[samdamsamm]

Completely agree. Sacrificing engagement with the social structures and historical progression that we as a species depend on is not an option that can deliver a healthy society.

No, “the news”, as in the propaganda emanating from the corporate hegemony machine, does not count. But, checking out entirely is nonetheless the worst thing one can do.

[TulliusCicero]

Exactly. An argument about better vs worse news sources I could totally understand. Checking out when it's anything that's not explicitly a local issue? That's...not great.

Not to mention, some of his reasoning conflicts with itself. Behold:

> When was the last time you watched the news and thought, “thank God I saw that. Let me go take action.”?

> I’ll answer for you: probably never.

> ...

> But it's different from hearing about the tsunami destroying a village thousands of miles away.

Surely the author is aware that people commonly do, in fact, take action and donate money when tragedies -- such as tsunamis -- take place very far away. In some cases, the foreign donations add up to quite a lot! So I'm not sure how he reconciles this in his head, both in the sense of the way he's describing things is factually incorrect, and also that the implication here is that you'd get less people helping with tragedies simply because they occurred somewhere foreign.

[SpicyLemonZest]

The author isn't proposing checking out entirely - documentaries are one of his suggested replacements. Disengaging with the news is just about not being flooded daily.