Like the Palestine-Israel conflict which a lot has happened since it started, you can barely argue or talk about it if you are literally out of the loop without mistepping because its just a too complex situation for us westerners.
Wikipedia’s current events portal covers current events and conflicts with links to plenty of background info.
I don’t think about it. I’m not rich enough to influence it.
I mean, sure, I feel sad about the middle east, but there’s also Ukraine, also human trafficking in Southeast Asia and around the world, human rights violation and cultural genocide in Xinjiang and Tibet, also dictators around the world, + every other problem in the world. The fuck can I do? I’m just some broke ass peasant with severe depression.
The moment I read more news is the moment I’d just breakdown in tears about the suffering around the world and wanna swallow a bottle of pills… so I can’t. I don’t even have the guts to watch Schrinder’s list, because the trailer is already too depressing for me.
Memes are enough, make fun of autocrats as stress-relief…
Frankly, I would like to know the secret to the opposite. 🤢🥹
Join the NFL. I hear TBI is great for no longer remembering things
Just pay attention and whenever you see or hear something that Makes you say “wait what?” Go look it up and educate yourself.
You don’t necessarily need to participate in the conversation, observe it, gather opinions and cross reference with trusted sources.
Of course in person you can’t just whip out your phone and look stuff up, or shit I guess you can, but you can always say “I’m not informed enough to speak on this, can I get back to you?” and in my experience people will respect that, giving you a chance to go educate yourself on whatever the topic at hand was.
It’s not going to be updated with daily events, but simple Wikipedia has background and fairly up to date info on major conflicts. Regular Wikipedia is more frequently updated, but simple will give you the basics without over complicating and is a quick read.
If you want to understand conflicts, you need to read about their history.
read the news regularly. you’ll catch up real fast.
I like readtangle.com
It’s an independent newsletter that tackles a major US news item each day, compiling views from across the political spectrum, without engaging in click bait or hyperbole. Every newsletter ends with a feel-good story.
I don’t. I deliberately avoid news of any kind. It’s either too depressing or none of my business. I do not take sides. I neither condemn nor condone, I merely acknowledge that someone or something exists or that some event is occurring.
It’s not necessarily that I don’t have opinions on what I do learn through osmosis, just that I realize they’re futile or unlikely to be convincing so there’s no use discussing them. I merely exist and the rest of the world happens around me whether I like it or not.
Unhealthy? Probably, but this is the only way I have found a measure of peace.
What do you say to people who tell you “But everything is political!! You’re participating in politics by not participating!” or “Wow such privilege, being able to just ignore <this routine political event that everyone is frothing at the mouth about today>”?
I just shrug and say you’re probably right. I can’t find the exact quote but it’s something like “Pacifists only exist because others do violence on their behalf” and I think it’s applicable here as well. But, look, I barely have agency over my own affairs, so I’m not going to waste energy futilely worrying about the affairs of others.
I think that reflects the biggest conspiracy of the modern age tbh. As long as everyone’s focused on specific aspects of American politics (as they do worldwide) they aren’t focused on areas of their own lives where they can make positive change, political or otherwise. And here in the US, our political leaders actually love it that everyone’s obsessed with one person in one branch of our government because it’s the politics that affects their lives the least and they can do the least about. It’s actually smarter to focus on yourself and managing your own affairs.
Yeah there’s nothing we can do in politics, its all rigged by billionaires. What you can do is organize in your community. This at least helps somewhat.
agreed. most of the advocate types and extremists i know are just… miserable people who hate their lives who want to use their political beliefs to make everyone else as miserable as they are.
most happy people i know have political beliefs. they just don’t shove them down everyone else’s throats and they aren’t totally beholden to them as some measure of morality or worth.
i tell them they are assholes. because they are.
because what they really mean is ‘anyone who doesn’t share in my beliefs is bad and wrong’.
they just come back at you about how bad and wrong you are. because they operate under the delusion they are the only rational and thoughtful person who ever existed. 90% of of the time they are also massive hypocrites who do the opposite of what they say others should do. like they will claim everyone should respect others beliefs, but they will not respect anyone else’s beliefs and will harass, intimidate, and shame those they disagree with.
don’t… there is nothing but despair in here
The TLDR is that no one source covers everything or is correct on everything. You’ll need to combine quality reporting (listed below) with your own fact checking such as cross verifying where stories are sourced; or researching topics on your own through wikipedia/etc. (Chat GPT won’t be reliable for this fyi)
World News (based in Germany) https://www.youtube.com/@dwnews OR https://www.dw.com/
World News (based in Canada) https://www.youtube.com/@Reuters OR https://www.reuters.com/
World News / War in Ukraine - https://www.youtube.com/@BusinessBasicsYT
American Politics w/ Legal analysis - https://www.youtube.com/@MeidasTouch
Canadian perspective - https://www.youtube.com/@therationalnational
I get most of my news from Seth Meyers. I operate on the Robinhood men in tights theory of receiving bad news in a funny way so it’s easier to take.
Then, why do you watch Seth Myers?
I think mistepping generally just gets you in trouble if you try to act like you know what you’re talking about or insist that a given position is correct. Just say you’re not the most informed and are looking to learn more or understand people’s perspectives rather than assert one thing or another.
Watch news designed for children and young people, like the “jeugdjournaal” in the Netherlands. Germany has one too, I think, until Merz’s cuts hit.
Lots of time.
I’d highly recommend starting by searching and sorting sources into categories by trust and quality then work from there.
