I stopped reading news somewhere in 2011 while working at a news site. I was already jaded but the medias handling of the Breivik attacks in Norway pushed me over the edge.
From my experience over the years, if something is important enough for me to know, it reaches me eventually one way or another. Yes, I'm no longer the first to have heard something happened, a new music album coming out or a new version of some technology being released, But I also felt this had very little negative impact on my life beyond small talk topics being a bit diminished. There is some fear of missing out to deal with in the beginning, but I can't think of a major thing I really missed.
But that doesn't mean I don't read news sites at all, just not the "news" section. Whenever there is a significant event, one feels the urge to want to know more now, but in reality there is just not going to be any really useful information available for the first couple of weeks while everyone rushes to generate the most clicks from it. So it is better to wait until some more profound and evidence based articles are being published.
I also adapted the position that I either want to have a strong or no opinion on any given topic. I rather concede ignorance on something instead of arguing on shallow information. If I actually care about it, I do put in the time to try to understand it deeply.
I agree that when the news is important enough, it will reach you somehow.
I also noticed that when something is in the news, it's actually already "old news" and so the benefit you get from it is very small.
If you follow niche news sites such as HN, it gives you more advantage than any generic news can give you. Because you will know things in your niche long before it reaches mainstream.
Agreed. But even on HN I don't follow the news items that much. I enjoy the more timeless topics much more. But I like the aggregator style because with a quick glance over the title I become aware of things. For example, oh, Python 3.10 is out, cool. I don't really care right now, but it is good to know to check it out in say the next 6 months.
Hopefully you've stumbled across the fact that one of the recent low-level simmering news stories is more supply line issues. So it'd probably be best to have a week or two of daily necessities handy, like during the pandemic, just in case.
This is actually a big reason I want a house. Having an apartment is cramped enough if you have a lot of hobbies, but if you want to have survival supplies (which, as you said, the pandemic showed is always important), it just doesn't work in an apartment unless you have a spare bedroom.
On top of the many reasons I already had for wanting a house, I now also want one so that I can use the basement or even just a pit in the backyard to store some water, canned food, etc. for emergencies.
I don't think it is necessary to devote a whole room to it, just get long-lived and compact stuff like beans and rice. Although eventually one does get tired of beans and rice.
I don't get tired of beans and rice, but I do get tired of keeping a significant volume of beans and rice in my tiny apartment kitchen. I already barely have room as it is without a box of emergency supplies. For day-to-day quality of life I have to just hope that my normal supply of food and the American supply chain will back me up until I'm able to get a house.
I'm aware of ongoing issues with it, bit given that the impact of it on my life since beginning of pandemic has been practically zero (e.g. there were no toilet paper shortages were I live), I'm not terribly worried.
I think I could survive up to a month with the things I have in my apartment, except water. Have stockpiles not because of disaster preparedness, just because it is convenient.
From my experience over the years, if something is important enough for me to know, it reaches me eventually one way or another. Yes, I'm no longer the first to have heard something happened, a new music album coming out or a new version of some technology being released, But I also felt this had very little negative impact on my life beyond small talk topics being a bit diminished. There is some fear of missing out to deal with in the beginning, but I can't think of a major thing I really missed.
But that doesn't mean I don't read news sites at all, just not the "news" section. Whenever there is a significant event, one feels the urge to want to know more now, but in reality there is just not going to be any really useful information available for the first couple of weeks while everyone rushes to generate the most clicks from it. So it is better to wait until some more profound and evidence based articles are being published.
I also adapted the position that I either want to have a strong or no opinion on any given topic. I rather concede ignorance on something instead of arguing on shallow information. If I actually care about it, I do put in the time to try to understand it deeply.