It's interesting that you took "state of the world" to mean "news". I know I referred to newspaper
(different from "news paper") and TV News shows. So it's my fault, I'm sure. But I definitely do *not* use
"this stuff" (TikTok, Instagram, Signal, etc) for news. I use it to gather some sense of the state of the
world. They seem like very different things to me.
I suppose news could be thought of as a differential on some prior concept of
the state of the world, eh? If you think you know the state and you're fed some
delta off that, then you update your concept. That's reasonable. But I don't
think that way. I'm mostly episodic and wake up each day [⛧] with a very
distorted conception of the world. It's even worse when I wake up at 3am with a
splitting headache that ends in shivers and puking. After those episodes, my
concept of the world is wiped down ... smoother, buffed. The burrs and flanges
that are an inherent part of the world are steadily re-established as I scroll
across the various feeds. By the time I start work (~8 or 9am), the state of
the world is fully flanged again (except in the headache aftermath, where it
takes several hours to reveal the detail again).
I can't help but think you narrative people will be (are) way more robust to
dementia than I'll be. When my abilities to re-reveal the detail of the state
of the world begin to seriously wane, I'll be thoroughly screwed.
[⛧] It seems circadian. But it may not be. "Vacations", which I put in quotes
because I don't really take them, screw with me in a similar way. Fugues, both work-Flow
and extracurricular-Flow, also do it. A good mobility workout re-configures the space
around me and feels like it re-configures my conception of the world, too. It's similar
with concentrated 1 or 2 day work episodes.
On 8/15/22 10:06, Steve Smith wrote:
The first movie theater experience I had after COVID had them shut down was watching Tom Hanks
wander through NM landscape (filmed here more than set here) settings reading the Newspapers out
loud to news-hungry, mostly illiterate, post-Civil-War townies. He added another layer of
curation/editorial value (or as a few towns demonstrated) bias and censorship. The movie title was
"News of the World"... it was an effective commentary/parable on the whole problem of
"what means 'News'?", particularly in a time of rapid cultural, economic, political and
technological change.
Sam Clemens was a reporter (Journalist?) before he was a writer of fictions and
commentary.
https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2015/today-in-media-history-in-1863-a-reporter-named-samuel-clemens-became-mark-twain/
<https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2015/today-in-media-history-in-1863-a-reporter-named-samuel-clemens-became-mark-twain/>
I live my life by aphorisms and anecdotes (maybe not literally, but they do represent a significant influence). A
quote that I have apparently made up (since I can never find the source of it) is misphrased as "I always read the
paper two weeks late, because by then it has proven to be wrong or is no longer relevant". I always attributed
this to Twain, but apparently I know nothing. Another quote attributed (by many) to him is roughly "A man who does
not read the newspaper is uninformed, a man who does read the newspaper is misinformed". I found this to be a
nice salve to the harsh abrasions caused by caustic declarations of "Fake News!" that ramped up so
drastically with Trump's ascendency. Rich, regularly coming from a news outlet whose name is so close to "Faux
News" to attack all other sources.
I am sure that Tom and his profession has a lot of perspective to offer, but in the voice
of Twain, "I'm not sure we are prepared to receive it".
- Steve
On 8/15/22 6:53 AM, glen wrote:
It's an interesting question. Someone posted a poll on a Mastodon server recently, something like "What is it you want from
all this stuff? (E.g. Twitter, Facebook, ...)" The possible answers were things like "Friendship",
"Connectedness", etc. There was an "Other", which I filled in. I wrote something like: "The state of the
world. When I was younger, I read the newspaper and watched the daily news on one of the big 3 networks. Now, it feels like
everything's all fractured. TV news is for ancient, out of touch people. The newspaper is neither local, nor does it tell
interesting national or international stories. So, I use these media, like 12-20 different outlets just to get some sense of the
state of the world."
I wish I had a better answer to "where do you find this stuff". It can be
exhausting trying to stay informed. Fora like FriAM help a bit.
On 8/13/22 17:57, Gillian Densmore wrote:
And where do find this stuff glen >_<
On Wed, Aug 10, 2022 at 2:41 PM glen <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
__
https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7zevd/this-is-the-data-facebook-gave-police-to-prosecute-a-teenager-for-abortion
<https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7zevd/this-is-the-data-facebook-gave-police-to-prosecute-a-teenager-for-abortion>
-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
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