this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
10 points (85.7% liked)
Hacker News
1770 readers
1 users here now
This community serves to share top posts on Hacker News with the wider fediverse.
Rules
0. Keep it legal
- Keep it civil and SFW
- Keep it safe for members of marginalised groups
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I had this discussion with my therapist, he recommended I just stop consuming so much news. After three months now I must say I'm less depressed. Like maybe the planet is going to burn down. But nothing I can do will change that anyway so....
As a citizen there is stuff we can do. I don’t think total news blackout is good for society. Everyone holding their hands over their ears with their eyes shut going “I can’t do anything, so let’s focus on self while the world burns down.” let’s the people who are burning it down just continue to do it. People need to start turning their depression about the world into anger. Anger at the elite that are diving this tanker off a cliff. Anger at our ancestors for driving us to this point. Anger that 0.1% of humans are controlling everyone else. Complacency is what will end the human race. Not with a bang, but with a whimper. /old-man-rant (sorry)
Maybe it's more about getting the 'right' news. We don't need to know everything that's going on everywhere 24/7 like we're able to now and it can be more distracting than anything. You can end up too emotionally invested in things that are ultimately there to just upset you. Maybe people could have an anger they can more easily direct instead of having too much they're asked to get involved with, collapsing under the pressure of all of it and just 'giving up' in the end.
Very fair argument. Modern news is all trash media. It’s there to get clicks, for advertising dollars. I don’t think the open floodgates of TikTok, YouTube and Facebook are healthy at all. But saying “the world is burning down and there’s nothing I can do so let me ignore it” is not healthy or helpful in my opinion.
Oh yeah it's certainly not helpful, but I can't blame people for tuning out for their own health. The game is rigged against us :/