Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

There was just as much "large pain" being inflicted on people in the previous 4 years, it just didn't affect you personally.

Dude, lets be real here: most people would say the economy is shit, while still being comfortable with their lives. Anyone's general assessment of the economy based on gut, is meaningless. Unless you were on food banks/stamps, you were doing pretty good for all intents and purposes.

This statement is ridiculously out of touch.

Statements like this seem to originate in that environment polluted by propaganda that the previous comment mentions. For example, I genuinely don't know how someone can look at something like the dismantling of USAID as anything but an increase in "large pain". Sure, there are almost certainly individual programs within that organization that are wasteful and aren't the best use of our tax dollars, but there is (or at least was as of a few weeks ago) broad bipartisan support for this type of investment in humanity and stopping it will clearly inflict pain on people and this administration is at best indifferent to that pain.

Just using your example tho, I feel there are two kinds of framing.

1. This is literally a worse outcome than the alternative you prefer. You should care enough to try to fight it politically, especially if you are well positioned to do so.

2. This case (and 99% of cases of political outrage I see on the news) is trivial in the context of what is “normal” for human political history, even the political history that many people alive today were around for.

Will this even register as a trivia question in 100 years? Is a framing I ask myself when I’m mad about something in the world.

I think a lot of people walked from a world where they had no idea what the normal tumult of human political society is like, even normal American political messiness, and into the world of 24/7 current political news without any context what came before. It’s like, the sausage has always been made this way, you’re just now finding out.

I say these things and it always pisses people off. But I don’t recommend not caring, the world moves forward one micrometer at a time by caring, it’s just not worth the existential angst I see so often.

There is a massive amount of evidence that Americans basically think everyone else is having a terrible time, but asked to review their own living situation things are going well. Here’s a decent summary from late 2024: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/23/opinion/biden-trump-vibec...

Instead of engaging in the data, opponents usually yell the equivalent of what you put “You’re just out of touch!” Or throw in an anecdote like “well my cousin is having a terrible time!”.

What’s going on the US is weirder than a “normal” economic problem. That’s what makes it so frustrating and politically polarizing.

I need examples

>2. This case (and 99% of cases of political outrage I see on the news) is trivial in the context of what is “normal” for human political history, even the political history that many people alive today were around for.

>Will this even register as a trivia question in 100 years? Is a framing I ask myself when I’m mad about something in the world.

To me, this is an utterly nihilistic framing that renders one's entire life meaningless because the logic doesn't just apply to bad things. Like why did you even leave this comment? Maybe you or I remember for a little while. Maybe a handful of other people who read it will too. But no one is going to remember it, let alone genuinely care about what either of us said 100 years from now.

Examples, please.

If you are trans, you were just de-personed by executive order and your passport was invalidated. If you also happened to be an incarcerated female, you are being transferred to male facilities. These are actions which will have life-altering consequences.

That's only one thing among many others (ICE immigrant raids which also sweep up legal immigrants and citizens who don't "look American") just in the first few days. What "large pain" are you talking about?

> Will this even register as a trivia question in 100 years?

My family could be murdered in front of me and it wouldn't qualify as a trivia question for you or most other people in one year. This feels like a version of stoicism that missed the point of stoicism.

so things that affect less than 1% in the former and less than 0.01% in the latter, of the population, that's what we're basing "large pain" on? I'm not entirely sure you want to play this game.

edit: and vis a vis the USAID thing the former president of Kenya summed it up "Why you are crying? you don't pay american taxes! we need to take care of ourselves!" https://www.msn.com/en-xl/africa/other/us-aid-suspension-wak...

You’re making such an absurd comparison in situations. The death of your own family has an immediate and extreme impact on you personally.

99% of what you see on the news you would never know happened if it wasn’t presented to you.

And I’m not saying not to care. I’m saying put big things into perspective. You don’t need to become catatonically depressed because the US changed its foreign aid in a way that you would never know about unless presented to you.

As I write this I’m thinking about one of my best friends, who literally has been so depressed because of world news he reads on Reddit this year that he can’t get out of bed, stopped going to work and got fired. There are appropriate and healthy levels to care about things.

How are you making the jump from calibrating your emotional response to distant political changes that have no immediate significance on your own life, are par for humanity, and don’t matter in the long run, to nihilism in your immediate experience of meaning?

I don’t connect distant political to my own personal experience of meaning in the world, so i can’t follow this line of reasoning.

Sorry but quoting the NYTimes as evidence would be no different from a Republican quoting Fox News as evidence to you.

Here's an old quote from the author, the esteemable Paul Krugman

“The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in ‘Metcalfe’s law’—which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants—becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.”

Here's another mea culpa from Paul Krugman (he was wrong about globalization).

What Economists (Including Me) Got Wrong About Globalization https://archive.md/DrJKm

If you stick up a liquor and kill a couple of people you go to jail for life. If you advocate for polices that destroy the local economies of middle America with all the ills that ensue...social breakdown, drug addiction/overdoses, crime etc. Well you get to write a mea culpa and then head off to a nice dinner at your favorite NY restaurant I guess.

I linked this article because it summarizes why the data is weird and links to multiple sources, and frames the problem in a way that can be engaged with in a relatively short format.

I find it telling that instead of arguing with data, points presented, or any source of counter argument, you act like the only argument in this article is “it’s right because I say so.”

Much easier to dismiss a position as “can’t be right because you were wrong on something before” than actually think I guess.

> I genuinely don't know how someone can look at something like the dismantling of USAID as anything but an increase in "large pain".

Maybe try asking people why they think it’s bad?

Here’s people arguing it’s doing all kinds of destructive behavior, - like setting up a fake vaccine clinic for the CIA.

https://youtu.be/wtgT_u2rWs0?si=bFX476_JgC81vJuM

I haven’t seen anyone arguing against these claims. They just say “oh but it’s helping poor people” without answering whether or not it’s been doing covert work for the CIA under the pretense that it’s aid.

Clearly the American people did see a problem with inflation and voted accordingly. And no matter how they try to spin it to support a particular political narrative, that won't change. There are so many ways to spin the numbers to make them support an argument. I'm not an economist so am in no position to assess (and I'm guessing neither are you). But given the track record (bias) of the NYT, I'm always going to be a bit suspicious.

Honestly I wasn’t even approaching this with right vs left in mind. I spend most of my voice on this subject talking down my liberal friends off a cliff. The right and the left tend to think the economy has never been worse and it’s all X fault.

Here’s the same jist from the economist: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/10/17/americas-econom...

If you want the thoughtful, smart, very right wing source on it, then check out the Cato institute: https://www.cato.org/commentary/americans-grim-views-decent-.... Which tries to explain it as basically “people get really mad about inflation even if technically as a whole they are better off”. But the Cato economists still concede that overall the economy is/was doing extremely well and things are improving for people that by standard economic measures looks really good.

Any percentage of people being de-personed is bad. If the state is permitted to withhold travel documents of people indefinitely (and the supporting documents they sent in to get their passport renewed[1]), do you really live in a free state?

Also, and I know people knee-jerk at the comparison, but historically speaking Jews comprised less than 1% of the population of Weimar Germany.[2] The smallness of the percentage shouldn't be cause to dismiss the harm of their discrimination as "no big deal." It's been shown where that leads.

[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2025/01/28/state-... [2] https://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/eng/JEW_RELIGIONZUG...

>How are you making the jump from calibrating your emotional response to distant political changes that have no immediate significance on your own life, are par for humanity, and don’t matter in the long run, to nihilism in your immediate experience of meaning?

The primary difference I see between these two is how you define "your immediate experience". At what distance does something become "distant political changes" that can be ignored? Because almost all of us lead "par for humanity" lives that "don’t matter in the long run" so why care about any of it if that is the extent of what matters?

Are you arguing that USAID is entirely some CIA operation or are you arguing for throwing the baby out with the bathwater? Because this is not evidence that the entire organization is a net negative for the world.

I’m more curious about what you think the “large pain” the previous administration was inflicting on people than learning about your indifference to minorities

No US citizen is unable to get a passport. The only issue is that their passport needs to reflect their biological sex rather than their gender identity. I personally think this policy is excessive but nobody is being "de-personed".

Some Americans were left behind in Afghanistan, and thirteen Marines were killed there due to the incompetent execution of the withdrawal. Other Americans were taken hostage by Hamas with next to no serious effort to recover them. Many were fired from their jobs or discharged from the military if they refused to take an experimental vaccine. Others who took the vaccine suffered myocarditis and other vaccine injuries. Many people have overdosed on fentanyl or fallen victim to gangs like Tren de Aragua that simply walked across the open southern border. Tens of thousands of US construction jobs were destroyed by the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline. I can keep going but I think I've made my point.

And if you're not just counting US citizens, there's a war in Ukraine that's killed over a million people and another war in Gaza, the latter of which was precipitated by the bloodiest mass killing of Jews since the Holocaust.

It is. It's just tip of the iceberg. All they do is foment troubles in other countries while providing high paid employment for nepo babies. It's amazing how Americans downplay direct interference in other countries internal affairs with long lasting negative impacts (like people attacking government healthcare workers during vaccine drive) while claiming russians spending 10k usd on an election cycle in which parties spent billion+ was WW3.

Al though the current US admin is just bringing in USAID within the admin controls, USAID is massive net negative (as it is with any other american influence/aid) for the world.

The new policy’s notion of binary “biological sex” is completely divorced from genetic, biological, physiological, and psychological reality

I don't think anyone is saying that the US shouldn't have an organisation that distributes aid. But I think it is right to pause it when it is doing things like funding Politico magazine.

> You’re making such an absurd comparison in situations. The death of your own family has an immediate and extreme impact on you personally.

> 99% of what you see on the news you would never know happened if it wasn’t presented to you.

What I'm hearing is that if the government kills someone, only their immediate family members are allowed to protest. We shouldn't protest when the government is killing people who aren't related to us, even if our relatives could be next.

I’m not advocating for ignoring the world. I’m advocating for contextualizing it so that your emotional response is sane. I think I put it in another post, but someone I know closely has become catatonically depressed this year because of what political news he reads on Reddit. He makes statements like “there has literally never been a worse time to be alive”. His personal life was great, there was nothing in it to suggest the US president’s decisions affect him, but his emotional response to Reddit news is about as extreme as if his wife died. He stopped going to work and won’t get out of bed most days, which will actually impact his life and give him things to be depressed about.

Caring should not be binary. If in your life, caring about things is all or nothing, and a political event that is extremely common and minor in the context of political history feels as acute as the death of a loved one, then I’m really sorry for you. The world will always be a miserable place for you.

You seem very emotionally uncalibrated if the first place you go is that the majority of news must mean your family is going to die. I’m not going to stop you from becoming emotionally destroyed by impossibly-worst-case-scenario perseverating any time something doesn’t politically go your way. I’m also not going to stop you from blowing 99% of political events so far out of proportion that you can’t sleep at night. I’m not going to stop you from existing in a constant cycle of mental angst because the world isn’t perfect by your vision (and because someone on the news tells you 24/7 just how imperfect the world is, because your angst is their profit).

That sounds like a nightmare existence to me. But if you really want it, maybe because it makes you feel righteous in your pain and holy in your angst, then go for it I guess.

>there was nothing in it to suggest the US president’s decisions affect him, but his emotional response to Reddit news is about as extreme as if his wife died.

Do you not realize that you are judging what "decisions affect him" exclusively from your own perspective? You clearly have some established distance in your mind in which you think someone's suffering is immaterial to you. You seem to imply that this reaction might be appropriate for a partner dying, but what about for other people? Would it be appropriate to be depressed because of a friend's suffering? What about a distant cousin? A neighbor? A coworker? An acquaintance? What about the parent of one of your kid's friends who you haven't even met before?

You don't seem to actually be objecting to the reaction your friend is having, you seem to be reacting that your friend just has a larger circle of people he empathizes with than you and therefore more people have the potential to "affect him".

My current understanding is that USAID was not doing funding Politico, but had a subscription (or multiple subscriptions). You can check out the description here: https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/05/media/politico-usaid-subscrip... It sure does sound like Politico Pro is expensive, however. There have certainly some other kind of fishy things going on with USAID, but so far as I can tell, all with full approval of the US government. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Agency_for_Inter...

> And I’m not saying not to care. I’m saying put big things into perspective. You don’t need to become catatonically depressed because the US changed its foreign aid in a way that you would never know about unless presented to you.

Here in the UK in 2016 we had a referendum to leave the EU, which is a pooled sovereignty union to create a more integrated Europe.

I raised the same questions to those who wanted to leave the EU, who complained about "diktats from Brussels" as if pooling sovereignty meant we now had dictators instead of elected officials.

My questions were about how their daily lives were impacted by these "diktats". 99% of people avoided the question. For them, it wasn't about any practical reality. They just wanted to vote to leave the EU. The reasons for it seemed to be post-hoc justifications of an emotionally made decision.

I guess it is like that for most people.

A lot of political news is that my government is torturing or mass-murdering other people's families in a distant land. I understand your comment to say that I shouldn't feel bad about it unless (until) they're killing *my* family. This idea leads to losing by a thousand cuts, as in "First they came for the socialists..."

So far we've mentioned 3 parties in this scenario...the NY Times, Cato Institute and the voting public. There used to be a time where we'd give priority to the "experts" despite how consistently wrong they seem to be about almost everything. I think what's changed is we now have so many credible sources for comparison, that they are no longer able to gaslight people. So their opinions, quite rightly, have far less value than they used to. So yeah, I'II go with the voting public on this one.

"What we uncovered shocked us. The bottom line is that, for 20 years or more, including the months prior to the election, voter perception was more reflective of reality than the incumbent statistics. Our research revealed that the data collected by the various agencies is largely accurate. Moreover, the people staffing those agencies are talented and well-intentioned. But the filters used to compute the headline statistics are flawed. As a result, they paint a much rosier picture of reality than bears out on the ground..."

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/02/11/democrats-...