"News" is nothing more than a report of events potentially affecting our lives: if a particular report is intelligent, trustworthy, and helpful to our understanding of what we need to do to better our lives, it is something to be valued and even on occasion treasured; if, in contrast, it is nothing more than what amounts to a reporter's trick for grabbing attention or an attempt to pass off what amounts to drivel as something that somehow should command our time, we have good reason to shun and even resent it. We do need to care about things beyond ourselves but who wants to endure the institutional barrage of worthless or semi-worthless reports that can impose upon us throughout a given day if we allow it in this age of instant and ubiquitous communication? I wouldn't go so far as to say "please turn it all off" because then you do lose the ability to get a minimum exposure each day as needed to stay meaningfully informed as a person and as a citizen but I would say "give me one giant filter" to be able to control and limit the flow. Who can realistically profit from a daily surfeit of junk-bond-quality reporting and especially about things such as a sensational car wreck (or whatever) having little or no affect on our lives? Since that is what "news" mostly is these days, it is best to apply that one great filter available to us all - that is, personal self-control. That is what I love most about your comment: it reminds us clearly that it is within our power to use such self-control and to thereby focus on quality while filtering what is junk.

The article itself is somewhat dubious, as you note. Important note for those who would commend their views to others: scatter-gun assertions made in support of a point can leave one doubting how great is the author's grip on the topic at hand; if you have something to say, think it through and develop your points well before assuming that others will want to hear what you have to say. Not really well written at all.

Unfortunately most people (including myself) don't deeply reflect on a new medium/technology, to figure how best to yield it to amplify human intelligence (or make human progress).

I argue "cutting cord" for news via TV and the web may be the best thing to do now until more is understood of its affects on humans. People don't realize that it is the medium that is the problem and there is no amount of "filter" that will help them and they suffer unnecessarily.

The medium is partly the problem.

I think you've missed the point of my comment, which is that I actively disregard sources that have that defect, and look for sources that tell me about verified, actionable information. (I have been wondering about the pattern of upvotes and downvotes on my comment, and if this is what people think I am saying, that I like the sensational, they are badly misreading my comment.)

"Society needs journalism – but in a different way. Investigative journalism is always relevant. We need reporting that polices our institutions and uncovers truth. But important findings don't have to arrive in the form of news. Long journal articles and in-depth books are good, too."

You and the author seem to mostly agree in that respect.

News is bad because it focuses on the sensational and misses the actionable.

That's actually what frustrates me most about this article. For people who do plan to continue following news (likely including most readers of the article), the article isn't very actionable.

I would love to see a few smart people work together, look through the author's points, and outline a few ways to mitigate the legitimate problems summarized in each point. The article might be useful for other people who haven't considered these points before, but in its current state of merely spreading awareness, it's not very useful for me.

... what if bitcoin, currently, _is_ only about the speculative aspect, and is not actually more useful with less friction?

Off topic, but... I recently bought a days usage from put.io with bitcoin. They got their money instantly, I don't have to worry about a hacker getting my credit card info or using more bitcoins in my wallet than I gave. I didn't have to enter a bunch of personal information to prove my identity.

And I like your example of a use of bitcoin apart from speculation. The sensationalist articles love bitcoin because it is new, but also because a few people have become rich and poor from speculating on it and its future is uncertain, which leaves lots of room in the stories for "raising concerns".

But as tokenadult pointed out, we can avoid those articles and the sources that tend to deliver them.

When a hacker gets your bitcoin wallet, they can empty out your entire account.

I don't really know why credit cards don't have a public/private key situation but they don't, so people are just stealing them constantly or applying for them with a bunch of stolen personal information and then running up your credit in ways that are pretty difficult to detect.

A lot of the fraud that is occurring today is because the systems we are using to transmit wealth digitally are inherently very insecure.

When the government wishes to make your life miserable and you have a bitcoin wallet, they have to do a lot more work if they want those funds.

You are wrong here. You did exactly that (a bitcoin transaction is that), just in a way you are not used to.

I actually believe this renewed news spam (brought by ourselves through the internet) probably makes us all dumber as a whole, over time.

I don't think you are entitled to expect that. Medical studies don't tend to focus on the happiness of healthy people. Even if they did, I would be surprised if a good study giving us data on happiness on reading news already exist at a scale that would represent the range of population behaviour.

I don't disagree with you wanting good scientific evidence - that's commendable.

I disagree with calling baloney on a sensible hypothesis ('reading news as a typical Westerner does is detrimental to overall happiness for most people') just because that scientific evidence does not yet exist and this opinion piece does not yet provide it.

Bias alert: I'm pretty sure I read to much news, and am solidifying this meme in my mind to try to improve that.

Does this work? Does it work better than looking through TrueTrueReddit and hubski?

+1?

Or how do I say: "this was a really bad article"?

[1] http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bu...

Chocolate, for example, decreases the risk of stroke, is good for your skin, improves vision, stimulates brain activity, etc. How much of and how often you eat it affects whether it's still beneficial compared to its negative effects, which include high cholesterol, diabetes, weight gain, etc.

Someone eating candy isn't necessarily doing something bad, despite the stigma. Equally, they are not doing something necessarily good.