Don't Be a Goldfish ~ Don't Watch the News

A goldfish can remember things for 3 seconds. I'm not sure it's much longer for humans. If you are a chronic news addict, you must be fretting about how we will overcome the Crisis of The Week. I'll tell you that you don't need to worry. I assure you it never even mattered in the first place.

The first thing that should make you suspicious of news corperations is their incentives. People don't rush to the TV if everyting is A-OK. You only watch the news if something important is happening. Every war, famine, political blunder helps keep the lights on. As Winston Churchill once said, "Never Let a Good Crisis Go to Waste." The easiest thing they can do is make every event seem like it matters. If you want proof, go look at the things they were talking about a year ago, and see how much of it actually had an impact on your life. Or look at the news today. Do you really think anyone will care about, for example, the basketball player who did drugs in Russia a year from now? (Future readers, do you even know what I'm talking about?)

"How am I supposed to know what actually matters then?" you say. It's simple. If you would have heard about it anyways from living your life as normal, then it really does matter. There are events right now that effect you and me. You didn't need The New York Times to tell you about it.

"But I need to know about current events that effect others besides me." Okay, Let's just be realistic for a minute. In the grand scheme of things, you are not that powerful. Maybe, if you devote all your time towards something, you might be able to have a noticeable impact one issue, but are you really going to spread out your attention to issues that don't even effect anyone you know? If you want to soothe your conscience, one could say you have your own problems to worry about.

I could get conspiratorial, but I prefer to think that many things are terrible for the simple reason that people don't reflect on their actions enough, and that this leads people to be easily manipulated. Maybe you can find the time to reflect on your life during the 30 minutes a day you saved not reading the news. If you can get those 30 minutes from not visiting sites like mine, so be it. Just find the time some how.

P.S. I know some people who watch cable news. Why?? They are literally making it up as they go. I'm sure you can find a higher quality waste of time than cable news. You've only got so much time on this earth. And you chose to spend it on Communist News Network or Faux News?

P.P.S. To all you Gen Xers, millennials and zoomers, social media can count as news, especially Twitter. If you are just using it to keep up with your friends, what I said doesn't apply, but if you use it to keep up with world events, then you are no better than a boomer. Stop watching the news.

No link to the rest of the site. Go think about your life. Seriously.