[throwaway22032]

You can argue that this is a feedback loop, though.

I can survive on minimum wage in the UK, therefore if I earn min wage + 1,000 (after tax), I can afford these subscriptions.

The question is whether I prefer that over other things.

I prioritised learning materials, computers, etc in my youth when I had a hilariously low budget and it paid dividends.

The questions IMO are:

1) to what extent is the economy zero sum, e.g. can everyone avoid being a retail worker

and

2) if we satisfy 1, how do we expand critical thinking such that people invest in themselves

[ahelwer]

Reading the news is, in my opinion, nearly diametrically opposed to investing in yourself. You will get a better understanding of current events (upon hearing of them from others, the best filter that money can't even buy) by reading history books exploring the past couple hundred years. The news is an entertainment product where personalities are constantly making statements or predictions that never pan out, and they never face any penalty for it. Look at how nearly everyone involved in the media push for the Iraq war still has a career and is seemingly respected by their peers. Look at how half the media lost their heads over the Trump/Russia thing, leading people on for three years straight, never amounting to anything. Someone who completely ignored that entire thing would be massively better off intellectually (and be better informed about the world) than someone who hung onto the daily "the walls are closing in" predictions.

Daily or even weekly, maybe monthly reading of the news is over 95% noise and is a pure negative for personal development.

[throwaway22032]

I agree, I guess I was addressing the general point about paying for information.

Orwell's Books vs. Cigarettes is just as poignant today as it was then.

By forgoing that pint at the pub earlier and buying textbooks, now I can afford both.

[judahmeek]

I agree for the most part.

That said, it requires actually reading the news for someone to come to the same conclusion that you did through first hand experience, rather than just taking your word for it.

[metabagel]

Trump's ties to the Russian government and intelligence services are far from a hoax.

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/513499-republicans-i...

https://i.redd.it/nf1crtngi3iy.jpg

[ahelwer]

Look, I know there's negligible chance I'll be able to overcome your sunk cost of multiple years of attention and presumably many authored social media posts, but you really can just move on and nobody will actually care one way or the other. The 2016 election wasn't rigged, it's just a weird thing that happened and a handful of Russian people being paid to post poorly-made memes contributed very little to the outcome. I don't like Trump but it's getting a bit embarrassing at this point. A lot of people, your fellow Americans, really did vote for him for their own reasons. You can either integrate that into your worldview or keep living in a world created and then abandoned by media personalities once it outlived its usefulness.

[Dylan16807]

You should probably stop imagining that people you're talking to are saying the election was rigged.