[pjc50]

This is exactly the effect that the news-spammers want to achieve. If you don't pick a side, you're not voting, or you're not an informed voter. So you've opted out of democracy. Which is nice, you've relieved yourself of a whole bunch of stress, and nothing changes in the short term.

Until something goes wrong. It's not that there won't be elections, they'll just be won by the same party for years on end. You personally will be fine, but there's an uptick in the number of journalists and activists killed in car bombs or more mysterious circumstances. The quality of the roads deteriorates and the number of homeless you have to step over increases.

Still, best not to have an agenda.

[hoorayimhelping]

>This is exactly the effect that the news-spammers want to achieve. If you don't pick a side, you're not voting, or you're not an informed voter

How does this follow at all?

You're doing exactly what the news spammers want. You're believing that they are the gatekeepers to knowledge and being informed. You're buying into the story that you need them to understand the world. This is a load of hogshit.

Candidates post their platforms and their ideas and encourage you to read them before you vote. How does watching the news make me more informed of their platform? They have values and they apply those values to the issues at hand. They say things like, "I believe in universal healthcare," or "I am tough against gun rights." How does being super up to date on the news help me understand how they will react to hypothetical situations, which is what I'm voting on?

Why do I need to know that there's massive protests going on in Hong Kong, the middle east and South America? Those are irrelevant to the domestic issues we face at home. The same domestic issues we face every election cycle (in the US): jobs, health care, food, guns, infrastructure. How does being well informed of the news help me make decisions based on my values and on the alignment of values with a candidate?

[pjc50]

> How does watching the news make me more informed of their platform?

The candidate is the "most biased" source on their own platform! Especially as to the important second order questions of "is this actually important, or have they just declared War on Pecans for some dumb reason", and "will this actually fix the problem, or is this just funneling money to their campaign donors"?

The most important issue in the immediate UK election is Brexit. Do you think the candidates' statements about the likely outcomes of their Brexit policies are reliable, or would you like to buy this bridge I have to sell?

You can definitely make the argument that foreign news is irrelevant to you. I have a lot of sympathy with that as a Brit who gets over-exposed to US news. But this only holds true until things get bad enough. Someone blows up a refinery in Saudi Arabia and the price of petrol skyrockets. In the most extreme version, someone starts a war and you get drafted. Until then, sure.

> jobs, health care, food, guns, infrastructure

So there's an important philosophical question here; are those issues important to you only in as much as they affect you personally, or those close to you, or are they important as they affect your fellow Americans?

Why do you care if it wasn't your child in the latest school shooting? Why do you care about 9/11 if nobody you know was in the towers? Why do you care about healthcare if you're healthy? Why do you care about infrastructure other than that specific bridge you drive over every day? If you live in California, do you have an interest in knowing what's up with all the fires, or are you going to wait until they approach your house?

[roenxi]

> Why do I need to know that there's massive protests going on in Hong Kong, the middle east and South America?

Given the poor quality of the reporting on local political issues it seems highly unlikely that the news is even reporting foreign political situations in a helpful fashion.

Even assuming good faith; it just seems unlikely that the facts will all get identified and accurately synthesised.

[erlag]

Implying that the news spammers care what you think. They don't as long as you click the button, that's where this ends for them.

[GarrisonPrime]

It certainly could be that they’re intentionally making the news an indecipherable morass. But continuing to participate in it wouldn’t prevent the catastrophe you predict. If anything, abandoning the chaotic media and helping to collapse their ad revenue might be more effective.