gelman & Nolan, 2002] give informal arguments suggesting that inhomogeneity doesn't matter for flipped coins caught in the hand. Jaynes reports that 100 flips of a jar lid showed no evidence of bias. We had coins made with lead on one side and balsa wood on the other. Again no bias showed up. All of this changes drastically if inhomogenious coins are spun on the table (they tend to land heavy side up). As explained above, some of this bias persists for coins flipped onto a table or floor."

You have to love Persi Diaconis. Having coins made up with lead on one side and balsa wood on the other.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Piracy is Good for Innovation - <AUTHOR> http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2010/11/why-piracy-is-good-for-innovation.html

<comment><USER2> This article, while quite a different point of view, has a problem. It keeps referring to "illegal" services like Napster, KaZaA, maybe others.

I don't think they were really "illegal" when they started, they only _became_ illegal along the way, right? And I'm not even sure that "illegal" is a good word to describe them, given that copyright infringement is pretty much a civil action, only criminal in some extreme cases.</comment>


Smells Like Teen Spirit played by an orchestra of printers and floppy drives - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwuCQ3u2N_A <comment><USER2> It's only legit if UMG signs this to a 5 album deal. :)</comment>


Understanding Deep Dreams: An ELI5 on CNNs - <AUTHOR> http://www.alanzucconi.com/?p=2334 <comment><USER2> If you want a true ELI5 on deep dreams, I like the top comment in this archived reddit thread: [https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3cbelv/e...](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3cbelv/eli5_can_anyone_explain_googles_deep_dream/)

He also links to the deepdream subreddit, which has much more information and resources:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/deepdream](https://www.reddit.com/r/deepdream)</comment>


A British-led consortium has outlined its plans to land a probe on the Moon - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30102343 <comment><USER2> Here's an artist's conception of how the expedition might end up looking like: [https://ahmadalikarim.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/asdfghjkl....](https://ahmadalikarim.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/asdfghjkl.png)

<comment><USER3> I signed up purely to upvote this :)

On a more serious note, there appears to be zero scientific motivation to do this. It just appears to be a self-set challenge. Am I wrong?

<comment><USER4> There is a proposed study, but I can't say how much of the thinking behind that was because " _the moon is cheap so lets think up a project involving that_ " and how much was because there's a serious gap in our knowledge that needs investigating.

Anyhow, from the BBC article:

        > The mission will also have a scientific component. The aim is to drill and
        > analyse a sample from underneath the lunar surface, something which
        > has never been done before.

On the radio this morning, one of leading guys (I forget who) was also talking about looking for data regarding the origins of life (since the moon is believed to have been part of Earth originally). But, again, I don't know how credible that argument.

Personally I think the reasoning behind this project feels a little reverse engineered, however I'm going to support it regardless since it should hopefully generate a few jobs in an industry that really needs more focus in the UK (some days it feels like everyone here wants to be celebrities without really thinking about any skills they might have that would be worth celebrating)

<comment><USER3> I suspected as much. It doesn't sound like "value for money" which is my concern. There are better scientific objectives than shooting for the moon cold-war style to raise awareness and interest in it. Look how much attention everyone paid to Beagle 2 which had proper scientific objectives, that was until it tragically failed. RIP.

Couldn't agree more with your last point; this country is tragically embroiled in celebrityism.

<comment><USER5> I suspect part of the reasoning for going to the moon rather than elsewhere is exactly to avoid a Beagle-like fiasco. This should be a relatively safe bet to relaunch the sector.

I wonder how much of this initiative is a reaction to recent success at ESA. To the layman, ESA seems politically dominated by continental interests; and a couple of bigwigs seemed to take a swipe at "countries going alone" during Phileas celebrations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> For my education: why the title change? Originally submitted with the article's actual title, which I thought was the rule.

</comment><comment><USER6> The Moon constitutes a fine colony for Her Majesty. My only hope is that the probe will be self-replicating and speaking plain English. The British are ridiculously good at drilling.

</comment><comment><USER7> >>Lunar Mission One aims to survey the Moon's south pole to see if a human base can be set up in the future.

If a simple survey mission is going to cost $780 million, you have to wonder how much a moon base will cost.

<comment><USER8> I wonder how much of that cost is the launcher, how much is R&D and how much the actual payload hardware will cost to manufacture. A proper moon base may not be _that_ expensive given economies of scale.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Charles Stross will have to stop making jokes about the secret British space program.

OR WILL HE?</comment>


News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier - <AUTHOR> http://m.guardiannews.com/media/2013/apr/12/news-is-bad-rolf-dobelli#top <comment><USER4> I've come to a similar conclusion. Because news emphasizes the dramatic over the contextual, they're always providing me poor information in an even poorer context. That's just the way the business works.

I've done something weird, though: I switched to plaintext commentary. So each day I scan my personal news site, <http://newspaper23.com>. It only does commentary.

I find that by scanning the titles I can see what news items are hot in the world without getting so wrapped up in them. If I like, I can always read commentaries with opposing views on a particular issue. But the kicker is, somehow once the material is slanted, once I know it's spin, it no longer has the high level of emotional engagement. Writing an Op-Ed along the lines of "We must do X!" is simply a different art form than news fearmongering.

Seriously, if you haven't given up MSM news, you need to. That shit will rot your brain. It's crisis-of-the-hour stuff over there. And the pundits just make it worse.

<comment><USER5> Your argument rests on the flawed premise that the reader is a passive fool waiting to be spoon-fed their morning panic ration. An article may be the top story of the day, but that doesn't mean it is important or relevant to me. Clearly there is a "news cycle" and every day there must be _some_ top story. The reader is not compelled to pay heed. The discriminating reader does not perceive a newspaper to be some distilled briefing of matters important to them personally.

As with anything else, you must _research_ your news if you hope to understand it, and you must seek out the truly pertinent things.

I truly fear that the research culture fostered by Google searches, etc. is greatly damaging our own ability to parse sources. It is a wonderful convenience to have indexing machines working in concert with query engines, allowing the researcher to skip the 300pp of drivel to unearth some crucial paragraph _by asking the question in their own words_.

It troubles me greatly that the solution always is to find a better indexing engine or aggregator (or sharpen one's skills with the software), rather than refining one's own ability to parse sources. Yes, these engines expose an impossible amount of information, and this is tremendously valuable technology. It will never be a full substitute for the pain of manual research.

<comment><USER6> Citizens surrender their control of information flow when they accept mandatory public education and learn to accept a regimented doses of "knowledge" by schedule. The alternatives are to become "knowledge" rebels, which often means not just bucking the establishment, but one's peer groups as well, whom you can't escape in mandatory educational institutions.

Real education begins when mandatory learning ends.

<comment><USER7> >Citizens surrender their control of information flow when they accept mandatory public education and learn to accept a regimented doses of "knowledge" by schedule.

WTF? Did I step into an Alex Jones site by mistake here?

 _checks URL_

Guess not.

Here's the thing.. mandatory public education, for its flaws, is still better than the alternative. Some minimum level of knowledge and socialization is all but required in order for a child to grow into a productive member of society (and I'd almost argue that the socialization is somewhat more important than the knowledge), especially when you're dealing with STEM topics that directly relate to and impact our economic and infrastructure backbone.

Complaints that education is either stunting the growth of our children or training them to become consumers or indoctrinating them or whatever are the marks of someone who should not be taken seriously.

<comment><USER6> > Complaints that education is either stunting the growth of our children or > training them to become consumers or indoctrinating them or whatever are the > marks of someone who should not be taken seriously.

Dropping the critical context of "mandatory" and "public"...hard to take that seriously.

> Here's the thing.. mandatory public education, for its flaws, is still > better than the alternative.

What is the alternative again? "Non-mandatory" education, "non-public" education, or simply no education? Since the context was already dropped, the uncareful reader may be lead (like a student) down the wrong track of assuming the original poster (vis-a-vis me) doesn't like education. If you can accept that education can be non-mandatory and/or non-public, then the educated reader can agree that education is still a good.

> Some minimum level of knowledge and socialization is all but required in > order for a child to grow into a productive member of society (and I'd > almost argue that the socialization is somewhat more important than the > knowledge), especially when you're dealing with STEM topics that directly > relate to and impact our economic and infrastructure backbone.

I firmly believe being educated is important to each individual, which is why leaving it to the machinations of local, state or federal political will and self-serving bureaucracy is an uneducated leap of faith. The socialization aspect of mandatory public education _is_ the goal of said education, it isn't to make the individual better, it is to make a person that the rest of society can keep in formation.

That said, since the original article was about mass media, this is precisely what mass media's goal also is, once the pupil's graduate; provide the same ordering of knowledge and socialization of issues, and common responses to predetermined stories.

<comment><USER7> >Dropping the critical context of "mandatory" and "public"...hard to take that seriously.

....it was implied. Add "mandatory" and "public" to the same sentence and my views and overall point do not change. Whenever someone refers to the education system as a whole, they are generally speaking about public schooling, and so was I. My intent was not to mislead, here.

>What is the alternative again?

Non mandatory? Then there's no point. There is a certain section of population that would rather see their kids doing something other than going to school every day, probably the ones that need it most. Inner cities where education is poor and money is tight, farms where there's more impetus to have help doing the work rather than getting educated, single working parents, etc etc.

Non-public? We already have private schools, they're almost completely the domain of the wealthy.

No education? .. don't think anything needs to be said here.

>leaving it to the machinations of local, state or federal political will and self-serving bureaucracy

What is the alternative? Schooling is arguably a type of infrastructure, and privatizing infrastructure seldom ever works out in the public's benefit. It's one of those high cost, low margin, delayed return activities that don't look good on a corporation's balance sheet.

>That said, since the original article was about mass media, this is precisely what mass media's goal also is, once the pupil's graduate; provide the same ordering of knowledge and socialization of issues, and common responses to predetermined stories.

I guess I don't see what you mean by this. I don't recall going to an "Everybody panic!!" class in elementary school, nor do I remember any sort of conditioning along those lines. Heck the only thing that felt 'off' about public school were the lockdown drills a couple times a year, and those have a valid purpose.

Your analysis completely smacks of unjustified paranoia, at least to me. I see no connection whatsoever between public education and the utter broken-ness of the mainstream media. Both are broken, but for different reasons, in different ways, in different degrees.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> With 7 billion people in the world, it's very likely that these things will happen today:

      - someone will get killed in a horrible car accident
      - a child will be killed in a freak accident
      - someone will die from cancer, leaving much grieving behind
      - someone will molest a child
      - someone will lose all their money in a scam
      - someone will get raped
      - someone will be killed by a never-to-be-found hit-and-run drunk driver
      - someone will beat a woman
      - someone will be murdered
      - someone will die in a disaster/fire/earthquake/storm
      - an innocent bystander will be randomly shot to death
      - someone's favorite team will lose

In addition, it seems like something like this (unbelievably) happens all the time:

      - someone will murder many people
      - someone will shake a baby until it's brain dead
      - a soldier will lose vision or use of their limbs in action
      - someone will post a horrible crime on youtube
      - someone will tie a pet to railroad tracks
      - a whole family will die in an accident

I really do feel bad about all of these things, but frankly, I just don't want to be reminded 40 times every day. <closing browser and going back to work>

<comment><USER9> Think about it this way - what if someone is being raped every day in the parking ramp at your office, or murdered on the street you ride your bike to work each morning? If you heard about it on the news, you could change your route to work or ride with a buddy to increase your safety.

<comment><USER10> Nobody is going to be raped in the parking ramp at your office EVERY DAY. It may happen once but statistically it'll never happen again in that location.

Someone may be murdered on the street you ride your bike to work each morning. And, unless you live in Compton its unlikely to ever happen again. And if you do live in Compton why the hell are you riding your bike to work through a war zone you moron?! :)

But lets just say these things do in fact happen. Likely, you're not going to hear about them from the news. You're going to hear about them from a friend, family member, and/or co-worker long before seeing it on the news.

The point of this article isn't that the news is bad because its news. Its that news is bad because all the media outlets focus on the wrong things (rapes, murders, etc...). Things you actually don't need the news for in order to stay informed.

Where the news can be great is keeping a populace informed of their government. Nixon was taken down by news done well. Unfortunately, in the day of Fox News, being an informed populace is even becoming difficult.

<comment><USER11> >> Unfortunately, in the day of Fox News, being an informed populace is even becoming difficult.

Equality doesn't just mean that everybody has the same wealth, regardless of how hard they work. This is superficial. It means everyone has to think the same way. That's the only way we'll ever get true equality, and we won't get that until everyone's getting the same information. Conformity, equality, obedience: these must be our core values. Fox News must be stopped.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This article irks me. Although most "news" has regressed into banal link bait just plain yellow journalism, and the notion of the "news organization" has undergone an inexorable transition towards the likes of Buzzfeed the the Huffington Post, it's absurd to assert that all news is worthless.

First, his point that no news can be of value to one's personal situation or decision-making is false. News has impacted my life thoroughly throughout the past year. Off the top of my head, some stories that have provoked meaningful consideration and or action from me include: Aaron Swartz, the election, several Supreme Court cases, the Bitcoin bubble (which inspired me to start my first true weekend project this week, <http://twitter.com/Bitcoin_Ticker>)... There are still valuable and significant things happening in the world every day.

Moreover, there is something incredibly presumptuous in his assertion that "we are not rational enough to be exposed to the press." The fact that many people are not particularly analytical and prefer to consume simple, superficial stories does not mean that every person is necessarily incapable of thinking critically about events and about how we ought to consider the dangers in society. Even if we can't help instinctive, irrational fear or bias, most people can acknowledge the irrational nature of their opinions and still intellectually acknowledge the true nature of the news. It's simply perverse to state that everyone is too stupid and or manipulable to rationally understand the news.

His other problematic assertion, that "learned helplessness" is detrimental, is questionable. Regardless of knowledge, the world will still be filled with misery, poverty, death, bigotry, and fear. Is it better to be knowingly miserable or ignorantly blissful? I tend towards the former. John Mill's famous line, "it is better to be a Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied," comes to mind. This is a question that philosophers have puzzled over forever, and I won't get into it, but the fact that he dismisses such a philosophically significant and contentious argument so quickly is worrisome. Maybe it is better to know what the world is like, regardless of our ability to change it.

<comment><USER13> I think the best counter to the faff in this article is simply: Talk to someone who watches the news. Then talk to someone who doesn't. Even if nothing else, watching the news is at least indicative of an interest in the world beyond arms'-length.

Besides, there's a world of difference between "read the news being aware that the news-maker has an agenda" and "ignore the news entirely".

<comment><USER14> I totally agree with what you said, some of my coworkers are blissfully ignorant to anything that happens beyond their household and talking to them feels almost like talking to a child. Sometimes it even gives me a sense of superiority when I see I am way more "prepared" than them.

Having said that, I feel exhausted from news. Specially link bait or biased media. Almost like I have a burnout of BS and I am becoming very skeptical from almost all news source. Example, started watching CNN ditched in favor of BBC then stopped BBC in favor of Al Jazeera then... You get the point.

I must say that I have an urge that I keep coming back to check the news, every so often, to satiate this weird need to staying informed. But if I could, talking almost like an addicted person here, I would totally stop reading all this "crap".

<comment><USER15> Yeah, it's this exhaustion from reading news that I think the article is trying to help avoid. It's great to be engaged in the world, but being engaged by consuming news is exhausting, literally causes constant anxiety, and is bad for you!

That's not to say you should ignore the world, you should just try getting your information from _in-depth_ reporting, long essays on topics of interest, from people who have actually been there, and so on. There's no freaking rush!

If it's so important that I can't wait a month to read an in depth article with context and correct details, I will hear about it from friends.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think Taleb was among the first to hit this tune.

" To be completely cured of newspapers, spend a year reading the previous week's newspapers. "

" The best test of whether someone is extremely stupid (or extremely wise) is whether financial and political news makes sense to him. "

" There is a certain category of fool—the overeducated, the academic, the journalist, the newspaper reader, the mechanistic "scientist", the pseudo- empiricist, those endowed with what I call "epistemic arrogance", this wonderful ability to discount what they did not see, the unobserved. "

" Daily news and sugar confuse our system in the same manner. "

source : <http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb>

<comment><USER17> I played with options for a bit. Nearly all the "financial news" is information free. No matter what happens, there'll be an article explaining why. Even decent-seeming publications would join along in the "Stock X moved <direction> because of event Y", even though you could flip the predicates around and still have a coherent story.

As Eliezer writes, "If you are equally good at explaining any outcome, you have zero knowledge"[1].

To be fair though, I suppose the real "news" is subtle information and isn't likely to become a simple headline and the people able to make use of it are unlikely to detail the causation afterwards. Although, sometimes I wonder, at least in stocks, if the nonsense "news" ends up driving things more than any fundamental reasons.

1: <http://lesswrong.com/lw/if/your_strength_as_a_rationalist/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> See also "I Hate the News" by Aaron Swartz <http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews>

<comment><USER19> In the article (written in 2006), Aaron Swartz wrote:

 _"This seems to be true, but the curious thing is that I'm never involved. The government commits a crime, the New York Times prints it on the front page, the people on the cable chat shows foam at the mouth about it, the government apologizes and commits the crime more subtly. It's a valuable system — I certainly support the government being more subtle about committing crimes (well, for the sake of argument, at least) — but you notice how it never involves me?"_

Ironically, he did unfortunately end up as a news story in which the government did something bad and he _was_ personally involved.

<comment><USER20> Seriously? Is that what happened? Completely unprovoked, the government did something bad?

I kinda read that he broke the law and the government were prosecuting him for it.

<comment><USER19> The sentence they gave him seemed to have been way out of proportion to the crime he committed, and the time and taxpayer dollars that the federal prosecutor spent on him could have been spent on more significant crimes that actually put citizens in danger. So yes, I think the government did do something pretty bad here.

<comment><USER21> 3-6 months in a Club Fed jail?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> There's one thing apparently missing in the article (and discussion here) that for me is the most important reason not to read news - namely, they lie. All the time. And when they don't, they systematically confuse stuff, ending up in writing wrong articles anyway.

Proof? Just pretty much every article about science, technology or business submitted here on HN gets debunked in the top comment. If they can't get simple facts right in the matters of basic science or business, I seriously doubt (by induction) that anything else they write is anywhere near the truth.

<comment><USER23> Never ascribe to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.

<comment><USER24> Regardless of their intention, the outcome is the same.

I like the astrology analogy. They don't hate you, they're just making up stories you like to hear, so you'll stay and listen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> As the footer to the article says, this is a shortened version of a much longer essay he wrote in 2010 (src PDF: [http://dobelli.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/08/Avoid_News_Par...](http://dobelli.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/08/Avoid_News_Part1_TEXT.pdf) ) that shares a similar layout to the article. There's some subtle irony here -- the original essay asserted that heavy news consumption prevented most people from reading more than 4 pages straight, while the essay was 11 pages. I guess he realized he needed to shorten it to get the message out.

</comment><comment><USER26> > _In the words of Warren Buffett: "What the human being is best at doing is > interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain > intact."_

That confirms what I always thought.

</comment><comment><USER27> I used to read HN all day and felt good, elevated, enlightened ... pretty soon I was trying to learn every new language, trying every new framework, trying a new todo regime - needless to say I was getting no where. Soon I was very unhappy ... everybody was doing something cool other than me! Every Show HN: makes me feel I'm wasting my life in school ... and should dropout and start building what I've started sometime back ...

But then someone told me, "Believe what you are doing is cool, inundating yourself with what others are doing won't get you anywhere other than giving you the false sense of wisdom!"

Now I spend a lot less time on HN. And since it has the best content of the net .. I don't need to look anywhere else.

<comment><USER28> I had a similar experience with Twitter, especially in terms of keeping tabs on competitors. Recently, I've stopped reading the tech blogs and I've found it's made me a ton happier and allowed me to focus on what I'm doing and stop looking in the rear view mirror.

This post really resonated with me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> On the other hand, when my own personal problems seem immense, sometimes it can give me a lot of perspective to see the problems the world as a whole has to face. Surely in doses too large or too often, it can be a major detriment to my ability to work (especially when there is a news "crisis" going on, real or imagined). However, I'd say overall the net effect of regularly ingesting the news has been to make me feel closer to my fellow human beings than before I read the news often and had only the things and people in my immediate surroundings to ponder about.

</comment><comment><USER30>
      "Out of the approximately 10,000 news stories you have read in the last 12 months,
      name one that – because you consumed it  - allowed you to make a better decision
      about a serious matter affecting your life, your career or your business.
      The point is: the consumption of news is irrelevant to you."

I agree, yet I find my main use for news is to make me feel connected with other humans... If I cut myself off from it, I feel disconnected and lonely. I feel like I'm missing relevant context.

Is that an unfounded fear, and I should find ways to get rid of it?

Or is it a valid concern, but are there better ways to feel connected?

I work from home so I don't interact with a lot of people regularly.

<comment><USER31> You can start by not having meals alone. It may sound silly, but having meals in a group is a great way to form stronger bonds.

<comment><USER30> Yes, that's very helpful. I do that whenever I work at my university lab.

Unfortunately, it's not really an option when I work from home.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I would agree to the degree that "News" refers to shallow news reporting. News on TV? Undoubtedly detrimental. Long form journalism? Lots of merit. Sensational coverage of a kidnapping? Waste of your time. Coverage of the political process? Could lead you to a revelation about certain political entities.

Basically, I would not recommend completely dismissing all forms of news. News consumption can lead you to change your mind about something. If you never expose your self to new data, you will find yourself holding onto stale beliefs and opinions. There's something to be said for remaining an informed citizen.

<comment><USER33> Exactly. This article doesn't make much sense unless you read it carefully enough to understand that "news" has a very specific and limited definition in this context.

Indeed, when it described the damage done by news, it notes an inability to grasp the kinds of deep, large, and truly world-changing stories that are happening all around us, and which the shallow, fragmented, and sensationalistic sugar hits of "news" can never convey.

Generally, following these larger, deeper stories (to say nothing of participating in them) requires both a measure of focused interest, and pre- existing knowledge. A lot of the news on HN fits into this category. This is very different from the parade of horribles that is found on FOX News, CNN, in USAToday, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I completely agree. I have cut nearly all ordinary news from my life. I read domain-specific news, industry news, news from various little corners of interest, and occasionally glance at the headlines just so I have some clue of what's going on in the world. But ordinary "if it bleeds it leads" news is generally one of: (1) sensationalism, (2) government propaganda, (3) corporate propaganda, (4) veiled advertising, or (5) filler.

</comment><comment><USER35> News programming should be pronounced _noise._ It's mostly gossip and tragedy and crap. We stopped watching it years ago.

My parents watch the news and talk about "staying informed" and "keeping up" with things. What exactly is newsworthy? You need to know about that apartment complex that caught fire or the shootout between drug dealers?

</comment><comment><USER36> "News is Bad For you" by Guardian News.

What's their angle here?

<comment><USER19> It looks like the author of the article wants to promote his book (see the end of the article) and The Guardian will profit since it provides a link to the book in their own "book shop". And they figure that nobody will actually give up their news addiction after having read the article, so there's no risk to the newspaper's business.

For those who like the article, the complete version from which this article is excerpted can be found here, in PDF form:

<http://www.theartofthinkingclearly.com/no-news-2?lang=en>

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> "It is in literature as in life: wherever you turn, you stumble at once upon the incorrigible mob of humanity, swarming in all directions, crowding and soiling everything, like flies in summer. Hence the number, which no man can count, of bad books, those rank weeds of literature, which draw nourishment from the corn and choke it. The time, money and attention of the public, which rightfully belong to good books and their noble aims, they take for themselves: they are written for the mere purpose of making money or procuring places. So they are not only useless; they do positive mischief. Nine-tenths of the whole of our present literature has no other aim than to get a few shillings out of the pockets of the public; and to this end author, publisher and reviewer are in league."

Schopenhauer, 'On Books and Reading', from early 1800s I think. <http://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Books_and_Reading>

With some small changes in language, it could easily apply to today's news. There are many great quotes, but in essence he says reading is essential, but you must be discriminating about what you read, because most of it is garbage. And you must be careful not to read so much that you aren't able to process it or drown out your own independent thoughts and activities.

I had already reached these conclusions on my own long ago, but he puts it into words very well, and it is interesting that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

</comment><comment><USER38> James Althucher is a writer who has lived through a bunch of nasty experiences, and now writes about what he's learnt.

In his writing he often preaches to cut yourself off from news.

Here's an article I found quickly that makes reference to avoiding stress sources like news: [http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/09/how-to-cure-stress- befo...](http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/09/how-to-cure-stress-before-it- kills-you/)

</comment><comment><USER39> Even following nominally "quality" news sources -- NPR, PBS, The New York Times, the Economist -- I've been finding the points of this article increasingly true.

Mainstream commercial news -- CNN, HuffPo, my local city paper / news site, and much of what passes for news on the Web, are virtually intolerable. Banal, lowest common denominator (erm: "greatest", but nobody would understand) content, celebrity gossip, baiting headlines, "ten reasons" pageview content. Gratuitously paginated articles. Excessively overdesigned pages with floaters, social nags, and pop-up interstitial surveys and yet more "social" pleadings. Fake-viral advertising whether "flash mobs" orchestrated by banks or Hollywood movie hype engines. Intentionally infuriating political tactics. Get off of me!

Somewhere during the past Presidential campaign I think I started to snap. Whether it was talking heads blathering about things they understood poorly, incessant focus on horse-race (and ignoring the deeper historical and policy stories), everything just started grating on me.

The lack of depth and context to much news coverage has also been apparent to me for quite some time. Particularly in the case of large developing stories, or those with a long backstory, I've found that Wikipedia is often a much better source of information. I'd first realized this during the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake & tsunami -- far too vast a story for any one news article to wrap its head around. TV and radio could merely repeat the basics or show the same footage repeatedly. Wikipedia could _organize and contextualize the facts_ as they came in.

There are also the odd stories which do affect me, my life, my neighborhood, or my professional interests. They're rare, but they do happen. A benefit of today's world over, say, 20 years ago, is that when such events do occur, it's much more possible to dig in and get more than the very light spread of truth and misreporting that's inevitable in the lay press.

Not that I've stopped paying attention to the news. But I'm very conscious of when it is annoying, and there are days I'll turn it off. The day of the Newtown shootings I heard the news late in the day, and just turned it off. I knew largely how it would unfold, that it didn't affect me directly, that there was nothing I'd be able to do that day, but that listening would just sicken me.

Increasingly, rather than turn on news, I'll put on music. Often classical or jazz. And listen to that instead.

<comment><USER40> I would not worry too much about people misconstruing greatest common denominator as something "great". At least not here on HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I hope I'm not the only one seeing the irony of this post.

<comment><USER42> I'm amazed to see an article trying to inform me that, indeed, ignorance is bliss. While I think people should watch their garbage intake, I'd certainly not encourage tuning out world events any more than I'd encourage running with both earbuds in. In either case one is likely to be taken off guard.

<comment><USER33> That's not what it says at all. What it says is that there are really big, deep, important, and world-changing stories happening all around us, but you won't get them from what passes for news. What you will get is a fragmentary sugar-high that actually damages your ability to grasp more meaningful accounts of the world. That is to say, the kind of news this story refers to (and which the Guardian sees itself as being above) will make you ignorant. Moreover, that ignorance is characterizes by anxiety and aggression. In other words, the opposite of bliss.

<comment><USER42> I see what you're saying... It's just that the author says "news" when he means "the stuff called news that isn't news" which is hard to talk about without sounding like a hypocrite; he describes the phenomena - factoids - <USER3> example, but is ultimately participating in the proliferation of exactly the type of water-cooler/factoid/self-help pseudo-intellectual article that he's deriding. His article is filler in the "Media" section on guardiannews.com. The author might have said "too much junk 'news' makes people unhappy" and I'd have promptly carried on ignoring those types of articles. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I used to like watching the news but these days supposedly reputable news organizations are what tabloid shows were 20 years ago. "Guess what happened today!?" instead of just reading the news.

And everyone editorializes, everything has to be dramatic no news organizations seem to be impartial anymore news organizations are classed as either left or right of centre and people have to choose their side.

Someone once said about watching TV news "Your central nervous system isn't meant to handle seeing death and disaster everyday".

The only US news I like is PBS. Here in Canada CBC isn't too bad but I find it drifting to the left instead of the impartial center and also it seems to also be fascinated with making everything dramatic.

I think this problem with news these days is only for the under 30 crowd since it seems nobody I know under that age reads a newspaper or watches TV news, maybe at most a one paragraph blip on a website.

</comment><comment><USER44> I do like the concept of information obesity, and the importance of budgeting one's attention. The article seemed to borrow it from The Information Diet:

[http://www.amazon.com/Information-Diet-Case-Conscious- Consum...](http://www.amazon.com/Information-Diet-Case-Conscious- Consumption/dp/1449304680)

</comment><comment><USER45> Yeah honestly I've learned to repress my need to be informed due to just how depressing the news is in general. I don't find out about politics or world events until they are so big somebody IRL relays it. I keep it to HN, tech news, science, Nat Geo, etc, informative and positive (mostly).

</comment><comment><USER46> During 1999-2005 I was a news junkie. I was constantly scanning popular news sites.

In 2005 I attended the first Startup School, which is incidental but sticks in my brain of course. I took my lunch break that day and went to the Harvard Book Store. I browsed around and saw a book on positive psychology that looked interesting.

I devoured that book. One of the biggest changes I took from that book was to avoid most of the news. It was for all the reasons mentioned in this article.

I've been pretty good at sticking to this. Not perfect of course. There obviously needs to be a balance. But removing the tie to the news has made me a lot more creative and optimistic about the opportunities in my life.

We should all spend more time creating than reading about other people creating and destroying.

</comment><comment><USER47> This blog post "The power of ignoring mainstream news" by Joel Gascoigne is also worth a read. [http://joel.is/post/31582795753/the-power-of-ignoring- mainst...](http://joel.is/post/31582795753/the-power-of-ignoring-mainstream- news)

</comment><comment><USER48> How exactly do you define "news" here? Right now, I'm on a news site, because it says that in the top left corner of my screen. I've seen this type of story mentioned before, and in the past the response was "the purpose of news is to give people conversational topics to talk about." On Hacker News, I'm possibly saving myself some time.

I don't have to sift through all of the content out there, the filter exists for me and that of itself is performing a lot of work. Hacker News is essentially a crowdsourced sorting mechanism done by its users. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but I still decide what I'll read and what I'll pass over.

I am reading essays and articles that do a lot of the thinking for me. Sure, I may think less critically by letting someone else do that for me, but I ultimately decide whether I agree or disagree with the point being made. I'll choose the things that I really care about and I'll think harder about those, and maybe I'll contribute my own findings, which other people will find helpful.

I'm not sold that giving up news entirely is good. And how do you define the word? Google News is an aggregate collection of news articles. Am I still reading "the news" if I'm on Google News or Hacker News, or do I need to be on a direct source such as AP or CNN? Does it even matter, since the aggregators and other bloggers will refer back to them?

</comment><comment><USER49> Any suggestions for a good neutral concise must-know news source?

<comment><USER50> The Economist.

It's not neutral. It's pro-market.

But it is concise and if you just read it you'd be better informed than almost everyone.

<comment><USER23> the other advantage of the Economist is that it only comes out once a week. I've gotten slack about reading it lately but I should just cut out the time I spend reading daily news. What you'll notice if you read the Economist regularly is that after a few months or a year you realize that virtually everything of consequence you see on the TV news or the front pages of daily newspapers (with the exception of truly surprising stuff) is stuff you already read about weeks previously.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I gave up my multiple time per day reads of news.google.com. I decided that it didn't improve my life to hear what shooting took place, or what North Korea had done this time, every day. I still read technology news, but the normal day to day stuff I've completely stopped following. It's been a few months since I gave it up and I must say that I'm happy with my change. I did the same thing with reddit. I gave that one up because it was too much of a time sink.

</comment><comment><USER52> I don't read news anymore. I haven't, for years.

After reading a newspaper I didn't remember anything of what I had read. I was as well off after reading the paper as before reading it. The same with internet news sites, there's just... news, everywhere. It doesn't seem to stick, and it doesn't change my life.

If something truly important happens, the information will eventually trickle down to myself via friends and friends of friends. I can then look it up on the internet, and read more.

<comment><USER53> And yet you are posting on Hacker "News".

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Depends on what you consider news and how you consume it. I tend to view conventional "news" as limited information/propaganda tool.

In the mornings/afternoons I listen to the local news broadcast for weather and traffic. These affect my daily activities, I live in a commuter region of Tornado Alley and own a house that involves outdoor maintenance.

I skim my local newspaper and local feeds, sometimes there are items that directly impact my community/household that I need to consider/deal with. (Local elections, West Nile, etc...) My spouse keeps up with the more entertaining items, so I've outsourced the fluff consumption. I use a RSS reader to stay current in my work and hobbies. It allows my to filter out the cruft in a timely manner.

If I need to be knowledgable on a political, economic or other topic, I have a wide range of resources available on the web and through the local libraries. I don't often dig deeply into the serious macro-issues, the truth is very disturbing, most people can't handle it or deny it, there's little change I can make, so I limit my "briefings" to a couple of times a year.

Knowing the "true" national/global situation and being powerless, is damn depressing. Maybe I should be a sociopath, but unfortunately I'm not wired that way.

</comment><comment><USER55> I read the original "Avoid News part 1" (<http://dobelli.com/?page_id=827>) some time ago and also quit reading news. What occurred to me is that a lot of decisions people make are based or have to do with fear fed by news.

For example: fear for bad weather. Rain is just rain but reading the forecast in the papers sometimes make you wonder if you will survive the next day.

</comment><comment><USER37> That article is either an ironic metacommentary with itself as exhibit A of what is wrong with news stories, or the edits were ironically introduced by the editor doing what he typically does. For starters, the title is hyperbolic click bait, and the hyperbole continues. "The only solution: cut yourself off from news consumption entirely." Clearly the only choices are inundation and complete isolation. I suppose moderation is one of those "non-stories" too boring to report, because it doesn't stimulate the limbic system and get clicks. One clue of intentional irony: "In a 2001 study two scholars in Canada showed that comprehension declines as the number of hyperlinks in a document increases." In the article, that sentence contains a hyperlink.

That said, I agree with 98% of the article. Like everything else, moderation, critical thinking, and self-reflection are essential.

Food for thought: perhaps the author's reaction is similar to an alcoholic who realizes their weakness. Though for many people, alcohol can be a healthy and beneficial part of their life, for some the most effective relationship to alcohol is complete abstinence.

</comment><comment><USER56> There are some serious offenders who take the low and quick road when it comes to journalism but I have seen a swing of sorts in higher quality journalistic standards. While Fox News is considered the epitome of everything wrong with biased news, there are lot of smaller shows and websites that have a higher standard. Here in Australia while we have the likes of news.com.au (a joke and a half) we have other online news outlets in the form of Crikey! and the philanthropically funded long-form journalism website The Global Mail who put effort into their articles and don't misconstrue the facts to get more Facebook shares and readers.

Not all news is bad news. I see the likes of Facebook and Twitter are forms of news, both have their fair share of gossip and junk, but also have their share of information that we need to know; massacres, accidents, bank robberies and slaughter of innocents in countries that try and control their people and shield their actions from the rest of the world. Choose your news carefully, don't believe everything you read and always look further into things (there is more than meets the eye).

</comment><comment><USER57> Most of those reasons seem exaggerated, except one: News wastes time. It's just to easy and effortless to click on news stories and bam - there goes 45 minutes of time.

Does anyone know a good program that blocks you from e.g. wasting more than 25 minutes reading news each day? Browser tools are too easy to bypass to be effective. (Editing the hosts file works, but then you can't visit those sites at all.)

<comment><USER58> _Editing the hosts file works, but then you can't visit those sites at all._

Consider doing that for a week (or however long) and see if your habit changes. I've found that sense of effortlessness declines after such a break.

<comment><USER59> One of my "new year resolution" this year was to block news sites on my /etc/hosts.

Almost 5 months in and I'm not going back. The next step is blocking reddit.

<comment><USER60> and HN?

<comment><USER59> I believe I get positive value from HN. So while it's a good way to procrastinate, I'm think HN is a good news source to learn about new stuff, new frameworks, neat projects, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Reading news articles that are informative can be thought provoking and improve my understanding of people and the world around me. Over time, many smaller pieces of information can accrue into an understandable whole, providing context for future experiences and information. If you never end up understanding the information thrown at you, or consume garbage news, then yeah, it won't help. It's possible you need to ingest a lot of background material to really make sense of the news in a useful and non-helplessness- inducing way.

The news to me is incremental history, economics, and political science. I wouldn't watch low-content information like daily TV news, but that's not the only option.

That said, you don't have to do it all the time, because sometimes, in your topic of interest, nothing much happens for a while... The most I do on an actual daily basis is read the top three headlines on the BCC News site, just to check that nothing incredibly crazy happened. Oh, and read too much HN, but that stuff can be interesting... and I mostly read the comments...

</comment><comment><USER62> I once thought about starting a news service that only publishes good news, but the problem would be, that probably nobody would read it.

<comment> kaizen-konpusai South Africa has a site like that: <http://www.sagoodnews.co.za/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> I gave up on reading newspapers and watching TV news over a decade ago and I can't point to a single way that it's ever harmed me. My basic theory is as follows:

\- I miss out on the fearmongering

\- I save a tremendous amount of time

\- If anything important IS happening, everyone will be talking about it, so I'll hear about it

\- Even if I do miss hearing about an important issue, what does it matter? What can I actually do to prevent e.g. the fiscal cliff, or the failure of Lehman Brothers, or etc?

\- When it comes time to vote, I talk with my friends who actually care about news / politics and, if use their information (plus a bit of research if needed) to decide my vote

\- I read Hacker news or other sites like it because the news that geeks want to know about is far more likely to be interesting / relevant.

Aside from some occasional mild embarrassment when someone asks me an opinion on something I'm not aware of -- which can usually be deflected simply by saying something innocuous and then turning the conversation back to them -- this has worked excellently for me.

</comment><comment><USER64> I came to some of these conclusions in 1997: <http://www.canonical.org/~kragen/real-news.html>

In 2008 I savaged Digg and Reddit for the same reasons: [http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen- tol/2008-January...](http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen- tol/2008-January/000878.html)

I recommend watching the EPIC 2014 video I allude to in that post; even though it's nine years old and clearly depicts an alternate history at this point, I think its core points have aged well. <http://www.robinsloan.com/epic/>

Today, I think there actually _is_ a better alternative to reading news sites. You can read Wikipedia. Instead of reading the HN frontpage post about how Sebastian Castro likes having his office in Kendall Square [http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2013/04/13/square- still-...](http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2013/04/13/square-still-place- for-start-ups/JcqbMI98Drrb2NG17jH54M/story.html) you can read <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kendall_Square> and get the history, polysemy, and local attractions of the place — with photos of Kendall Square instead of Sebastian Castro. Or you could read something on Wikipedia that there will rarely be a news story about, like <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index> or <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadhu> or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Carolina%27s_12th_congres...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Carolina%27s_12th_congressional_district), or never, like <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vis-viva_equation>. And the things you read will be verifiable, objective, and most likely _true_ — unlike the vast majority of crap that passes for journalism today. And most of what's true will still be true five or ten years from now.

But the Grauniad piece is, mostly, not really about how to form a better understanding of the world. It counsels ignorance: don't learn about the world because it isn't practical (doesn't help you make better decisions affecting your life), stresses you out, is enjoyable like a drug, confirms your pre- existing prejudices due to confirmation bias instead of changing your mind, makes you feel helpless, limits your creativity, and is deeply intertwingled, which "inhibits thinking". Reading the encyclopedia has these same drawbacks! But I don't believe that ignorance is bliss, that ignorance helps you think clearly, or that ignorance limits your creativity. Instead, I believe that a broad base of knowledge gives me perspective on our current problems, helps me think more clearly, and enables my creativity.

Up to a point. You can become a mindless factoid junkie from any source of factoids. Building real knowledge out of facts requires really understanding a subject; as David MacKay says in the preface to "Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms" <http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/itila/>, that means you must "creat[e] it for yourself."

I admit I'm pretty distracted by news items myself, at the moment.

(edit: changed "more or less these conclusions" to "some of these conclusions", which is a lot truer.)

</comment><comment><USER65> This is an adventerous claim.

But maybe they are right, maybe giving up reading the Guardian and similar news sources makes you happier. I for instance prefer fpif.org, fas.org and a random selection from news.google.com to stay up to date.

"Out of the 10,000 news stories you may have read in the last 12 months, did even one allow you to make a better decision about a serious matter in your life, asks Rolf Dobelli."

I used to spend at least 2 hours a day on reading news. (Only a part of that consisted mainstream news.) At least every month I felt I read things that totally mattered towards my personal life. Maybe because I did read more scoped news and really tried to understand the issues. Papers like the Guardian are just there to make Joe Average happy and feed his average interests. It's good to not approximate yourself with Joe Average. Anyone ever wondered why Twitter got so popular as News Reader?

</comment><comment><USER66> The article takes a primordial approach to what news is. Technology and media have long addressed this problem, and news is really free now - thanks to Blogger, Google News, Twitter and the like.

Its also an irony that most of us discover our news on a site like Hacker News, and are seconding an opinion that news has become bad.

Some ways to rethink news:

1) News should be an ambient thing. It should be around you, and relate to what you are doing, where you are, who you are, and the people you care about.

2) The good things you do today must reflect in what you receive as news tomorrow.

3) News can be seen as appealing to the producer or consumer in you. When you read something just for infotainment, its for the consumer. When you read something, and you go like - this can help me, its helping the producer. We should strive to tilt the balance of news, and make it more productive - <USER3> you.

<comment> kaizen-konpusai One of the main reasons I come to Hacker News is because a) the upvoted articles tend to be of high quality and in-depth, and b) the comments section tends to have even greater depth of discussion and variation of opinion.

I think both those points make HN fall outside the article's criticism, for the most part.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> I think the problem is a little more nuanced than watching news or not watching news. It has to do with what media scholars call agenda setting theory.

That is, media can't always persuade us to believe in a story, but they're very good at persuading us to think about a story. News sources like Fox, MSNBC or CNN might dwell on 3-5 leads in a day. Because they're so ubiquitous and influential, they might make you concentrate on (even debate) an issue that has little relevance to your life.

The solution is not shut out news altogether, but to consciously seek out sources of news that are relevant to your interests and your community.

It's analogous to consuming food: if you pay attention to what you're taking in and where you're getting it from, you'll feel a lot happier and healthy.

</comment><comment><USER68> There's also a certain arbitrariness to what the media establishment chooses to cover and how they choose to cover it. It often seems as if the "news" is nothing more than what entrenched political and/or private interests want people to be thinking that day.

That's one of the reasons I'm really enjoying the new Vice show on HBO -- they're covering topics nobody else is touching, they don't censor or clean up the horrific aspects of the human behavior they're covering, and their presentation doesn't try to pretend that their reporters are anything other than human beings who possess their own viewpoints (rather than "objective" beings capable of transcending their own subjective perceptions and beliefs, like poor CNN still claims).

</comment><comment><USER69> This all comes down to a distinction that is not made in the article at all. One has a choice in engaging the news: one can be a passive consumer of whatever gets thrown at one, or one can be a thoughtful consumer who directs one's own reading/viewing of the news. None of the issues mentioned by the author apply to the latter approach.

In a highly interconnected, multicultural, technological world, it is more important than ever for the ordinary citizen (let alone the entrepreneur, thinker, or "creative type") to be aware of what is going on in the world, and on every scale (global to local). The author's recommendation would lead to a radical disengagement that would be suitable only for those aspiring to be hermits or stylites.

</comment><comment><USER70> News isn't necessarily bad for you, and it's not a good idea to live in a bubble of cherry-picked information. However, the mainstream news is fraught with all kinds of problems so you need to be prepared to believe that what appears there is at best a partial picture of the events. The phenomena of churnalism also illustrates that it's easy to believe that what looks like impartial information is actually just crudely re-arranged press releases from particular companies who likely have a vested interest in the content and framing of the story.

So don't switch off the news entirely, lest you fall into a state of general ignorance about wider events, but be prepared to interpret it critically.

</comment><comment><USER71> Also worth a read, this piece by Steve Pavlina on Overcoming News Addiction, all the way from 2006:

[http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/09/overcoming-news- add...](http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/09/overcoming-news-addiction/)

</comment><comment><USER72> I totally agree, hardly ever read the news even with a slight background in journalism. But I have to say the title alone sounds a tad Nineteen Eighty- Four. News does have a purpose as a balance of power.

</comment><comment><USER73> Seems like the article is true for "bad" news -- e.g. Daily newspapers, cable news, and nightly news (which I have gone without for over ten years). Most of the criticisms of news in the article do not apply to the news sources I consume, although perhaps they shouldn't be called news so as to avoid confusion.

My favorite is the New Yorker, which frequently breaks major stories despite being (or because it is) a weekly with long lead times. Similarly, The Daily Show usually does a better job of providing context than "serious" news broadcasts.

<comment><USER68> Are you serious? The Daily Show is no more "news" than Hannity is.

<comment><USER73> I've never watched Hannity so I really can't make an informed reply. There's no question that the Daily Show has a Liberal point of view, but there's a difference between having a point of view and intellectual dishonesty. Humor is a trap in portraying the truth because the funny thing may not be the true thing, but it's less of a trap than the Cable news cycle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> ... "Ignorance is bliss"

Happiness maybe isn't always the optimal end state.

</comment><comment><USER75> Generalizing title is generalizing. The title actually proves the point it's trying to make: that news often skew towards less details, dramatized, click- bait-y. Of course news are bad for you as most of the information is not directly important to your immediate life and usually the information is presented in a very toxic way which creates a certain mood and actually, an addiction to the certain "SMH" behaviour.

</comment><comment><USER76> That sounds like what Tim Ferriss said in 4 hour workweek

<comment><USER77> Yes! Definitely! It is such an incredibly excellent book. I listened to the Audible version twice in one month (26 hours in total). I think everyone should check it out, at least for the alternate viewpoints on doing things. I actually wrote about this on my own site (link in my profile).

On topic, I absolutely love the part in the book that says " _Replace reading the newspaper over breakfast or dinner with activities like speaking with your spouse, playing with your children, etc._ "

It's funny but this book has made me better at relationships, and even life. I wholeheartedly believe in the notion of not reading the news. It makes you more present, and more engaged with _your own life_.

<comment><USER75> Tim, it's ok, we get it, you love your own book. Calm down babe. ;)

Joking aside, the book has some very interesting ideas and personally has inspired me to seek change in my professional and personal life. Although, a blueprint everyone can follow word by word it's not.

<comment><USER77> Haha.

I agree. It has some great and inspiring ideas but definitely not a blueprint for anyone. For example, I have no desire to live abroad so I completely disregarded the travel parts of the book, which is at least half of the book's content. I mean I did listen to those parts (via audiobook), but I focused my attention elsewhere.

Whenever reading or listening to something, whether a book, podcast, or blog post, I look for at least one idea that I can apply to my own life. If I find something, then it was a worthwhile read/listen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> I remember reading (can't recall the source right now) that a study conducted over multiple newspapers over a period of time revealed that 95% of news carry a negative tone. Add this to the fact that most news channels focus on trivia more than important issues and I have a perfect reason to not dive into news. I still sneak a peek at any interesting story that shows up on my twitter stream though.

</comment><comment><USER79> National vs. local news is an important distinction here that many of these "The key to happiness is ignoring the news" posts miss.

The breathless CNN story about the latest missing white woman might not be relevant to your life, but your local newspaper's stories about property taxes, parking fees, local entertainment events and people in your community most certainly are.

</comment><comment><USER80> There's a ton of useful news out there. I get it filtered through serious people, or people interested in important things like labor laws, Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare, local politics, urban development, civil liberties, and hacker news :). These are things that will affect me, and I can affect (in groups of course).

</comment><comment><USER81> That really depends on what kind of news we are reading, and when we are reading, sometimes skimming and scanning is a good way to save time if you are just to comprehend the main theme of the news, or decide whether you will continue to read. But, obviously, over-read the news will kill your brains like chronic diseases.

</comment><comment><USER82> I don't have TV at home and don't read any news online, except maybe once a month while procrastinating. I rarely find anything that really concerns me there and if I do I usually skip right to the comments for the broader range of opinions or search the internet for more information.

</comment><comment><USER83> I believed so for years and haven't intentionally tried to read or watch news for almost more than 10 years; and I like it that way. Instead, I focus on tech updates especially related to the field I'm involved with. And feel, even sitting idle will do less harm, hypothetically.

</comment><comment><USER84> News is useful for exactly one reason: to have something to chat about. Don't underestimate that. You may have no interest in NK, Beckham, sports, the stock market or other stuff that frequents the news, but having something to talk about with people around you is important.

<comment><USER85> "Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people." -Eleanor Roosevelt

Edit: I don't mean this to be rude. I am just trying to point out that discussion of news items usually IME is nothing more than idle gossip. While possibly beneficial in social bonding, it can also have potential negative effects on the mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> I stopped using Google Reader recently; this has had the side effect of making me read much less news and, thus, being less buzzed to write a scathing or snarky comment/reply.

I browse a few news sites once or twice a day, read the 1 or 2 news that look relevant to me, and that's it.

</comment><comment><USER87> I haven't been reading or watching the news for years, now, and it's had a huge positive effect on my life.

But it's also made me, I think, somewhat more sensitive and aware of how other similar things affect me. Which is why I've started to cut down on Twitter, and Hacker News.

</comment><comment><USER88> The article makes some bold affirmations, which I'm not sure are covered by actual research (they may be). That being said, having stopped watching TV in the last years had made me better spend my spare time (e.g. studying or working on personal projects).

</comment><comment><USER89> This is why, paraphrasing Taleb, I shun newspapers and TV and keep hoary tomes by my bedside.

</comment><comment><USER90> Bad news is even worse! Seriously though, Kahneman in his last book described very good experiments that show bad news having a much deeper effect on ones psyche than good ones. This obviously extend to social sites, like facebook etc..

</comment><comment><USER91> This writer should have qualified "news" as general consumer news. Professional/trade news, tech news, science news, health news, environmental news — all of these have a direct and sometimes meaningful impact on our lives.

</comment><comment><USER92> What about culling the news to those stories that you exactly need or want, such as heath, medicine, art, a favorite sport, the weather, and/or business. Perhaps that can lead to a more productive and creative life?

</comment><comment><USER93> "New has no explanatory power. News items are bubbles popping on the surface of a deeper world." Which news is this? weather.com has some rather shallow "news" but it's a pretty big blanket statement..

</comment><comment><USER94> I completely agree with the premise... but does anybody else find it ironic that an article explaining why you shouldn't read the news is published on a news website owned by a major newspaper?

</comment><comment><USER95> Obligatory Charlie Brooker "How To Report The News" <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtGSXMuWMR4>

</comment><comment><USER96> I read/watch less news, but those related to the world. Everyday I care less. I just read tech news, they're happier and much more interesting.

</comment><comment><USER97> AMEN! <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg5wkZ-dJXA> minute 4:30

</comment><comment><USER98> yes. but wait, I developed an [android application](<https://github.com/joelewis/emotionreader/bin/emotionBBC.apk>) that categorizes news by emotions, so why not just try to ignore the anger, sadness and fear sections of the app and read the rest?

</comment><comment><USER99> in america each election is similar to an exam in school. you need to study to pass an exam. your textbook is the news outlets of your choice. hopefully you've been keeping up on your studies so you can vote for the right candidate and pass the exam. you can determine for yourself if you've passed by...reading the news.

</comment><comment><USER100> I knew this when I was very young and people still look at me like I'm crazy when I tell them I don't watch the news.

</comment><comment><USER101> The world is a dangerous place. There is no way around it: it's always been this way. Whether it is a North Korea crisis, something burning in the Middle East, or our national debt, the news can bring you to the reality of danger, of war, of looming financial crisis.

Sure, by not reading it, you can retrieve yourself to a happy place in San Carlos or Palo Alto, but the danger still irks there, and it is not going away...

Reality check!

<comment><USER102> Mass media focus on drama not in information; so your emotions are appealed more than rational thoughts.

You can't do nothing about the North Korea crisis even if you watch the news, that's a "Reality check".

<comment><USER101> That's right, jQueryIsAwesome, jQuery is awesome in Palo Alto.

And you can do nothing about North Korea. And you don't care about North Korea, because the only thing you care about is Palo Alto, its organic restaurants, its girls, and, of course, jQuery.

But NK isn't going away. And you, American kids, can stick your heads in Palo Alto sand, and assume that all is good, and by not knowing what's out there, you will make yourself happier.

Happy happy joy joy!

<comment><USER102> I'm Colombian, like, live in Colombia/South America.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER103> News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier (guardian _news_ .com)

Hmm...

</comment><comment><USER104> Also news has the dangerous ability to dim your faith in the humanity by exceptions.

</comment><comment><USER105> Does this include hacker news and reddit? Cause I already gave up most other news.

<comment><USER58> Sites like these mitigate some of the problems with news but they make others worse. A good comment thread can provide a lot of valuable background and context, for example. On the other hand, the bias towards unimportant but attention-grabbing stories is not especially improved by making editorial decisions with a literal popularity contest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Certainly if you read the left-wing propaganda from the Guardian it will./

</comment><comment><USER106> The author should have added a TL;DR "ignorance is bliss" at the top.

<comment><USER107> Slightly more subtle - TL;DR: news does nothing to cure you of ignorance, so avoid the aggravation of news

</comment></comment><comment><USER108> This is a VERY naive point of view about news.

</comment><comment><USER109> Says a newspaper.

</comment><comment><USER110> Hence the phrase: ignorance is bliss.

</comment><comment><USER111> What about tech news? :)

</comment><comment><USER112> you do realize you are posting news right? on Hacker NEWS

<comment><USER33> RTFA. Or don't, and simply understand this: "the news", as referred to in the OP, is actually a subset of news in general, in the same way that fast food is a subset of food in general.

The point is what while most people can easily distinguish between fast-food and proper food, many people aren't nearly so discerning when it comes to their information diets.

<comment><USER24> Not sure if I'm that pessimistic. Check the actual ratings. Google for it, I am glancing at "Live + Same Day Cable News Daily Ratings for Thursday, April 11, 2013" In a country of 400 million people, "1,133 thousands" aka about a million watched fox news. There is the hidden assumption that the million who watch are true believers as opposed to out for a laugh or just filling time or curious what the opposition thinks. But for the sake of argument I'll assume any TV tuned into fox news is a true believer. That means 1.1 million people cannot distinguish between the information diet equivalent of fast food and proper food, but roughly four hundred million can distinguish. Lets assume there are around 10 or so other networks pushing meaningless mind candy. Making it a problem around the two percent range.

Its a narrowcasting thing. Could you make a news station that appeals broadly to maybe 25% of the population, which would be about a hundred times as many as watch fox news? Yes, but from a narrowcasting perspective they've convinced themselves that having 1% of the fans but having them be absolutely rabid fans is "better" for advertising sales or whatever.

The same thinking is killing mass media in general. For example saturday night live appeals intensely to about 2 million hard core fans. The other 398 million in the population will not watch it for free. Does "Survivor" define the american cultural obsession with reality TV? Maybe, but it doesn't define american culture because only 9.38 million bothered to watch last week for free... the other 390 million are uninterested.

Not quite as severe as the obesity epidemic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER113> Oddly relevant today.

</comment><comment><USER114> yes this is why i am not going to read this item

</comment><comment><USER115> so, you said, I should give up Hacker News?

<comment><USER116> I'd say yes, but I'm not entirely sure. I ditched TV, apart from TV news, then the TV altogether, then mainstream news on the net. I moved to digg, I moved off digg. For the last two years I read hacker news, and occasional newspaper I can get my hands on (I'm not buying them though, I firmly believe that not funding your addiction is the first step to limiting or even shedding your addiction).

I read hacker news for almost two years now. The problem is that I can't dismiss hacker news as easily as I did with all the other news sources because I strongly suspect I'm learning some valuable things here. Sure, 90% is just amusement, 9% has some conversational value but I'm afraid 1% is actually enriching for me and I'm afraid where could I get this if I ditch HN.

Best (sort-of) news addiction I had so far was being addicted to stackoverflow. Helping strangers with their problems as fast as I can was really good for me. Unfortunately I got the job, then I lost the job. That messed my mind somehow and now stackoverflow seems like too much work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER117> "Meta".

</comment><comment><USER118> Heroin is supposed to make you happy, if that's the goal. Being an ignorant member of society is a recipe for personal and societal disaster.

How many people have taken the time to define news? Not in terms of what makes one thing more interesting than others, but at the simplest level: what is news?

You can't ask for more substance until you define what the substance you are after is. Once you've defined it, you will see solutions where you haven't before.

After that, ask yourself if the information sources you've historically related to as news media are in fact news sources or public relations sources.

More third-party aggregators and readers are only going to disappoint the market because they don't do anything about the underlying news problems.

<comment><USER119> Have you tried Heroin? :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER120> News used to be bad for me when I was a young kid in my teens. It used to depress me. Now that I'm in my thirties I've become desensitized and pretty much nothing bothers me. News is only bad for you if you let it affect you.

<comment><USER121> I'd say becoming desensitized is a problem in itself.

<http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2042953>

</comment></comment><comment><USER122> great "article" shilling for his own book. news is bad for you.

 _everything_ is bad for you. every single thing will kill you in the long term. should write a book about that.

is it important to know about current events in politics? what the sequester is and how it impacts a US citizen? who won the venezulean elections? latest financial news out of europe?

well, it depends on the person. do you have an interest in the world around you? do you feel that a cultured individual should not be fully ignorant what's happening around him?

and then, the business perspective, this is HN after all - shouldn't you know what's affecting your target group or maybe investors? being able to talk with someone you meet from India about something that is going on in his/her country proves you _care_ about what's going on outside of your little tech bubble.

is it necessary to know who won the US masters? No, you will survive without. but it provides context if you meet someone who cares about golf.

</comment><comment><USER123> I went on a 'news fast' a while back and felt amazing after it.

It might be herd vs individual health but watching / reading the news will not make you better off.

I do think concentrating on knowledge of the world is important but I think this is separate from news.

</comment><comment><USER13> "I don't know a single truly creative mind who is a news junkie" is not the same as "stop consuming the news altogether, it's bad for you". It's a horribly fallacious argument.

</comment><comment><USER124> Ignorance is bliss.</comment>