I've built a local (for my country) news aggregator that basically clusters news and summarizes them based on multiple sources and gives me the rundown of the most important things, and things that can be found between conflicting sources. It's mostly a pet project for myself as it doesn't seem to have a lot of stickyness without the clickbait.
I gave the 'product' to friends and some of them told me "oh, you should do it like ground.news where I can see left, center, right". This idea turns me off so much. Why would I care if it's deemed left, center or right by some commitee. Just give me the information that's there in most sources and it's probably be going to be close to some objective overview of the situation.
> Why would I care if it's deemed left, center or right by some commitee.
Because at the day information can be political.
>the information that's there in most sources
While I don't use ground news myself, aggregators and classifiers like them can show you when and where stories are being published in very lopsided manners. When a story is only really being published by one side you can use that as another bit of information.
> Why would I care if it's deemed left, center or right by some commitee.
>> Because at the day information can be political.
Umm. Yes. Which is precisely what placing it left / center / right amplifies.
> the information that's there in most sources
>> While I don't use ground news myself, aggregators and classifiers like them can show you when and where stories are being published in very lopsided manners. When a story is only really being published by one side you can use that as another bit of information.
Sure, it's another bit of information. I think more important are the facts. Did this actually happen? If so, what happened? The tl;dr of what happened should give me a pretty good idea, without having to become a reporter myself, especially if covered by both sides.
I think this is more of an issue of an union, than the 'argument to moderation' or 'false balance' might appeal to. If I'm left, and report or something and you don't. That's probably high noise. If you're right and report to something I don't. That's probably high noise. If we both report on something, and we report differently on 80% but we have the same 20%. I'd say that 20% is high signal.
What if we cut out the left / center / right ideas and just take as many sources as we can? Then extract what's common between them. Wouldn't that have some sort of higher signal to noise ratio than any single viewpoint?
Of course, I'm willing to accept I'm wrong. From my personal experience so far, I'm much less inclined to extremes than I was since starting to use this system.
Ground.news also gives the information that is present in only one side, which is just as high signal – if not higher – as showing the overlap IMO. They have a feed for “stories with equal coverage” and “stories covered mostly in left-leaning sources” and “stories covered mostly in right-leaning sources.”
I'm seaching for 'equal' on the home page and finding no results, nor for 'feeds'. Could you help me identify those locations? It's always confusing to me when I go to their home page and would appreciate it. I think the equal coverage might be what I'm actually looking for.
Ground news tells you the bias of publications that have published the news item not the slant of the news item itself. It lets you see how much news gets completely ignored by the right and left (the right is way worse) when it isn't favorable to their cause. It's also really interesting to sample both sides and see how wildly the facts get slanted as you get further from center.
I think I understand this feature pretty well. What I'm arguing for is taking the common information between all news sources (without having to place them in left / right / center) is much higher signal to noise.
Honestly your paranthesis that "the right is way worse" is already too political for my taste. It makes me feel dumb for even writing this reply. Alas, these are my thoughts. News should be news. What happened and when. Not some attack vector against a group of people or another.
Given that there are at least as many things happening as there are humans, how do you suggest the people serving as “news sources” avoid editorial judgment when deciding what’s newsworthy and what it means?
Let's say that The Rebel Times has a headline "Member of the Imperial Senate on a diplomatic mission boarded and arrested without cause" while the Empire Daily reports that "Leia Organa, part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor, taken into custody". Following your process, the "what" is just that Leia was arrested.
Then, the Rebel Times says "Moisture farmer with magic powers joins fight against Empire", but the Empire Daily has "Moisture farmer joins fight against Empire". the common whats are just that a moisture farmer joined the Rebel Alliance, which is true, but much less consequential than if he had magic powers.
Later, the Rebel Times says "Secret Empire super-weapon destroyed at the Battle of Yavin", and the Empire Daily publishes... nothing because they don't want to admit defeat. There's no common information between these stories (because there is no second story), so looking for common whats would conclude that nothing happened.
If the process of analysing the news accounted for the fact that the different outlets are interested in presenting different whats, it could conclude that the fact that the Empire Daily published nothing about the third story doesn't mean that it didn't happen. In the second case, if it could account for the Empire wanting to suppress information about the Force, the conclusion would be that Luke joining the Alliance is somewhat more of a big deal than otherwise. Even in the first case, it might realise that the fact that the two sources don't agree about Leia doesn't mean that one side isn't right.
"What" is often a matter of definition and framing, especially if you also want news to include "to what effect" which is not always black-and-white. "Why" is an answer that also must be answered, but will often come through a political lens. News cannot be free from a political lens if "why" and "to what effect" are considered, and probably can't be free from some element of a political lens even if just sticking to "what".
> if you also want news to include "to what effect"
I don't. I want to be able to draw my own conclusion as to the effect of what happened might be.
> News cannot be free from a political lens if "why" and "to what effect" are considered, and probably can't be free from some element of a political lens even if just sticking to "what".
I have no interest in the "why" and "to what effect". I have an interest into "what" so that I can draw my own conclusions.
Though thank you for your thoughts, it helps me understand the people calling for political sides better.
> I don't. I want to be able to draw my own conclusion as to the effect of what happened might be.
That's fair BUT do you see how this is a decision that a) won't always have a clear line of demarcation and b) reflects an internal mental model of news that likely isn't universal?
For example: let's say someone reads a news article that titled "Trump Won't Rule out Military Intervention in Greenland" (god help us, a real story). Maybe you get all the "what" you need from the headline. I would argue though that omitting contextual information about "Why does he want Greenland?" is irresponsible and bad journalism. Many others might argue that in a duty to inform readers, they should collect statements from people who understand international relations to discuss implications of such a stance.
Another example: insurance rates are rising for coastal properties in Florida. That's the "what", but there is no honest, legitimate exploration of the topic if the journalist doesn't explore "why", because the "why" of this story if also a "what" of the many contributing factors. Since that "what" will necessarily include climate-related topics, it is now considered "political" by many. And in this instance, exploring "what effect" this is likely to have on homeowners, renters, and businesses seems a core element of the phenomenon.
> That's fair BUT do you see how this is a decision that a) won't always have a clear line of demarcation and b) reflects an internal mental model of news that likely isn't universal?
a) I think there's a clear line of demarcation to the "what".
b) I can see how this isn't a universal mental model, I just fail to see why the "why" makes for a better one.
> irresponsible and bad journalism
I honestly don't see how left / center / right fixes this. If there's no consensus between tens / hundreds (and I'm in a small country) sources on the actual thing that lead up to the what, I don't see why that should be included. Else the news would just be (for example, not political affirmation) "Trump Won't Rule out Military Intervention in Greenland[...] as loss of key trans-atlantic partners considered less valuable than securing arctic trade route".
> Another example: insurance rates are rising for coastal properties in Florida. That's the "what", but there is no honest, legitimate exploration of the topic if the journalist doesn't explore "why", because the "why" of this story if also a "what" of the many contributing factors. Since that "what" will necessarily include climate-related topics, it is now considered "political" by many. And in this instance, exploring "what effect" this is likely to have on homeowners, renters, and businesses seems a core element of the phenomenon
Honestly it's the same thing, if 80% of covered news sources point out to a why as climate change, sure. If only the left (or right, or center) ones do and they're not a solid majority. I don't particulary care. I care more about the "what".
Again, this might tie into the mental model more than anything but the whole left / center / right divide seems political and high noise to signal ratio to me.
Fair reply, and reasonable people can disagree. But there is just one thing I wanted to reply to:
>> irresponsible and bad journalism
> I honestly don't see how left / center / right fixes this.
Well, it doesn't. Those are labels we have affixed to things, because those are the lenses through which society sees "debated topics." But those lenses are applied to real things, that are really happening.
That you discount climate change because right-wing publications don't engage with it - despite the overwhelming preponderance of evidence - then you've just made yourself more susceptible to propaganda, not less. The omission of information is just as political as the inclusion of it.
A relative was a high level local political figure. His quip was always “if you want to know what’s important that is going on, look for what isn’t in the newspaper.”
Any issue I’m deeply familiar with that gets reported is almost always missing lots of meaningful information. There isn’t really competition for most news, so there’s no incentive to follow up.
Publishers have biases, and their sources have agendas.
I have some "internal" web apps that I use for myself, and while I do use Remix which is a framework that allows me to use React, I just use SSR and HTML default form controls as interpreted by the browsers, minimal client side processing and almost no styling.
I love it so much compared to the "modern" cruft. It's responsive by default because I don't really style it. It has a high signal to noise ratio.
I wouldn't change it for the world, but I've been told multiple times I'm very much in the minority.
Last I applied to a job posted on Who's Hiring, they had me fill a self recorded video interview on some platform. And do some coding exercise with screen sharing. Then send it to them. I've never gotten any sort of reply back, positive or negative. Felt like a clown. Won't be using that again.
It takes trending news from whatever country (currently Romania + Denmark due to personal reasons) and gives me a summary. It's based on what people actually search for. It works with all countries, but I unceremoniously commented out all of them except those two because of rate limits. Currently spending $0 on it.
It also posts a summary of the summaries on my Matrix instance every evening at 22:00 local time.
Disclaimer: nothing substantial, just a bit of trauma dump
I've been a developer for more than a decade. Body-shops. Founding engineer. Chief Technology Officer. After every job in my life I took 6 - 12 months off.
Usually my desire for programming comes back somewhere around the 5th month mark. I'm in such a 'holiday' now, and just passed the 12 month mark. I don't feel that desire coming back anymore.
I've been blessed to have a friend that had a gig where I can do some ETL and cover my monthly expenses, but whenever I start looking for new jobs, reading the ads, all those keywords, all those bullshit descriptions of what they expect, I'm starting to develop a physical repulsion.
I've done a couple of interviews, and the HR discussions and then the technical interviews have left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. I'm afraid I'll hiss in the next zoom call. And it's not even for not getting accepted, as I got an offer from all the talks. But the whole industry gives me a bad taste right now. Everything just feels futile and fluffed up. My last interview was for a hair & beauty appointment app start-up where they acted like they cure cancer.
I'd like to be my old self, but I'm afraid I might not get that part back. I took a look at 'regular' jobs and the idea of being a truck driver lit up something in me that programming hasn't in a very long time. Even being a shop clerk makes me dream more than wrangling code.
I realize this is childish, and that the grass is always greener on the other side. I know that there are challenges in every profession and that I have a comfortable home office and get paid a shit ton of money for what I do and this is better than 99% of the planet.
I just hope to be able to get back on track mentally and not feel like this.
I always suspected I had a doppelgänger but this proves it. Aside from the 6-12 breaks between each job I could have sworn this post was my own. I’m on the tail end of a sabbatical that is running far into overtime for the same reason - for the past year+ I’ve waited for the energy and desire to return as I expected it surely would.
But no. Nothing. Reading a job req still induces a wince. Reading the fluff from and about companies sends me recoiling. These things were never pleasant but they were tolerable. Now, the limbo bar has been set too low and it’s getting harder to compel my body to contort enough to slip under.
I’m pretty sure there is an eventual return somewhere ahead and the scariest thought is that I’ll get back and swirl back down to life as it was before. The past year+ becomes a puff of a memory. The good news (!) is that knowing you feel this way is critical knowledge. With that understanding we can rearrange our values and tackle the feeling constructively.
> But no. Nothing. Reading a job req still induces a wince. Reading the fluff from and about companies sends me recoiling. These things were never pleasant but they were tolerable. Now, the limbo bar has been set too low and it’s getting harder to compel my body to contort enough to slip under.
What infuriates me about this process is this experience.
For a time, I worked as a consultant doing cloud-related development, with many F500 companies (non-FAANG ones)
Generally, the staff on these projects were ok to mediocre in terms of skill. I KNOW I'm more competent than the median in those orgs at those companies, and yet if I apply for those exact jobs, my resume disappears into a black hole.
This isn't a testament to my skill, rather how poorly staffed major companies are. I don't mean "they don't know some nerd sniped trivia" either, I mean don't use version control, codebases full of dead commented code, hardcoded credentials, individuals with 0 troubleshooting ability or initiative, etc etc
This is spooky similar to how things have been for me. Also 6-12 month breaks, also the itch to start doing something at about 6 month mark. I’m about to take another one of my breaks and too think this time will be different. I get paid an eye watering amount of money, and I don’t want it anyway. Instead of taking up truck driving (which will get old in a week), I’m thinking of taking up sailing.
After working for basically 25 years straight since high school, I’m really wanting to take an extended sabbatical from the software industry to do my own thing. I’m scared that the longer I stay out though, the harder it will be to reenter, because I already have the disgust you describe. My hope is that since I still love the actual technical work that I can eventually turn some little side project into a real product and carry that through for a while.
> But calling the EU not being democratic is going too far
I'm an EU citizen. I have minimal saying in who our commissioner is and what members of the cabinet get chosen.
I have a vote which I give to whatever party. After that, the vote for commissioner is secret; I have no idea who voted for what. After that, the negociations for the cabinet are secret; I have no idea what the criteria are and what the plans are.
I'm not putting us in the bucket of non-democracy just yet but I don't feel it's that far.
> I have minimal saying in who our commissioner is and what members of the cabinet get chosen.
We get to vote for our country representatives, who then vote for the MEPs. I don't think there is any EU-wide rule that prevents the MEP nomination process from being open - that'd be country-specific legislation.
I'm not talking about MEPs. The commissioner is not a country representative, I'm talking about the head of the European Commission, miss Ursula von der Leyen as it currently stands.
There is no rule preventing it from being open, there is also no rule forcing it to being open.
In a democracy is it possible for a government to commit illegal things and get away with it simply by ignoring the complaints, filed police charges etc?
In a democracy the government as well are supposed to be accountable by the rule of law. As they are not it is a failed democracy.
Are you aware of the history of the US Senate? It had exactly the same problem. Senators were appointed by the political elite of each state.
But, once one or two states decided to elect their senator, it was game over. The other states gave up, and now all the senators are elected.
It's true that both the commission and (perhaps even more powerful) the council of ministers are not democratic. But this is in the hands of each individual country to change. And it's national level politicians who are currently the obstacle. All find it easier to blame the EU than to take responsibility for change. But if one country takes action to increase , even a small one, the public in the others will realise they all can.
Is this not similar to ministerial roles and civil servant positions in most governments? You don't vote for the commissioners directly, but your elected representative (leader of your government) does, and that's your path to express preferences & drive accountability. If you don't like the selection, take it up with them.
In the UK for example, the people elect members of parliament as their representatives, but MPs choose their party leaders, and the governing party leadership chooses its ministers without any public consultation or debate. What's the difference?
A big difference is that in my neck of the woods, each party or coalition needs to come up with a governing document where they sort of tell you what their priorities are for the next 5 years.
In the EU we find about it after we vote, after they discuss in secrecy.
In the UK, politicians will often U-turn if they sense that a policy will make them unpopular and make the next election harder to fight. Governments can and do get punished on polling day every five years. Sunak paid for his unpopularity and the record of his government. Could any EU voters do anything about Ursula getting a second term? (and once again she was the only name on the ballot and then only just scraped through). The EU commission is not concerned with democratic accountability. Power is concentrated in the Commission and Council. There's a very weak link back to the electorate, but it's homeopathic democracy.
Again, this is not different to local democratic processes.
Voters typically cannot directly stop somebody being named leader of their party or given a specific role within government for multiple terms. If you dislike them, you pressure your elected representative to change that.
Almost all representative democracy is accountability through a representative, not directly through control of government internals & positions.
Again, my point was that even though we only have one direct representative, the governing party as a whole will be punished in the next election if they become deeply unpopular. If your rulemakers are immune to voter displeasure, it isn't a healthy democracy. You said "if you dislike them, you pressure your elected representative to change that". If as an EU citizen you are angry with the performance and direction of Ursula and the Commission, there isn't a damn thing you can do about it.
This is generally called "representative democracy" and is mostly what people talk about when they talk about "democracy" in public conversations. The alternative is "direct democracy" and while it exists (like in Switzerland), it isn't nearly as common, sadly.
This is not representative democracy. This is, at best, buffered representative democracy.
Arcane electoral rules make for weak representatives who gather power by making back room deals.
The real (but not constitutional) power lies in the commission that is appointed, not elected, and has been vacuuming power to itself in increasing amounts.
I grew up in a rather medium sized town in Eastern Europe.
Since I was maybe 5 or 6, my daily scheduled involved waking up, going outside with a gang of people of various ages (honestly it was all the way to college level at some points, they were the actual adults in the "room") and just having fun the entire day.
Around mid-day, if we were near our communist blocks you might hear our parents shout from the windows that it's time to eat, we'd sprint up and eat real fast and then go back down to continue mucking about.
We explored old forts, jumped with our bikes in the river, played hide & seek, climbed all sorts of buildings and trees etc. We sometimes hurt ourselves but were back on the street in record time.
The article reminded me of this, and I think it was an awesome way to grow up. And to link it back to the article. I don't get the diverse conclusion. I don't resonate with it at all. We were all relatively poor, of the same race and had very similar upbringings and possible futures. We were similar in more ways than different, and that was great.
> I don't get the diverse conclusion. I don't resonate with it at all. We were all relatively poor, of the same race and had very similar upbringings and possible futures. We were similar in more ways than different, and that was great.
You’re not wrong that you likely didn’t have much diversity where you grew up. My parents are Ukrainian and Belarusian and I grew up in Brighton Beach, so I get it.
But: the diversity I got from living in NYC was insane. By the time I got to junior high I had met every race and ethnicity, eaten nearly every possible cuisine, learned a bunch about every religion, and so on.
Contrast that with my wife who grew up in Columbus, GA, where they had one “ethnic” restaurant and it was the “Chinese” spot, and you can imagine there were a massive amount of differences growing up. I didn’t have to learn about other cultures when I got older; I had grown up immersed in them, and it made it so much easier to find common ground with literally anyone.
I gave the 'product' to friends and some of them told me "oh, you should do it like ground.news where I can see left, center, right". This idea turns me off so much. Why would I care if it's deemed left, center or right by some commitee. Just give me the information that's there in most sources and it's probably be going to be close to some objective overview of the situation.