5 Matching Annotations
  1. Oct 2017
    1. If voting is about choosing the right policy, and the right policy means finding out the consequences of different policies under consideration and then making a choice based on that, then the more informed you are, the more likely your vote is going to lead in the direction of a good policy as opposed to a bad one. Everyone is going to benefit from the good policy that results from your vote. But if voting is about just deciding how to just divide up the spoils between your class and the other social class, then more debatable whether you’re making the world a better place by finding out what’s the best way to tilt things in your group’s advantage and voting in that way.

      Do you see how heavily following the news is tied with politics? It really is a matter of informing oneself about what is around oneself so that when it is time to vote, one votes with a knowledge mind. Of course, some people vote for tribalism reasons as stated above but those that take what is important from the news take what is most useful to inform oneself to the best necessary state.

    2. there’s an aspect that feels a lot like watching a sports game to me. I have a team I’m rooting for. I feel like I can help my team when I go out to vote for them. I’m an economist. I do listen to the policies. But I’m also engaged with the horse race aspect of it. That’s the fun part. The policy part is the eating your vegetables part. The treatment of news as entertainment, and bringing this horse race aspect in, can make people better informed.

      This is deadly to a democratic republic. The belief in tribalism on this level can tear a country apart. Yes, it is one reason why we follow the news but that doesn't make it a good reason. some news outlets really are interested in just appealing to their readers' primal tribalism instincts, and that's bad.

    3. Jeff ELY: We view the construction and the development of suspense and surprise and other aspects of entertainment as basically optimally and economizing on a scarce resource, which is the ability to change someone’s beliefs.

      It isn't so much a scarce resource as it is a high energy process. Converting an individual's opinion takes lots of energy and work. Ultimately, persuasion for journalism is very good in terms of most forms of persuading texts because it has to be.

    4. What if we really follow the news just to … entertain ourselves. That story and more, coming up, after this short break.

      We should understand that the same reasons an author has to write anything are the same possible reasons for both writing and reading the news: to inform, to entertain, to persuade, to show. Journalism just happens to have more focus on informing through regular pieces and persuade on editorials, at least when done right.

    5. Also, reading about the news may make people smarter.

      I would argue that rather then making one smarter it makes one more knowledgeable. It may not necessarily be useful to you or even correct but a general level of reading filtered through a preexisting system of knowledge on how to judge the sources you are reading to see if they are in your best interest is important. More knowledge, not smarter.