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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: 0.361s | source
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Glyptodon ◴[05 Feb 25 20:30 UTC] No.42954673[source]▶
I don't have outrage fatigue. Outrages are outrages and they are what they are. Are there many exaggerations and fake outrages? Sure. But things like the USA's current constitutional crisis are real.

What I struggle with isn't fatigue at outrage, it's knowing what to do about it.

I think violence is going to become more common, but I don't particularly think it will be effective.

So less so than outrage, it's the feeling that we're trapped in a real life doom loop with no clear off ramp that I struggle with.

I would like to do something... But what?

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basisword ◴[06 Feb 25 11:31 UTC] No.42961367[source]▶
>> 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?

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munksbeer ◴[06 Feb 25 20:40 UTC] No.42966263[source]▶
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.

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1. Karrot_Kream ◴[06 Feb 25 21:42 UTC] No.42966783[source]▶
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.