notes

2024-12-08

For the last ~two years I’ve mostly exclusively consumed my news via RSS, chose who I want to get my input from, in that way selected what my sources of information will be, who to rely on.

There were some things I’ve noticed throughout the time and it was for once that I’ve curated my own little bubble of people who share my opinion and then later formed it.

If we take for example german politics I had two “voices” that I listened to and got my information from, them being “blog.fefe.de” (tech/pol blogger) and “lage der nation” (trans. “situation of the nation”, podcast).

I would say of both of them that they have good and strong opinions on politics and that’s good, the problem was that I have not.

From “fefe” I’ve heard of most news only hours after they happened and remembered his funny comments and opinions on it. Didn’t understand what was going on but that’s the part I got. And that’s still not the problem.

The problem then came to be when it came up in discussion with friends and I thought I had a stance on it but I really had not, because I only knew a opinion without knowing anything about how the guys I got it from got there.

And german politics here were only an example, it was pretty similar with tech and other “areas of life”.

Then after I got busy and the RSS reader became a distraction I just shut it down (as it was running on a server) and didn’t feel the need to have it back yet, around two weeks later.

I like the idea of RSS, but if I’ll make it run again then I don’t want anybody on there that influences me in any way and instead just use it to see what friends are up to on their blogs.

Not taking in too many news or none at all on most days does not feel like a loss to me. For the most part I really don’t care about what is happening and then I don’t need to feed my brain with stimulating opinions and things to worry about that I can not realistically influence.

It’s just useless for the most part.

I would like to know what you think on the topic or if you have insights that I seem to have forgotten. Feel free to reach out if you have something to add. contact