Just wondering if you pay close attention to things like the fiscal cliff, the debt ceiling, and anything else discussed in mainstream media outlets. I ask because this stuff probably has no impact or a negligible impact on total utility but it still interests me. Maybe it's the psychology of power, conflict, and persuasion but I find it fun to pay some attention to this stuff. If so, what news outlets do you use? I listen to America Left on XM radio and occasionally watch MSNBC.

The answer is no

Weak yes. I pay attention to them insofar as I spend an average of about ~15min/day reading Political Wire, ~15min/day reading The Washington Post, ~10min/day reading Paul Krugman, ~15 seconds/day reading the headlines of Wikipedia's "In the News". I also spend have Facebook and Twitter accounts that frequently involve news.

Generally, the news isn't worth focusing too much on. I think you could take a Pareto approach and get 80% of the benefit by just reading the headlines on a newspaper website. The benefits of listening to the mainstream news seem to be in having something to talk about with people, looking normal, and seeming more informed and engaged.

No. Only what I notice on my Facebook news feed and what comes up in conversation. I used to listen to the audio version of the economist and I enjoyed it, but I think I am better off listening to books, so I stopped.

Online, I read Slate, the New York Times, and the New Republic, mostly when I don't feel like doing anything else. In print, I read the New Yorker. My parents recently got a subscription to the Atlantic, so I'll probably read that too. I listen to the Planet Money and EconTalk podcasts, which often cover subjects related to current events and politics. To the extent that I follow the news, it's for entertainment. More-useful information is available elsewhere on the web, but I find well-written, professionally produced articles more pleasurable to read than some random person's ramblings, even if they're insightful or useful. News is not quite as worthless as porn, but it's close.

I think I am better off listening to books

Do you have any recommendations?

Pat wrote:Online, I read Slate, the New York Times, and the New Republic, mostly when I don't feel like doing anything else. In print, I read the New Yorker. My parents recently got a subscription to the Atlantic, so I'll probably read that too. I listen to the Planet Money and EconTalk podcasts, which often cover subjects related to current events and politics. To the extent that I follow the news, it's for entertainment. More-useful information is available elsewhere on the web, but I find well-written, professionally produced articles more pleasurable to read than some random person's ramblings, even if they're insightful or useful. News is not quite as worthless as porn, but it's close.

I think I am better off listening to books

Do you have any recommendations?

Yeah, when I follow mainstream news outlets, it's mostly for entertainment too. I do think there's a slight chance that supporting politicians who are more egalitarian towards humans will have a useful memetic effect that eventually benefits all sentient creatures, though. But that argument requires many questionable assumptions.
I used to listen to audiobooks more so than I do now. They can get expensive.

I don't pay attention to news.

What do you listen to in the car? Audio books? Music? Sports? Nothing?

Yes, but it's more like a bad habit than useful behavior.

Perhaps this is off-topic and I just have too much time on my hands but I think the news would be more enjoyable and better solutions to problems would occur if our political parties corresponded to the major moral philosophy schools. For example, there could be the Deontologists, the Utilitarians, an eclectic group, and perhaps others. Any thoughts?

Elijah wrote:Except that 50% of the population––at least––is too dull to be able to think through such alternatives. Of course, at least 50% of the population is too dull to think through the alternatives we have.

Yeah, we'd need substantial training in moral philosophy starting in high school or earlier.

If seasteading or charter cities got big, then one of the earliest states would be a rationalist/effective altruist one.

The rationalist community in San Francisco is already basically as close to a futuristic utilitarian utopia as could be expected from a group of 200 individuals, and seems to be rapidly growing.

RyanCarey wrote:If seasteading or charter cities got big, then one of the earliest states would be a rationalist/effective altruist one.

The rationalist community in San Francisco is already basically as close to a futuristic utilitarian utopia as could be expected from a group of 200 individuals, and seems to be rapidly growing.

Whut? :O do tell !

The benefits of listening to the mainstream news seem to be in having something to talk about with people, looking normal, and seeming more informed and engaged.

I think the benefits go further than this.

The mainstream media is biased towards coverage of events, not issues. Issues are generally only discussed if there is a recent, specific news event -- usually featuring a relatable individual -- that provides a peg to hang the story on. Sandy Hook lets us talk about gun crime. Trayvon Martin lets us talk about racism. Troy Davis lets us talk about capital punishment. All three are ongoing issues but we only get to talk about them when they're instantiated in an event and usually relatable human actors.

All this is bad news for utilitarians because many of the things we care about -- animal suffering, global poverty, x-risk, etc -- are not recent, specific events concerning individuals but ongoing, diffuse concerns.

However, if we're in touch with the news media and its priorities, we can leverage off coverage of events and individuals to provide an opening to talk about issues. PETA and other AR groups use this strategy all the time, of course. Peter Singer does it effectively, sometimes, penning op-eds that provide a utilitarian perspective on the topic of the day and appearing on current affairs programs like Australia's Q&A. By staying at least somewhat engaged with news media, we can look out for big stories (or little stories!) that offer valuable opportunities to start a conversation -- the cattle-slaughter scandal in Australia last year, the invention of vat-grown meat, famine in the Horn of Africa, asteroids and x-risk, etc.

No. But if you somehow feel you need to read the news "to know what's going on" in the world, you can spend a few minutes per week reading the "politics this week" section from The Economist.

Or Facebook wall postings. I get more than enough mainstream news coverage from there.

spindoctor wrote:

The benefits of listening to the mainstream news seem to be in having something to talk about with people, looking normal, and seeming more informed and engaged.

I think the benefits go further than this.

The mainstream media is biased towards coverage of events, not issues. Issues are generally only discussed if there is a recent, specific news event -- usually featuring a relatable individual -- that provides a peg to hang the story on. Sandy Hook lets us talk about gun crime. Trayvon Martin lets us talk about racism. Troy Davis lets us talk about capital punishment. All three are ongoing issues but we only get to talk about them when they're instantiated in an event and usually relatable human actors.

All this is bad news for utilitarians because many of the things we care about -- animal suffering, global poverty, x-risk, etc -- are not recent, specific events concerning individuals but ongoing, diffuse concerns.

However, if we're in touch with the news media and its priorities, we can leverage off coverage of events and individuals to provide an opening to talk about issues. PETA and other AR groups use this strategy all the time, of course. Peter Singer does it effectively, sometimes, penning op-eds that provide a utilitarian perspective on the topic of the day and appearing on current affairs programs like Australia's Q&A. By staying at least somewhat engaged with news media, we can look out for big stories (or little stories!) that offer valuable opportunities to start a conversation -- the cattle-slaughter scandal in Australia last year, the invention of vat-grown meat, famine in the Horn of Africa, asteroids and x-risk, etc.

I think that is a very good point. It's probably not worth more than a few minutes a day, though.

Agreed.

I think I am better off listening to books

Do you have any recommendations?[/quote]

Here is my goodreads account if that is useful: http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/5526696-mooncalf

Often, I watch the news on TV and read some newspapers but I try to avoid controversial issues with relatively low impact (usually debates on politically correct behaviour) because I don't want them to occupy my mind. I think there's still some value in informing yourself about economy issues and international affairs to be able to estimate if our global society is still going to prosper or if its going down (inportant for the probability of futurist issues). But I admit that I would get better background information in books.