I do not read the news either. Reading about all the shit every day just makes me feel down, and I am fully aware of what is going on in the world without actively seeking out the news. Trickle down news is enough.

One is not a bad citizen for not constantly swimming in the depressing narratives. In addition, a lot of news are spun to make you feel as bad as possible, just like social media thrives more the worse you feel.

The news, and with it politics, have largely deteriorated to the point where only a few percent of the highest quality sources are worth any attention. It's all simple narrative grievance and entertainment. NYT in particular has fallen into oblivion resorting to typo clickbait and hate reads. The attention economy has defeated the information economy, with this one weird trick...

My prediction for the New Year is that LLMs won't make it better.