El Duvelle
What point is there in reading the news when 1) it makes us sad and 2) there is nothing we can do about it? 😕
I feel like we have a duty to know about bad things happening even if they don't directly happen to us but what is the point if we are not doing anything to fix these bad things?
Maybe the real question is how can we fix the world even at an individual scale and to be able to figure that out we need to stay informed.. even if it hurts 🤔
Dan Goodman
@elduvelle this is definitely a good way to help!
Dan Goodman
@elduvelle it's one of the things I wanted to do with neuromatch conference. I can't stop climate change but if I can help reduce a few hundred or thousand flights by academics that's much more significant than remembering to turn off the light switch when I'm not in the room. Well, neuromatch conference doesn't run any more but SNUFA is going strong and several people have told me that it's "the" spiking neural network conference now, so maybe I'm still saving some flights.
El Duvelle
@neuralreckoning thank you for this empowering comment :)
El Duvelle
@neuralreckoning I was just thinking that one way that I can help at my own scale is by helping with our mastodon instance which is providing this unbiased space where we can freely discuss among ourselves. So I'm trying to see how we can improve it to get more people to join and stay :)
Dan Goodman
@elduvelle this is a great question to ask! I don't think the answer is as gloomy as you might think though.
I think you're right that there's very little point reading billionaire owned news, nor the BBC which is too scared of the government not renewing its license.
However, there's a lot of point in following and (if you're able) financially supporting independent journalism, because it can inform your actions in small ways that add up. The more we support and spread the word about independent journalism the more these small effects add up and that can have an effect.
We came so close to a left wing government with Corbyn and a few more people reading independent news could have made the difference in the first election which was only a few thousand votes from victory.
I like Novara Media for what that's worth, but choose one that you're happy with as long as it's not advertiser funded or run as a side project by famous journalists who mostly write for billionaire owned news sources (their independence is fundamentally compromised).
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