>Breitbart and its national counterparts, neocon blogs, libertarian thinktanks - to sources I think of as pretty neutral - like the simple feeds of press conglomerates just feeding headlines...

If you are feeling such crippling despair from consuming this information, why are you consuming it (Assuming you're not a sadist.)? Especially when you said yourself you know it's not true.

"News" is often like fast food -- it's made as quickly and cheaply as possible, is highly lacking in nutritional value, and is detrimental to health.

Sticking to places that are skewed towards a similar bias as yourself doesn't help you understand those that have differing views to you. It can be especially important to be able to do this when those people are in your family, in order to keep your family together, rather than letting those viewpoints tear you apart.

Now, local politics, where you can really make a difference, may be another matter. But again, if you're not enjoying it or making a fairly serious commitment to changing things for the better, you'll likely be happier just ignoring it.

Realizing that following national politics and policy is basically no more valuable to myself or to humanity than keeping up with soap operas was liberating. I'd suggest embracing that view if it's affecting your quality of life. It'll let you dip into it when it's interesting to you, without taking it too seriously or getting stressed out by it. Treat outcomes at anything above the county level like the weather, since it may as well be as far as you're personally concerned, unless you're rich or have the right combo of time+talent+will to make a real difference.

Is that not what you're already doing?

How can you bring light into your family's life when you're full of darkness?

It's okay to let people be wrong and biased, because haven't we all been?

>Would you like to save the world from the degradation and destruction it seems destined for? Then step away from shallow mass movements and quietly go to work on your own self-awareness. If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself. If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation.

-Lao Tzu

Moreover, English translations of the Tao Te Ching vary immensely and are highly subjective, as ancient Chinese hardly translates onto English. The quote is but one of many different translations.

who cares? what is the purpose of exposing yourself to things that will annoy you that you have no control over, just so you can argue with people?

That being said, this kind of argument is only really useful in the right kind of environment, academia for example. Certainly not the vast majority of the Internet. And once you've thought about these things for a bit, there's not much value in continually exposing yourself to a toxic cesspool just to remind yourself that it's not for you.

This! I stopped reading mainstream news years ago and I'm a LOT better off feeling. I'm less stressed, less angry, less fearful. I don't know "that funny/offensive thing that Trump said" and I don't know about the latest celebrity breakups but I can still form opinions about people and politics without sensational bullcrap being shoved down my throat on a daily basis!

Burn your TV.

And don't forget, engineered for addictiveness, not for utility.

Mirror, is that you?

> My RSS feeds are a carefully crafted web of information, as much of a not-echo chamber I can create

Can you share this list? I struggle to find myself content that isn't inside my echo chamber, and would appreciate a bigger selection of sources!

I'd try sampling from their list a mix of ones you agree with and ones you don't. Especially some of the ones not recognized outside of their echo chamber, like Mother Jones, Breitbart, Daily Kos, Drudge Report, Slate, etc.

Link: http://www.journalism.org/2014/10/21/political-polarization-...

Well there's your problem. My suggestion would be to tune out. Get in to some life threatening sport like parachuting or rock climbing or dirt bike riding. We (men especially?) love fear, especially overcoming the real kind. Helps put the pathetic "news" in to perspective, I find anyway. Running and sweating in general help to.

Also, don't worry. Our generation isn't the first to live in fear. Our parents lived through The Cold War, and their parents through the very hot wars of WWI & WWII, and before that no modern medice, and the marauding hordes of barbarians, and so on.

My folks were silent generation, and images of Detroit and Watts burning, campus unrest and cops bustin' heads at the Chicago convention unnerved them. Not even growing up in WWII prepared them for that.

Let me guess, nobody? It is arguably one of the top 3 best humanitarian news ever, but almost nobody knows, because it isn't fear and so doesn't sell.

That and also consider getting yourself checked for depression.

It has become obvious to me that the reason for humankind's problems is the fact that we refuse our spiritual nature (i.e. as in "connecting with the other side during deep meditation"). I believe our future suffering which seems more and more obvious will force us to reconnect with our spiritual nature. And when that finally happens, on a societal level, then our way of "thinking" and acting will profoundly change and we will manage to turn around. But not before, I'm afraid.

Edit: Psychedelic substances allow for short-lived breakthroughs on that level, which is probably one of the reasons they were banned by governments from even being researched. And it's also why they are so important.

The other side of what? (Serious question - I don't understand what you're talking about.)

Basically, we are not alone. We can connect with our spiritual guides, get help, etc.