If you want more evidence that people don’t read/watch news to get useful info, consider the low little interest in this, the most useful article I’ve ever read: Pooping on a modern sitting toilet is a big part of where hemorrhoids come from, and it can also cause diverticular disease … A 2003 study observed 28 people pooping in three positions: sitting on a high toilet, sitting on a lower one and squatting like they were catchers at a baseball game … Pooping took about a minute less when done squatting and that participants rated the experience as “easier”. In fact, toilets that require you to squat that way have been the standard for most of human history and are still widely used in the non-Western world. …
If you understand french, you should really read this book : http://www.amazon.fr/Overdo..."Overdose d'info : guérer des névroses médiatiques" ("Overdose of information : heal from media neurosis").
It's true people want to get useful infos, but they first need to fear something. Once they have fear, they'll want the useful info in order to manage this media-induced fear (like "how can I protect myself from dangerous radiation ?").
I believe people do not shower in order to remove bacteria. They want to be 'clean' of course but by this they mean they would like to feel pleasant, and not smell.
Actually Robin, I think you'd like a lot of articles that appear on Cracked. For example they somewhat regularly run articles that support your position on the dangers of over-consuming medicine.
What's all this about the diaphragm? Every child knows that your belly sticks out when you breathe in and comes back in when you breathe out. I'm not even sure I know how to breathe without using my diaphragm--that's like trying to walk without moving your legs.
Interesting article, though I have to confess to at least a bit of skepticism towards an article in Cracked offering dental advice from British dentists. This wasn't published on April 1 was it?
I hear there's been further escalation of risks at the imperiled nuclear facility. Radiation is spewing into the environment. An unidentified source reports that things are worse than he had previously thought. Cows appear irritated by the radioactive iodine contaminating their grass. Recriticality is probably not happening, but I wanted to use it in a sentence. Stay tuned.
I agree. It really is the audience that is driving the "pet stories" and the celebrity gossip. Gossip is a natural human function. If you don't know about Monica Lewinsky or whatever you are at a disadvantage.
I think that people have evolved to care seriously about small (<100) groups of people. People have trouble empathizing with people they have not met and with whom they share little common experience or interest.
However, modern morality says we should care about the fate of our country and of humanity in general. This seems reasonable on the face of it, so we try to be attentive when bad stuff happens, and we watch the news to convince ourselves that we are being attentive enough. The news tries to reinforce the hopelessly vague notion of staying "informed," claiming they report "the news that affects you," when the vast majority of what they report blatantly does not.
Honestly, I wasn&#039t sad when the Japanese tsunami happened. Nor was I particularly bothered by September 11th, the various wars that have recently happened, or even the woman that was raped last week just blocks away from my house. I read about such things because they are interesting stories, and because my social group rewards me for reinforcing the myth of universal morality.
So yeah, the news is what Robin would call a signalling behavior. It signals that we give a shit about things we don&#039t, because it seems painful to admit that we in fact only care about the small group of people we interact with.
Why is it so desperately important for us to pretend to care about Japanese earthquake victims? I suspect one reason is that we know that social forces much larger than our circle have immense sway over our lives, and it is terrifying to admit how little of a shit they give about *us.* So we pretend that we are in a morally reciprocal relationship with all of humanity: we care about them, and they presumably care about us. This is a more palatable, more addictive story than "no one really cares about me and mine, but a much larger set of people have power over me and mine."
Those are very interesting ideas, and I agree if they were true, they would be very useful indeed, but you should keep in mind that Cracked is for entertainment and not necessarily well researched (http://lesswrong.com/r/disc....
When I was doing long-distance hiking, my sleep schedule certainly shifted closer to sunset-to-sunrise, but there was never a period of wakefulness in the middle of the night. (Mid-latitude spring and summer, so perhaps it wasn't a long enough period of dark. Still, I do remember waking up before sunrise, though after more than 7 hours of sleep.)
I'm pretty sure that I'm a poor and possibly abnormal sleeper anyway, though I wasn't aware of any other hikers waking up at 1AM, either.
The ambivalence of it makes me think that it doesn't matter much. Perhaps I'm overestimating medical science here, but if it's difficult for dentists to reach a clear conclusion perhaps the difference in harm between either practice is negligible.
As for the article's usefulness, how many of its million+ readers are going to start hovering over the toilet seat, showering less, breathing from the diaphragm and demanding that they be allowed to squat as they give birth?
Second, how many "7 things that will change your life" articles are there on the internet that one would have to sift through before finding this one?
If you understand french, you should really read this book : http://www.amazon.fr/Overdo..."Overdose d'info : guérer des névroses médiatiques" ("Overdose of information : heal from media neurosis").
It's true people want to get useful infos, but they first need to fear something. Once they have fear, they'll want the useful info in order to manage this media-induced fear (like "how can I protect myself from dangerous radiation ?").
I believe people do not shower in order to remove bacteria. They want to be 'clean' of course but by this they mean they would like to feel pleasant, and not smell.
Actually Robin, I think you'd like a lot of articles that appear on Cracked. For example they somewhat regularly run articles that support your position on the dangers of over-consuming medicine.
http://www.cracked.com/arti...http://www.cracked.com/arti...http://www.cracked.com/arti...
What's all this about the diaphragm? Every child knows that your belly sticks out when you breathe in and comes back in when you breathe out. I'm not even sure I know how to breathe without using my diaphragm--that's like trying to walk without moving your legs.
Interesting article, though I have to confess to at least a bit of skepticism towards an article in Cracked offering dental advice from British dentists. This wasn't published on April 1 was it?
I hear there's been further escalation of risks at the imperiled nuclear facility. Radiation is spewing into the environment. An unidentified source reports that things are worse than he had previously thought. Cows appear irritated by the radioactive iodine contaminating their grass. Recriticality is probably not happening, but I wanted to use it in a sentence. Stay tuned.
I note the self help stuff is popular but I think considered generally low status, or not high status, anyway.
Productivity pr0n seems like higher status self help, I guess.
Thanks for this reply. That is interesting.
I agree. It really is the audience that is driving the "pet stories" and the celebrity gossip. Gossip is a natural human function. If you don't know about Monica Lewinsky or whatever you are at a disadvantage.
I think that people have evolved to care seriously about small (<100) groups of people. People have trouble empathizing with people they have not met and with whom they share little common experience or interest.
However, modern morality says we should care about the fate of our country and of humanity in general. This seems reasonable on the face of it, so we try to be attentive when bad stuff happens, and we watch the news to convince ourselves that we are being attentive enough. The news tries to reinforce the hopelessly vague notion of staying "informed," claiming they report "the news that affects you," when the vast majority of what they report blatantly does not.
Honestly, I wasn&#039t sad when the Japanese tsunami happened. Nor was I particularly bothered by September 11th, the various wars that have recently happened, or even the woman that was raped last week just blocks away from my house. I read about such things because they are interesting stories, and because my social group rewards me for reinforcing the myth of universal morality.
So yeah, the news is what Robin would call a signalling behavior. It signals that we give a shit about things we don&#039t, because it seems painful to admit that we in fact only care about the small group of people we interact with.
Why is it so desperately important for us to pretend to care about Japanese earthquake victims? I suspect one reason is that we know that social forces much larger than our circle have immense sway over our lives, and it is terrifying to admit how little of a shit they give about *us.* So we pretend that we are in a morally reciprocal relationship with all of humanity: we care about them, and they presumably care about us. This is a more palatable, more addictive story than "no one really cares about me and mine, but a much larger set of people have power over me and mine."
Those are very interesting ideas, and I agree if they were true, they would be very useful indeed, but you should keep in mind that Cracked is for entertainment and not necessarily well researched (http://lesswrong.com/r/disc....
How much of that article is bullshit?
When I was doing long-distance hiking, my sleep schedule certainly shifted closer to sunset-to-sunrise, but there was never a period of wakefulness in the middle of the night. (Mid-latitude spring and summer, so perhaps it wasn't a long enough period of dark. Still, I do remember waking up before sunrise, though after more than 7 hours of sleep.)
I'm pretty sure that I'm a poor and possibly abnormal sleeper anyway, though I wasn't aware of any other hikers waking up at 1AM, either.
So it's social signalling? How did Robin not come up with that?
The ambivalence of it makes me think that it doesn't matter much. Perhaps I'm overestimating medical science here, but if it's difficult for dentists to reach a clear conclusion perhaps the difference in harm between either practice is negligible.
As for the article's usefulness, how many of its million+ readers are going to start hovering over the toilet seat, showering less, breathing from the diaphragm and demanding that they be allowed to squat as they give birth?
Second, how many "7 things that will change your life" articles are there on the internet that one would have to sift through before finding this one?