The bacon thing is maybe a good example of Hamming's Closed Door Paradox:

    I noticed the following facts about people who work
    with the door open or the door closed. I notice that
    if you have the door to your office closed, you get
    more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more
    productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you
    don't know quite know what problems are worth working
    on; all the hard work you do is sort of tangential in
    importance. He who works with the door open gets all
    kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets
    clues as to what the world is and what might be
    important. Now I cannot prove the cause and effect
    sequence because you might say, ``The closed door is
    symbolic of a closed mind.'' I don't know. But I can
    say there is a pretty good correlation between those
    who work with the doors open and those who ultimately
    do important things, although people who work with
    doors closed often work harder. Somehow they seem to
    work on slightly the wrong thing - not much, but
    enough that they miss fame.

http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html

In this case, as it turns out, bacon does give you cancer. The relative risk of high "processed meat" consumption is in the neighborhood of 20%, i.e. RR of 1.2, for colorectal and lung cancers. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16991129/

In the US, there are about 200k deaths per year from these two cancers, out of 2.7 million total deaths. So your chances of dying of one of these two cancers is about 7.4%, if you live in a place somewhat like the US. And that increases to about 8.9% if you eat a lot of processed meat.

It seems to me like a 1.5% chance of dodging a death by cancer, and thus living an extra 5–20 years, is worth a single disrupted morning.

Bacon... Hamming... I see what you probably quite unintentionally did there.

Anyway, doors are nice because you have the luxury of opening and closing them. Just remember what open and closed doors are for. Open it to see what's worth doing; close it when it's time to go do it.

Ideally this all applies in the metaphorical sense to social media too, if one has the discipline to handle it that way. But the problem for a lot of people, and the problem with this door analogy, is that a door doesn't nag you, Hey. Hey. Hey. You haven't opened me lately. Hey. Tons of cool stuff is going on beyond this door. Hey. Are you okay? I'm worried about you and so are your friends. Hey. Still there?

Also the door doesn't record your phone calls and so forth.

If only social media were as flexible, disinterested and unobtrusive as the lowly, everyday door.

First and foremost, what evidence is there for Hamming's claim?

> is worth a single disrupted morning.

We're not talking about a single "disrupted" morning. We're talking about chronic depression, which can lead to suicide.

Many people I tell that I don't keep up with current events like to claim I'm ignorant. At which point I ask them to name the most important thing they learned from news two weeks ago. Haven't had someone come up with anything substantial yet.

Knowledge is valuable, it is a form of wealth, and there are many ways to get it. I do not believe we receive knowledge from modern mainstream media today. Most of it is ephemeral drama that does not matter in the least.

Spot on. It used to be when the feedback cycles were quite long that newspapers were forced to use a shotgun approach, hitting all sorts of topics in the hopes that one or two them would interest the reader. If they failed? No big deal.

With instantaneous feedback, and click-based advertising? All that crap is out the window. (Although you can make a good argument that things got really out of hand with the rise of cable news and the 24-hour-news cycle.)

It's all emotional manipulation now. Nothing else. It looks like for a lot of folks, it doesn't even matter if it's true or not.

50 years ago, if you didn't the paper, you were ignorant. Today, if you consume a bunch of online media, you're not ignorant, you're stupid: you are purposely filling your head with emotion-laden content in lieu of actually learning anything. If anything, you're most likely making yourself emotionally ill.

The best source I have for learning what's going on is the opinion columns. The format drives more honest out. As an opinion-writer, you're expected to have a thesis, an argument, and supporting data. Your bias is direct and up-front. It's a much more tractable way of evaluating information sources.

>I do not believe we receive knowledge from modern mainstream media today. Most of it is ephemeral drama that does not matter in the least.

The "news" has been like that for a long time.

"Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knolege with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief, that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time; whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will, &c., &c.; but no details can be relied on. I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false."

-Thomas Jefferson, 1807

http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_spe...

While Jefferson neglected to read newspapers, he read many books and was arguably one of the most important figures in the Enlightenment.

I actually thought it was a recent quote until the end. 200 years later, still true.

> While Jefferson neglected to read newspapers, he read many books and was arguably one of the most important figures in the Enlightenment.

This is my goal. Well, at least being more erudite by reading books and research papers and ignoring the news. I think I missed my window on being an important figure in the Enlightenment.

I'm always perplexed by these contrived scenarios used to demonstrate some point or other.

Work with the door closed some of the time, when you need to slog through a task uninterrupted, then open the door to allow the serendipity of uncontrolled interruption.

I didn't make the comment you've replied to but in my opinion, it's less about the specifics of the scenario and more about providing food for thought about _why_ you're working with the door open or closed and in what circumstances you make those choices. If you do one or the other particularly often out of habit, it's helpful to think about why and adjust your habits if necessary.

1.5% chance of a 5-20years cancer-induced loss is an expected gain of at most 4months of life, in exchange for giving up not just bacon but all "processed meat" for an entire lifetime, while also taking care not to replace that meat with any other carcinogens such as sugar.

It's not a "single disrupted morning"

> carcinogens such as sugar.

Has any major medical body ever classified sugar as a carcinogen, or is this bro-science?

Yes. The World Cancer Research Fund commissioned a comprehensive review of cancer risk factors, signed off on by dozens of prominent scientists. They came up with ten key recommendations. One of them is, "Limit red meat and avoid processed meat." Another is, "Avoid high-calorie foods and sugary drinks." A third is, "Keep [body] weight low within the healthy range." Sugary drinks and obesity as risks for cancer are definitely well within mainstream science.

https://www.wcrf.org/int/research-we-fund/our-cancer-prevent... (currently "down for maintenance", but available in gcache)

Doesn't "carcinogen" mean something a little stronger than "may increase risk of cancer"? Like I wouldn't call walking on the street a deadly activity just because it may increase your chance of death.

Believe it feeds cancer growth, not that it is a cause in itself.

I didn't mention obesity, which is definitely a risk factor.

Sugar is only partially correlated with obesity, and I have never seen anything implicating sugar itself with cancer outside of paleo / bro-science circles. Plenty of people drink multiple sugary drinks daily for decades without getting obese. Warren Buffet is a good example. So is most the population of Japan.

As someone who honestly does not desire to live an extra 5-20 years, I disagree. I’d rather have the pleasant morning now.

Mostly, I refuse to clutch and cling to life out of some sentimental attachment to the world around me. Also, there’s the cliche of preserving one’s self during the worst period of old age, and prolonging that portion of life. But then, there’s also the degree of enjoyment one derives from life.

Most people are stuck in some shitty rut. There’s a lot of obvious self-help schlock to tell you that a rut is your own fault, but I can look out at the rest of the world and anticipate outcomes for people who will never ever ascend beyond a certain ceiling of success, and I can take that same degree of qualitative assessment and point it in the mirror.

Some of us have obvious limitations, and would prefer to cut to the chase.

Using lung cancer fatalities to generalize to everyone in the US is fallacious, because most lung cancer occurs in high risk groups (primarily smokers). If you are not a smoker, looking at total fatalities from lung cancer including smokers is looking at numbers that just do not apply to you. It's bad info.

Really not sure how lung cancer figures into this anyhow. I don't see anything about lung cancer in your NIH link. Nope, not in the full article either.

In any case, the numbers you spitballed about eating bacon are definitely off.

> It seems to me like a 1.5% chance of dodging a death by cancer, and thus living an extra 5–20 years, is worth a single disrupted morning.

Counting the years you live always struck me as distracting from the things that matter: quality of life, and sticking around to see things that you might reasonably hope to see. In this worldview, bacon might totally be worth the extra 1.5% absolute chance of colorectal cancer.

That said, I was under the impression the problem was more the preservatives and the smoking part of bacon rather than the "red" or "processed" part of meat.

Your chance of dying is 100%. I'd rather enjoy some bacon every once in awhile then worry about single digit variations in my chances of getting cancer. I do tend to buy uncured bacon anyway though.

Re: "uncured" is really also cured, but using celery powder which is a source of naturally occurring nitrates, vs "industrially extracted nitrites/nitrates". The result being the same, the same substance used to prevent spoilage. Incidentally Celery is also high in oxalates, so if you tend to accumulate those (kidney stones) you might be better off with actually "cured" products in comparison with "uncured"

This is true I think.

I have not had broadcast/cable TV on in the house in perhaps 18 years.

And yet when I take the family to a hotel and there's CNN/Fox/etc. running in the breakfast room it always seems like the world decided, at that precise moment, to inch close to the brink of Armageddon.

Fires blaze in the background behind the reporter, a palpable tension and urgency is heard from the talking heads....

And then I remember that it is just what the news "does" these days — and then realize that the beeping I am hearing is my waffle that is done.

Is there some study showing that your first sentence is correct? The reason I ask is that I never ever see stuff like that in my feed.

Is it your friends who share that kind of stuff or is it showing up as ads or? And why are those people encouraged to share stuff such as bacon giving cancer?

In my feed I only see the stuff from friends, such as travel photos, various fun experiences, poems and sometimes comments on local political events. And of course intermittent flooding of happy birthday messages.

Ugly politics was the majority of my feed until a few years ago when I made the effort to unfollow chronic posters of all persuasions.

Not to mention the flood of pro/anti gun posts after each massacre.

facebook has this “trending” section where they show ~3 trending news headlines with a little blurb under each. It’s usually near the top. On the right sidebar on desktop. And yeah it’s often times very depressing headlines such as those. You don’t get that?

No I don't. I'm typically using Facebook app on android and I never see any news. Logged on to desktop version now and none there as well. Scrolled through about 100 items on my feed and the only thing I see are posts from friends and intermittent ads from companies which are "liked" by my friends.

I'm guessing maybe it's because I'm in/from Sweden and they haven't set up newsfeeds for this place.

I do see how showing negative news to people would have affect on what people post. And maybe it's a cultural thing as well - one of the hot topics in Sweden is immigration but very few people post about it, probably just because it's such a divider and few good things will come out by starting a Facebook discussion.

> I do see how showing negative news to people would have affect on what people post.

Get this. Every single time you visit facebook, right above the fold is some depressing news. Every. Single. Time.

It has an effect on some.

Maybe you misread what I wrote. I wrote that I do understand this.

Ah yes I did misread. Good catch.

We all convinced Grandma and Uncle Phil to stop sending those emails that end with "forward this email to 5 people today, or you will have bad luck". Unfortunately, they now put the exact same amount of thought into resharing some crap they find on Facebook about government conspiracies, and whatever political party is opposite of theirs.

And Cousin Nancy and Brother Mohammed and Daughter Svetlana. It's not an 'old people' disease, it's an anyone disease.

Funny, I probably saw all three headlines you mentioned, here on NH. I just don’t click on ones likely to upset me.

HN is a social media platform, albeit a niche one. Which is why I think the article was rather overblown, clickbait hyperbole.

I've never seen stuff like that, but then again I heavily control my fb feed by only following "close" friends and select family members. I don't follow any news sites, and pretty much only follow art pages/ and a few programmers that have public profiles. This has more to do with people who have family/friends who enjoy stuff like that, but it's easily possible to never run across articles like that on fb. I sure haven't.

Not everyone is lucky enough to have thoughtful relatives, yet not horrible enough to completely shun.

Isn't that what "unfollow" is for? For people who are obnoxious and you don't want to hear from, but you don't want to actually go all the way to unfriending (which would make it impossible to interact with them at all, basically, and also be noticeable to them). That's how I use it anyway.

I've also noticed that FB now has a "snooze for 30 days" option that you can select, instead of just unfollow/unfriend. Not sure how long this has been around (I'm a very casual FB user) but it seems designed with those people who can't help spouting off over and over about a particular current event in mind.

Yep, what I do as well.

I've never seen stories like that in my Facebook page?

Either your have horrible friends or you've responded repeatedly to this type of article in your Facebook feed, resulting in the algorithm promoting those posts. You can remove posts like that from your feed by clicking on the little gear in the top right.

But that seems like more of a problem with news in general than Facebook - nightly news/news websites include headlines and stories like that - but we shouldn't encourage people to just put their heads in the sand...

I immediately unfollow or unfriend people who post things like this. I also use the News Feed Eradicator extension. The result is that my mobile feed is full of happy baby photos, and my desktop feed is completely blank.

While I agree that pretty much all news media is toxic, the reason Facebook makes people unhappy is that 1) people put on their best show there, and 2) others compare themselves and become discontent. It's the constant comparing of your life to the perception that others have it better that causes all this unhappiness.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/get-out-your-mind/20...

Don't agree. The ugly politics makes me much more unhappy than a friends Hawaii trip.

> This can take a heavy emotional toll on people over time and gradually make them more unhappy.

This is precisely why I stopped paying attention to news and am not on social media.

when I receive even single information like this, I see after the author (a.k.a. person who shared it so it is visible on my timeline) and mute his account (or remove it from my contacts).

I even take struggle to mark EVERY SINGLE advert on facebook as a spam or inappropriate - I think that may make me a facebook user with most unrelated adverts to my actual interests - and I recommend everyone to do the same.

As horrific as it was, the NYT's "Water Slide That Decapitated Boy Violated Basic Design Standards, Indictment Says" bizarre headline actually made by day :)

I had to do a double take and check that I hadn't been redirected to The Onion.

Maybe because I have a young son but the headline was so gut wrenching I still haven't been able to read any of the coverage.

I don't understand your argument...

These headlines are all over the news. It's not like not logging to facebook will magically prevent one from seeing them.

All you need to do is turn on a local news channel and voila..

I don’t use facebook and I didn’t even know that stephen hawking died before someone texted it to me.

Same with that famous pastor who died last month.

same with the bridge that collapsed in Miami near Florida International University.

The thing about it is, I don’t watch the news much already. I lost all respect for the news during the election when they would literally spend a week covering some sensational / gossip topic. It’s not news it’s entertainment with the occasional coverage of actual news topics. So without social media beaming every trendy headline into my eyes the moment I log in, I am ignorant to a lot of depressing stuff. Someone has to go out of their way to text it to me or I probably won’t see it. And that’s fine by me. (Yet somehow Tomi Lahren still finds a way to make it onto my SMS conversations -_-.)

In any case, aside from the depressing sensational media, facebook is also toxic because it can make you compare every aspect of your complicated life to other peoples’ highlight reels.

That's a pretty good argument for never turning on local news. It's garbage, just the video version of clickbait "journalism" in most cases.

(There is some good investigative journalism still being done on TV, but it's overwhelmed by "gotcha" stories and naked if-it-bleeds-it-leads sensationalism.)

I feel like we should be doing a better job educating people on what a healthy relationship with the media should look like. If a headline can ruin someone’s day that says to me that the affected person doesn’t understand that media companies profit from outrage. This isn’t even a Facebook problem, it’s an independent thought problem. Don’t let the media tell you what to worry about.