[phgn]

Which world events do you consider important and directly relevant to yourself? I find that things like election dates, covid restrictions etc still get to us some way (or we look them up when needed). Nearly all of it is irrelevant.

“To be completely cured of newspapers, spend a year reading the previous week’s newspapers.” — Nassim Taleb

[sseagull]

> Which world events do you consider important and directly relevant to yourself?

I find this kind of view depressingly common. Knowing about world events breaks us out of our various bubbles and makes us aware of what is going on with our fellow human beings. It is short-sighted to only focus on things relevant to you at this moment.

And irrelevant to what? Your career? Social standing? If so, then throw away movies, all fiction books, etc. those don’t result in anything really actionable either.

(This isn’t an argument for up-to-the minute news, though. I sort of agree there.)

[phgn]

For me it often is up-to-the minute news vs no news. I think the format kind of encourages reporting on everything, not on what's important. The best heuristic I found to decrease wasted time and being more happy is to not read any news and accept that I'll miss something.

I am interested in longer form issues like inequality, economic development, important regulation etc, but don't really consider them news. Reading information on those can also wait a few week or months, and then longer essays or books will have a better analysis.

The bubble-breaking effect of staying informed is valuable, but I don't know how to weigh it properly against spending time well every day. Personally, I found singular focus to be the most satisfying and am not ashamed of that.

[elliottinvent]

I guess it depends on how interested you are in what’s going on in the world, whether it’s relevant to you or not.

Even if I was just to look at the news that directly relevant to me, there’s plenty that (rightly) doesn’t make it to HN. For example, if there are an increasing number of terror attacks in a part of the world I’ve been to or plan to go to then I’d consider that news important but not HN-worthy.

[xenocratus]

Stuff that's actually useful to you/me/someone else is a rather subjective set. As an example, I'm interested (with explicit purpose) in travel restrictions around Europe, especially now in Covid times. Other people might be fortunate enough to not care about stuff like that