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Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

(www.scientificamerican.com)
757 points headalgorithm | 1 comments | 05 Feb 25 14:55 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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joshdavham ◴[05 Feb 25 15:50 UTC] No.42950233[source]▶
One thing to consider for those of us who are more sensitive to online outrage is to just quit social media all together. I’m technically gen z and I’ve been off of social media (aside from HN, WhatsApp and discord) for years and you wouldn’t believe how great it’s been for my overall state of mind.

Reddit, instagram, X, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, Threads, etc are all the equivalent of digital junk food and I’d argue that we’re all a lot more negatively affected by it than we think. There’s a reason ‘brain rot’ was word of the year.

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zombiwoof ◴[05 Feb 25 22:19 UTC] No.42956109[source]▶
Isn’t this how they win? I mean the people in Germany in 1930 just said , this is crazy , it doesn’t feel right, but hey I have outrage fatigue so the concentration camps are just fine
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warkdarrior ◴[05 Feb 25 22:57 UTC] No.42956568[source]▶
Much of the German population in the 1930s and 1940s was not aware of concentration camps, and learned of them once the Allies arrived.
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anamdhek ◴[06 Feb 25 10:08 UTC] No.42960880{3}[source]▶
Early 30s, sure. Late 30s and 40s? You should qualify your statement with “this is a heated historical debate, but some people argue that…” Keep in mind the significant incentives to not seek out information, to disbelieve the information one did come across, and to lie after the war was over.
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1. NickC25 ◴[06 Feb 25 17:04 UTC] No.42964297{4}[source]▶
One of my neighbors when I grew up was part of Hitler Youth, and had moved to the US after the war. (for time context, I'm in my mid 30s, and he died a decade ago at IIRC 95 or 96, and I asked him about it maybe 20 years ago.)

I asked him if he and his fellow youths knew of anything. He said at first, no, but pretty quickly when all the jewish-owned businesses vanished almost overnight, everyone knew something was up. Did they know about the camps? Debatable. But even the kids knew that they jewish population was kicked out of society.