Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

>> But things like the USA's current constitutional crisis are real.

While I have no doubt this is true, is it _actually_ having any impact on your day to day life? If you didn't have social media, didn't read the news, and somehow didn't even know there was an election (I know this one isn't possible) would your day to day life have changed at all? Look at the past week as an example. Threats of tariffs, headline news, retaliation, and then backing down before anything happened bringing us largely back to where we started.

Don't get me wrong, there are people directly affected by these things and I'm not going to get into whether the approach above is ethical or not. But for most people, I believe you could genuinely switch off and not notice any difference at all.

And even if you know and are well read on the issues (as it sounds like you may be) - what can you do about it? In fact - have you done anything about it? If the answer is no then what's the point in being informed?

This is wrong, Trump and his policies does affect everyone’s day to day life. It may not be immediately visible effect but that is why he lost the 2nd time he tried to run. This fallacy didn’t cause people to vote for Trump in this current election, it caused them to not vote. Not voting is a direct negative effect on your life because you’ve chosen to give up on understanding the consequences. We are basically on track to repeat the last time he was in office because people have chosen to believe the fallacy out of fatigue. The exact fatigue we are talking about right now.

The common thread with Trump is to blame other people for your unhappiness whether an issue affects you daily or not. Then tie that unrelated unhappiness to these issues. That causes fatigue and effects your daily life trying to work through an unsolvable problem (from the individual perspective). For example my father is farmer in a 2 man farming operation. He never spends any time around or near immigrants, not even remotely close, but he has been blaming the immigrants for his unhappiness. If you ask him why it’s because there is this “crisis” with ominous consequences that no one can define.

> He never spends any time around or near immigrants

He's literally married to an immigrant.

My father? No he’s not. My father’s family however, his parents (my grand parents) were the children of immigrant homesteaders though who walked across the Canadian border. That’s about how close he’s been.

>> Trump and his policies does affect everyone’s day to day life

Of course, to an extent. But for the vast majority of people they aren't going to have a direct and horrible impact. Take some of the most objectionable things so far - the kind that might upset you if you read about them (treatment of immigrants, plans to 'take over' Greenland/Panama/Palastine, pardoning the Jan 6 criminals, DOGE, etc). These are all very upsetting for many people and understandably so. But they probably don't actually affect you. If they upset you there's very little you can actually do until the next round of elections. Better to switch off and save your own mental health in the meantime and vote when the time comes.

Take your father for example. Would it not be much better for him (and you) if he didn't follow the news/social media, checked out both parties policies at election time, voted and then switched off again?

I see the argument made in the context of government snooping. What if I said that the government made it illegal to use any form of encryption that it did not have a backdoor to. In other words, they have the right to read every single message you ever send or receive. There are people who tell me "don't be concerned, if you've got nothing to hide this won't have any impact on your day to day life".

I don't think that argument is going to persuade you or most others on HN. But you're saying exactly that.

That's just because the community on HN selects for the type of person who constantly talks about things where they don't have authorial control, any idea on how to change, nor a holistic strategic population understanding of the issue. I've always thought that's one of the weakest parts of the community here and something the community here has become much worse about over time selecting for noise over substance, though so has the rest of the web.

Many of us live in democracies but the kind of coverage you get on these sites doesn't help any individual voter or participant take any action. At that point, what use is this coverage? I bring this up because I'm involved in local politics and find the rhetoric on places like this would not survive a single community meeting or outreach event.

Sure, many people can dramatically turn down news consumption and may do better (working towards their personal goals). This is an information diet and stress management question.

At the same time, the parable of the slow boiling frog is apropos here. The Trump administration is breaking many laws as they try to scare off career government employees and install loyalists.

As a general principle, I’m not opposed to improving government efficiency, but it must be done legally.

It will take time for the courts to respond to the executive overreaches. But what happens if the administration doesn’t comply? This has already happened and will likely happen more. If we have an executive branch not complying with the courts, the one branch remaining is Congress. If not that, then massive civil unrest. Or some kind of internal power struggle. This could boil over more quickly than some might expect. It is a test of our resolve.

What happens when some people in the administration realize they are likely going to be held accountable? Will they do the right thing then? Or will they double down?

I think the closing of social programs is upsetting but not necessarily impactful to the wider populace because the admin can be sued for abusing federal funds and the programs easily reinstated.

That’s not the only changes that are happening however, there is pressure to normalize criminal activity to ensure the wealthy aren’t held accountable. This is immediately impactful because for every person Trump pardons or protects it enables the same behavior on the Democrat side. The “well Democrats will never do something like Trump” is also a fallacy. That behavior does immediately impact everyone.

So no I don’t wish my father to tune out the world in between elections. I want my father to tune out the hysterics, but he is one of the hysterics. People should be actively informed and ready to act. The hysteria is what happens when people ignore the world for short term capital gain.