/wiz/ - Wizardry

If that makes you happy then do it, it’s all personal preference I guess. I hardly ever read current events because it’s so uninteresting to me. Same for fapping, I fap a couple times a month and don’t really care much about it/doesn’t affect my life one way or another. Just gotta identify a personal bad habit and cut it out, what that habit is is probably different for everyone.

I am working on a similar thing myself. In my point of views news are nothing more than entertainment and advertising. On one hand you have the constant drama that is aimed at have people hooked at rooting their own group (Which is approved by the System anyway.) while feeling smugly superior to the other one. Whatever your biases are there is somebody who sells fluff for you. On the other hand it is basically just selling narratives. If they want to demoralize people or push trough some innovation they just start bombarding you and by extension the masses with the same messaging over and over again.

If we disregard those things, we still have the issue of "The News" are things on so huge scale we can't really do anything about them. At least you have somebody to talk to when it comes to local issues, but national and global ones? It will only just make one feel small and helpless. Ironically, people who have nothing under their control are so adamant about macro economic, social and political issues, because there is no actual stake in discussing the impossibly big topics. It is just the new religion for the powerless. You are a slave? Sure, you can have this god expy, then start harassing people for not living up to an arbitrary level of purity demanded by the social proof, which are manufactured in a top down fashion. Also, they are really boring people with nothing going on in their lives beside having opinions shaped by gamified social media points.

It is liberating for your mind when you start to focus on the issues around and in you. Because that is real, and it is there. Not to mention people who are doing their own things may suffer a bit on the talk about meaningless topics with normalfags department but will gain considerably in the being an interesting person one. If you are actually doing business or something that may depend on policy changes etc. it is a far better practice to look up the webpages of said agency instead of either waiting for a peer to peer rumor machine to talk about it or waiting for an industrialized gossip machine to actually be relevant for once.

I did that last year. Ignorance is bliss.

I also spent a few months last year detatched not only from news but from the internet as well.
It was pretty great.

i consume technology news in text format via hackernews, thats it

big world events and stuff… it really is quite pointless. for most people on earth, they dont need to be informed about riots and murders and boycotts and stuff. staying uninformed would ptobably create a net-positive change

it is all beyond me, out of my control, so i limit it. you cant feel afraid and anxious over something you arent even aware of

I'm doing the same thing for the most part. I think I just got burned out on news by the end of last year since it's normally negative and I can't do much to influence change anyway. I'll occasionally watch a video about some event but not nearly as much as before. I just don't care much and feel much better ignoring most of it. Plus there are so few sources I feel I can actually trust that I'd rather just not bother.

If you don't read the news, you're uninformed. If you do, you're misinformed.

I just gave up my boycott of the news at the start of this year

It's harder to maintain than I thought. For example, I learned the hard way that even if there's any Youtube channels I like, I have to instead bookmark their individual channels instead of navigating via the homepage because I'm inevitably going to see some bullshit clickbait news. There were also a lot of sites I didn't realize were showing me the most depressing news in the world that now I have.

However, even if it's difficult to maintain perfectly, even in an unperfect form is it worth it, holy shit. I've been continuing this experiment, and holy shit has it continued to be amazing for my mood. I realize how much of a learned helplessness I had/have just because of the news; e.g., "Oh well, guess I won't be able to do THAT anymore" no longer really enter my head.

>>176164
I think I've learned that it's way better to be uninformed.
>>176154
>>176130
>it's normally negative and I can't do much to influence change anyway
>it is all beyond me, out of my control, so i limit it.
>>176114
>It will only just make one feel small and helpless.
That's the simple idea of it, yeah.

>>176114
>having opinions shaped by gamified social media points.
This was another thing that was scaring me, in a sense. I felt like I really was becoming zombiefied, in a sense, by this pointless news.
>It is liberating for your mind when you start to focus on the issues around and in you. Because that is real, and it is there.
It really is. For probably the first time in my life I feel like I can actually do something.



I really want to make this a thing. Like "Media-Free May" or something. I wonder about the power this would have with others and with even more people.

>>176300
>I have to instead bookmark their individual channels instead of navigating via the homepage

If you use uBlock origin add this to your filters:
! blocks homepage
youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="home"]

There are more such filters you can find online that block things from YouTube, like recommandations or comments.

>>176300
>This was another thing that was scaring me, in a sense. I felt like I really was becoming zombiefied, in a sense, by this pointless news.
That is what over stimulation can do to a person. I think everybody only have a limited amount of things they can care about. News and drama are big things that can eat up that resources by being bloat. I would add social media in general to that. The constant spam of trivia and novelty ate up quite lot of my time. Most of the things won't even have any use after people done talking about it in the media cycle.
>It's harder to maintain than I thought.
You have a billion PHDs doing their best to trick your brain to stay on the platforms and feed longer. The whole thing is designed to be addictive. Video Games and online content in the last decade turned from experiences on their own into gamified psychological tricks.
>However, even if it's difficult to maintain perfectly, even in an unperfect form is it worth it, holy shit. I've been continuing this experiment, and holy shit has it continued to be amazing for my mood. I realize how much of a learned helplessness I had/have just because of the news; e.g., "Oh well, guess I won't be able to do THAT anymore" no longer really enter my head.
If we were to think that the powers that be don't have the best of ours interests in mind then I would say that is the point. Emotional lows and highs being used to manage people and shape their tastes and actions. There will always be a hope nugget or win thrown into the mix so people will stay in the System. You can see this in the fans who complain about things going wrong, but getting back on the train when the company that fucked them over makes one product that is okay or politics etc.

I couldn't control myself and consume political media and now I am angry at people who disagree with me. The need for tribalism is not talked about as much on wizchan as the need for sex but it is just as compelling. I wish there is a masturbation counterpart to the need for belonging, where I can stave off my unfulfilled biological needs without actually participating in the act. Many wizards probably fulfill this desire by identifying with wizchan itself but this is just a shit site.
>inb4 not a real wizard because I fap or feel attracted to in-group thinking

>>176368
Politics already is masturbation. You aren't grouping yourself with your family or tribe but strangers on the internet who happen to agree on tax policy with you.

>>176378
This is a good point. Not to mention it is just a passive fandom/religion without any true interaction.

>>176302
I initially didn't want to do this because I'm that lazy, but realized I could just copy and paste what you wrote into almost any other adblocker as well.

It works, thank you.

>>176319
>I think everybody only have a limited amount of things they can care about. News and drama are big things that can eat up that resources by being bloat.
It's amazing how much I didn't realize this.
>>176368
>I wish there is a masturbation counterpart to the need for belonging, where I can stave off my unfulfilled biological needs without actually participating in the act.
At the moment, "the need for tribalism" is probably one of the central modes of control. I think if this were to exist, you'd see major societal revolutions.

>>176391
>It's amazing how much I didn't realize this.
That is why it is important to break this addiction society and the weakness of being human forces on us. Getting clean is not easy.

>>176302

Do you have some more tips of other filters like this one?

Continuing with this:

- I've been using millionshort.com or curlie.org as my search engines to avoid media sites. It's been working more or less pretty good.

>>176437
This blocks youtube popup dialogs about terms and conditions/cookie policy or that "Log In into your account right now" popup
!youtube
www.youtube.com###dialog
youtube.com##.ytd-popup-container
youtube.com##.ytd-consent-bump-lightbox
youtube.com##.opened
youtube.com##+js(set, ytInitialPlayerResponse.auxiliaryUi.messageRenderers.upsellDialogRenderer.isVisible, false)
youtube.com##+js(set, ytInitialData.overlay.upsellDialogRenderer.isVisible, false)
youtube.com##+js(json-prune, [].playerResponse.auxiliaryUi.messageRenderers.upsellDialogRenderer)
youtube.com##+js(json-prune, auxiliaryUi.messageRenderers.upsellDialogRenderer)
youtube.com##+js(set, ytInitialData.topbar.desktopTopbarRenderer.interstitial.consentBumpRenderer.forceConsent, false)
youtube.com##+js(json-prune, [].response.topbar.desktopTopbarRenderer.interstitial.consentBumpRenderer)
youtube.com##.opened
youtube.com###consent-bump
youtube.com##+js(json-prune, topbar.desktopTopbarRenderer.interstitial.consentBumpRenderer)


The following filters do what the comments say:
! blocks homepage
youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="home"]
! blocks recommended section
www.youtube.com##ytd-watch-next-secondary-results-renderer
! blocks comment section
www.youtube.com##ytd-comments

And here is a set of filters for Google's search popup about terms/cookie policy or whatever(usually appears if you have some strange cookie settings, same for youtube i think):
!google
google.*##+js(aeld, DOMContentLoaded, CONSENT)
news.google.*##div[data-cbh^="consent.google."]
news.google.*##html[class*="gb"]:style(overflow: visible !important;)
www.google.*##body.QVCmK:style(position: static !important; overflow-y: visible !important;)
www.google.*##html.QVCmK:style(overflow-y: visible !important;)
www.google.*###lb > div[id^="_"] > div[class*=" "]:not([id]):empty:matches-css(opacity: 0.7)
www.google.*###lb > div[id^="_"] > div[class*=" "]:not([id]):has( > span > div[role="dialog"] > #cnsw > iframe[src*="://consent.google.com"])

These are the filters I use, but if you spend some time searching or asking the guys on lainchan, I'm sure you will find more that might be useful to you.

>>176472
Btw, I'm not really sure, but maybe some filters might block some youtube functions I do not use, but you might use. I basically use a very striped down version of youtube with these filters that has just a searchbar, channel pages, playlists, video pages and video descriptions under the videos. If however my filters block something that you want to do, just try and comment some of the filters and see which ones break youtube for you. Good luck.

>>176472
Many thanks, for someone who use account must not add youtube.com##.ytd-popup-container only

>>176108
I've been doing this vor years

>>176483
*for

I'm the opposite, OP. For a long time I didn't care about news and all that, nowadays I like to be well-informed and up-to-date. Even if the data we get from the various news channels is distorted or warped we at least get some sort of picture of what is going on in the world around us. Information and knowledge are power. Don't weaken yourself, don't let your desire for comfort and peace make you into a slave or apathetic pawn. Face reality and what is going on in it, that is the path to power.

>>176489
>Even if the data we get from the various news channels is distorted or warped we at least get some sort of picture of what is going on in the world around us.
Big doubt on this sentence. You just get manipulated. Nowadays, it's better to be uninformed than misinformed to be someone else's pawn–rather ironic given your next few sentences.

Relevant film for this thread.

>>176489
>Face reality and what is going on in it, that is the path to power.
Well, what kind of powers have you obtained, informed guy?

>>176521
Manipulation has its limits. Obviously every party or group pushes its own agenda and tries to see things through its own ideology but thanks to the fact that competition exists we can discern the truth from fiction. It is a fact that there is a war going in Syria. Now, about the details of who would be better for you personally to win, that is another thing entirely. You can listen and watch various news sources and if you aren't a complete idiot or a lazy person then you can make out the truth.
Being misinformed and uninformed are both undesirable states. By withdrawing into your little bubble you aren't escaping anything, you still exist and live in this world and society, you just give up and surrender yourself entirely to the events and persons around you. Apathy doesn't liberate you, it only weakens you.

>>176525
Information and knowledge, do you lack reading comprehension? The fact alone that I'm not supporting any party that would work against me if they got into power is an advantage in itself, seeing how many cucks support parties and persons that preach opposite values to what these idiots have just because they read on reddit, facebook or 4chan that "X party/person is so based and redpilled!"
But I could list numerous advantages that exist for the informed person. Knowing what goes on around you in society can only help you.

I stopped watching the news a long time ago because it basically just shows me events that I have no control over and isn’t beneficial to me to know about them. Unless you are some kind of political pundit or businessman who can profit off of the news somehow I don’t really think there’s much benefit to watching it.

>>176533
>Manipulation has its limits.
By a large margin this sentence attempts to sidestep and overlook the power of manipulation. It, for example, overlooks how insanely powerful fear is. We've seen society get manipulated into war after war, crisis after crisis. Saying 'manipulation has its limits' is completely meaningless. You might as well say, 'the energy output of the Sun has its limits' or 'the vastness of the galaxy has its limits.' Both true statements, but hiding their vastness and depth.
>Being misinformed and uninformed are both undesirable states.
Uninformed is a hell of a lot more desirable than misinformed of current events. Thinking either of these states can be rectified by current media, even by """both sides""" (scare quotes because they're so often the same side, so this potential nuance is functionally worthless) I find to be naive. Especially in today's environment.
>By withdrawing into your little bubble
Ignoring the news!=withdrawing into a bubble. I would argue that those watching the news are the ones in a bubble. If I had a neighbor who was a brick-layer who knew nothing about the news or current events focused entirely on bettering himself and what he immediately sees around him, I would consider him a humble man that I wouldn't mind sharing time with. I wouldn't consider him a closeted bigot living in a bubble.

The uninformed man who makes a single brick is better for all of us than the "informed" man who panic buys toilet paper.

>>176533
>withdrawing into your little bubble
…uh, welcome to WIZARD chan.

>>176538
>manipulation
It is not sidestepping the issue. Objectively, if someone gets manipulated then he gets what he deserves. Might makes right is true in all cases. If someone is so foolish and lazy that he can be manipulated then it is his problem.
>uninformed is better
Explain how it is better to not know about changes in laws and other ares concerning your life. Uninformed is actually worse, because even misinformed people are closer to the facts than the lazy or apathetic people who want to live inside their own heads.
>The uninformed man who makes a single brick is better for all of us than the "informed" man who panic buys toilet paper.
So what if you actually have to panic buy stuff because the economy goes down the drain or because of other circumstances? The guy who don't want to know anything about the world won't know anything and will be left with nothing. Just an example.
What you are describing isn't an individual but an almost perfect slave. He does his work for the collective and doesn't think about the bigger picture.

You sound like you have OCD or you are like one of those people who give up on reading philosophy because "why bother, all philosophers say different things". Truth does exist. It can reached in numerous ways. And even if you aren't able to reach, even if you are "misinformed", then what? Making mistakes is natural. The important thing is to try to achieve the best desired state, which is being informed.

>>176539
It is one thing to be a NEET hermit and another to be an idiot or coward who refuses to take notice of the world and society around him.

I used to watch the news almost every day when Trump was president, but now it's just so boring and not worth the time.

>>176633
This. It's going to be a boring 4 years in terms of news so there's no point. Unless the great reset actually happens or something.

>>176631
>It is not sidestepping the issue.
Again, I really think you are though. Choosing what you read is really important, that's the whole point of this discussion. Knowing that virtually all of mass media is bs and thinking, "Hey, maybe I shouldn't be reading this, it's driving me to insane conclusions," or having enough self-knowledge and humility about your own fallibilities to the fear porn that is MSM is the whole point.
>Explain how it is better to not know about changes in laws and other ares concerning your life
Because when was the last time that both of these conditions held true:
1 - You could realistically do something about it
2 - It actually affected you
?
You mentioned might-makes-right philosophy. Well, you have to be pragmatic.
>The guy who don't want to know anything about the world won't know anything and will be left with nothing.
Not necessarily. A guy can remain ignorant of current events, but still know that most currencies collapse, and be careful about that and plan for it. This way he's prepared, but he's not done in by fear and crowd psychoses.
>What you are describing isn't an individual but an almost perfect slave.
I'd argue the person who falls in lock-step with the Pravda is the perfect slave. At least this man does something for himself instead of his controllers.
>Truth does exist. It can reached in numerous ways.
Correct. And the whole crux of this is that truth does not exist in current events and the media. It is bigger than that.

>>176658
Even if I can't do anything against it I would like to know about it. I don't support the idea of living in a fantasy dreamworld. You need to know about the problems that affect your life and the world.
Pragmatism doesn't mean you run away from problems, also.
>Not necessarily. A guy can remain ignorant of current events, but still know that most currencies collapse, and be careful about that and plan for it.
It is better know what, when and how will happen exactly. Your valiant ignorant guy won't know if some highly dangerous virus is currently on the loose in his area or whether chinese airplanes are going to bomb his town into pieces in a couple of hours. You can prepare for bad things generally while being ignorant but being well-informed can save your live or save you money/other resources.
>I'd argue the person who falls in lock-step with the Pravda is the perfect slave.
Again, listening to the news won't make you into a brainless zombie necessarily.
>truth does not exist in current events and the media
It certainly exists concerning current events, as for the media like I said, an intelligent and diligent person can piece together what's up without too much trouble.

The only news that matters is local, incoming weather, prices at the grocery, areas where crime occurs so that you can avoid or be wary. Change my mind.

The more you do this the more you realise it doesn't really matter. Anything that does matter you'll notice with or without the 'news', and at least then you get it without the spin.

>>176803
>It certainly exists concerning current events, as for the media like I said, an intelligent and diligent person can piece together what's up without too much trouble.
That's like saying "There exist truth in celebrity news tabloids."
Oh, wait, sorry, I didn't mean to compare celebrity news tabloids to MSM–celebrity news tabloids are bad, but they aren't THAT horrible.
>Again, listening to the news won't make you into a brainless zombie necessarily.
And "drinking couple beers before going to bed every day" won't turn you into an alcoholic. There are certainly much better things to be doing with your life, though. And you're probably going to be a lot healthier and better off without it.
Again, I'll keep repeating this point: I think this argument severely underestimates the psychological impact of fear porn that the MSM provides.
>Your valiant ignorant guy won't know if some highly dangerous virus is currently on the loose in his area or whether chinese airplanes are going to bomb his town into pieces in a couple of hours.
I'm pretty sure he can hear a siren or see the traffic on his street pick up.
Actually, you have a point, if he wasn't watching the news, he'd probably end up being aware of that stuff even sooner.
Also, I doubt that he's ignorant.
>Pragmatism doesn't mean you run away from problems, also.
Correct. And MSM is great for running away from problems.

>>176885
You can still check your local news papers website for news. It will have a bunch of celebrity wank and a few MSM stories being repeated. They're easily ignored for a brief run down in your area. Might even find something interesting going on you want to attend.

>>176533
>>176538
actions taken under the belief you are informed when you aren't is likely worse than whatever you would have done regardless of you hearing about it.

Being highly informed about current events is abnormal. Throughout history news traveled relatively slowly. There was no 24/7 news cycle, no internet to keep you up to date with a constant unending flood of information. People were able to focus on the things that were directly around them. Now everyone is distracted and obsessed with things completely out of their control.

>>176472
This has been working REALLY well for me. Are there more like this? For example, how can I automatically block the "related posts" section on stack overflow? How about the "related videos" on Youtube?

>>177124
I got curious and wondered "what I was missing out on" only to immediately see why I started to do this.

This has been doing wonders for my mental state and I think I might start trying to go even harder down this path of avoiding MSM as much as possible.

>>176885
It is not that hard dude just scan the headlines and invert what they are saying to get the version closer to the truth

>>177778
just scan the overflow buffer and invert the phase shift bro

>>177113
Underrated post. Also, fuck all the idiots that say "don't sweat the small stuff". The small stuff are usually the things you can control. Humans have an innate need for control, and watching the news deprives them of it. You know what satisfies that need? Cleaning your basement.

>>177113
Modern healthcare and the general benefits of modern science also didn't exist in the past. Good Lord, I hate stupid arguments like yours. You completely ignore the fact of evolution. The human species evolved and continues to evolve still. There is no "natural" or "proper" way of existence.

>>177830
He's still got a point about people being obsessed with things out of their control, and that being really unhealthy.
>>177778
Or ignore it completely and live your life.

>>176108
I do the same thing, if its that important I will hear about it from family or friends. The news as it is now is worthless and is devoid of any actual content
>then why isn't there a whole month dedicated to actively trying to be ignorant about world events?
because media giants will tell you why you're not allowed to do that cause it makes them lose money.

>>177809

This image physically hurts me.

>>177809
>nec monitor
>nec trackpad keyboard
>702nk
>pic programming books
>perl cgi scripting books
>old skool scuzzy drives
>perfboard with ttl and what looks like a vga connector
>running nixie tube clock kit
>analog oscilloscope and bench dmm
>cheapest soldering iron possible
Guy is rolling in student hacker cred

I’ll just share some random thoughts and rant. I’ve been doing this for a couple of years but periodically get drawn back in to the bullshit. Last year at the end of March I caved because we had the panic buying and the possibility lockdowns personally impacting me, and I had relations trying to rub it in my face with the panic. I was dismissive but eventually felt the need to look up the facts about the alleged pandemic, I took. A couple of days messing around to determine it was all hype.

I really believe that if it wasn’t for the mainstream news media, and especially the 24hour television news cycle, there would quite possibly have never have been any lockdowns (excuse the introduction of politics/news, just seems relevant). I feel like political and mainstream news was dying a bit through the first half of the 2010’s as people started living more online lives and there was this move away from ‘normalfag’ society; but these news agencies eventually adapted and started ramping up their online presence and perfecting the click bait / dopamine exploitation system to the point of extreme mastery. In 2010 there was lots of political discussion online, lots of it focused on mainstream society and politics, but it really felt like the majority of what I did online was free from that paradigm, in its own ‘space’, but then gradually with normalfags and phone users moving online you saw this shift towards everyone being dominated by mainstream politics, and Trump was sort of the big symbol of this period.

There was the rise of these internet celebs many of whom recycled or fed into this mainstream cycle, and drawing in many more internet users so we actually ended up in a significantly more politics-media concentrated culture than we had before. You may have noticed this shift in people around you too, it feels like people were losing much of what made them unique and more of their personalities seemed to become dominated by a sort of ‘news regurgitator’ mentality, which then forces you to respond and draws you in.

The MSM also started to create this narrative that pitted organic internet culture against the mainstream establishment, labelling vast swathes of people and their alternate views as “alt right”. Like… online there had been this massive growth of men’s rights stuff, the manosphere etc which in general I would never have really characterised as strongly left or right, and certainly not strongly right… gradually highly politicised forces stated classifying much of it as “alt right”. Suddenly many people who’d been into that stuff actually started to identify as “alt right”, which made me feel somewhat betrayed. There’s this one at that the MSM has the power to make people ‘reactive’ and defend positions they wouldn’t otherwise have held but feel they’ve been labeled as having. So all culture was being absorbed into this bullshit.

So realising a lot of this pushed me away from media. It doesn’t help that being very into male issues I get literally ‘triggered’ all the time by all the misandry and male abuse in mainstream politics, government and media. It became clear that for my own sanity I needed to cut a lot of that out of awareness.

Oh and society has become increasing atomised, so I think there’s this growing mass of people (I know some irl, relatives and so on) who are addicted to consuming this political news and projecting and forcing it on others. People who increasingly don’t have friends or connections IRL resort to their “fox and friends” for banter and belonging. It’s sad but these consumers are also sort of obnoxious, they get off on ‘owning’ others IRL and boxing you into a corner where they can label your position etc, and the people who consume MORE of this media have more knowledge of the issues they force you to discuss - this is a big normalfag thing, like people who love football treating you as an alien if you don’t know anything about it - in part it’s often because that’s the field they can move conversation onto and feel ‘ontop’ of the conversation. These people are the bane of anyone trying to escape this shit.

I really think this is THE major social problem of the times that if we actually found solutions to, we could then make the word a much better place, but very few people are motivated.

Anyway around the same time i was seeking all of this I quit porn and used a bunch of porn related keywords added to a blocker, which I noticed would block news articles (more on the tabloid pages but also very often on simple news sites). You jump into the news cycle at any point and you’ll find all sorts of trigger phrases, constant ‘succubus/succubus in peril’ themes, constant attempts to provoke fear. Having lived through 911 I’m pretty sure the MSM news cycle has had a single continuous fear narrative going for 100 years. It just jumps around in the main fear narrative from anarchists to communists to fascists to aliens to terrorists to pandemics, etc. I also think a lot of the male hate and misandry, a lot of this ‘metoo’ and feminist shit is as much about baiting males with negative reactions they lead to clicks as much as exploiting female narcissism. So it’s be cool if we could develop and fine tune keywords for blocking that keep out of a lot of the bull shit. I have any famous ‘Royal’ name from the UK on the ban list for example. The other day I visited a random putlocker site and noticed one of the trending videos was some Oprah interview with ‘Harry and Megan’, I looked it up for a summary on letterboxd and I saw quite a few comments from people mentioning that they’d felt pressured by society into watching it to ‘keep up’. This need to ‘keep up’ and not be left out must be one of the strongest psychological drives humans have, and it’s probably stronger in succubi and normalfags. It’s be great if online cultures found ways to push back against this shit through education - I’d love to be on an imageboard where the majority of users could pick up on this sort of bait and call it out.

There’s one wiz in this thread defending the need to keep informed, claiming it’s morally irresponsible not to keep informed. As I see it it’s a morally superior position to not let these parasitical classes of people rape our dopamine for cash. They are the ones doing real damage, not people minding their own business. Since quitting news I’ve probably saved tens of thousands of hours which I believe has helped me take more control of my own life. The Pandemic was THE most invasive news event I’ve experienced and in retrospect I don’t think I would have missed anything not learning about it. The only thing was I did feel the need to ‘psychically defend myself’ by researching it, but only because I was under attack by people i can’t escape claiming the virus was going to kill us all etc. If some sort of REAL shit went down I’m sure I’d learn about it, assuming there was time, and could take appropriate action. If anything can change positively in wider society, it would really need to happen or originate from the ‘grass roots’ anyway. I have no interest in globohomo central-bank backed propaganda, mostly written by roasties who excluded me from their society and are now essentially married to the state.

>>177910
Dammit anon. There are so many things you've said here that really hit a chord with me. So, I apologize if my responses are repetitive, but I feel you should know that you aren't alone in this.
>and I had relations trying to rub it in my face with the panic
Ironic, because you were proven right in the end. Did they ever apologize?
>if it wasn’t for the mainstream news media..there would quite possibly have never have been any lockdowns
There'd be so much shit that's been introduced via ratchet effect if it weren't for MSM. Dear lord, we'd also be able to just _walk onto a plane_.
>what I did online was free from that paradigm
I never put it into such words, but I remember getting frustrated with this too with the whole gamergate shit. I'm playing Mario, not railing against the patriarchy, leave me alone for Christ's sake.
>it feels like people were losing much of what made them unique and more of their personalities
There has been a huge loss in individuality. I noticed this with the rise of Facebook. It's surprising because around the time my family tried to get me on Facebook, I would say something like, "You know Aunt X? Do you prefer the version of her before she was on Facebook or after?" Every time I've said that they immediately stopped trying to get me on Facebook or any social media, and they looked quite depressed. Now it's to the point where I can't ask people to compare their memories of pre and post Facebook, because they don't remember what it was like before, which is scary.
>Suddenly many people who’d been into that stuff actually started to identify as “alt right”
It's weird because I've had that experience in BOTH directions. Some groups (music or programming boards, mainly) suddenly expecting me to champion BLM or Trans rights, whereas some other groups (MGTOW like yourself or economics or certain gaming forums) expecting me to support bell curve arguments and stuff like that.
>resort to their “fox and friends” for banter and belonging
Likewise, I've seen this happen to family members on both sides.
>I really think this is THE major social problem of the times that if we actually found solutions to, we could then make the word a much better place, but very few people are motivated.
I definitely agree that this really is THE social problem, but more than that, I have no idea how the hell you'd approach it. The dopamine-manipulation and fear-mongering art of the MSM is just so goddam fine-tuned, precise, well-oiled, and–well–perfect. It's overwhelmingly depressing to think about. Hell, I can barely free MYSELF from it most of the time!
>added to a blocker
I'm kind of surprised this thread hasn't been dedicated more to people's setups. What blockers do you use? What's your setup?
>I saw quite a few comments from people mentioning that they’d felt pressured by society into watching it to ‘keep up’
How depressing.
>I’d love to be on an imageboard where the majority of users could pick up on this sort of bait and call it out.
How would such a thing even look like?
>As I see it it’s a morally superior position to not let these parasitical classes of people rape our dopamine for cash.
I was the sole guy trying to argue against him in this thread. I'm shit at debates, but I hope that point somehow rang out, at least.
>Since quitting news I’ve probably saved tens of thousands of hours which I believe has helped me take more control of my own life.
There really is a bottom-dollar pragmatism to this. Trying to avoid as much news as I could was my resolution for this year, and I've really been surprised at how much it's helped me psychologically juts a few months in–not even thinking about the extra time I've gained.
>If some sort of REAL shit went down I’m sure I’d learn about it
Exactly.

Cheers, anon.

>>177924

>Did they ever apologize?

Nope. They are obnoxious people in general, though so I wouldn’t expect it. The main one who was really pushing the hysteria on me has toned things down but continues to keep up with the news constantly and treats it like an ongoing threat.

>There'd be so much shit that's been introduced via ratchet effect if it weren't for MSM.

Yeah the funny thing is that even if you held some sort of independent or government commission of inquiry or had a bunch of independent groups mount a critique against the role the MSM has played in damaging ‘society’ and individuals… because ‘the media’ itself would have to cover this for it to enter into the mainstream narrative consciousness, it would be watered down or dismissed or more likely totally ignored.

>I have no idea how the hell you'd approach it. The dopamine-manipulation and fear-mongering art of the MSM is just so goddam fine-tuned, precise, well-oiled, and–well–perfect.

I think one thing would be greater ‘media literacy’, there are multiple video and lecture series online that claim to promote this but they’re all highly ‘pro establishment’, focused on teaching people to be critical of online fake news but to see the MSM as an authority. If people online started educating one another on techniques to control the psychology of needing to ‘keep up’ with news and with approaching what news people do consume with skepticism, etc it could make a difference.

>What blockers do you use? What's your setup?

Just a hosts file to block all major porn sites and many news sites. Then leech block as an addon for blocking keywords and keyword combinations and limiting access to some sites - so if I really felt the need I COULD temporarily visit a news site, but many stories will be permablocked by my keywords list. Also blocking the ‘trending’ page on YouTube, the news page etc.

Also if I fail in any serious way and get caught going back into the dopamine loop of news, I make a special effort to enter into a formal ‘commitment’ with myself to turn away from it again. I’ve gotten stronger with time.

Good luck wizzie, good to hear from someone else trying to stand against this. Excuse if I don’t respond again I also limit my imageboard consumption and about to take a break.

>>177910
>I really think this is THE major social problem
Don't delude yourself. While many things you said were true, what you're talking about is just one aspect of a greater "thing".

>>177933
>I think one thing would be greater ‘media literacy’, there are multiple video and lecture series online that claim to promote this but they’re all highly ‘pro establishment’, focused on teaching people to be critical of online fake news but to see the MSM as an authority. If people online started educating one another on techniques to control the psychology of needing to ‘keep up’ with news and with approaching what news people do consume with skepticism, etc it could make a difference.
You know that Star Trek episode "Symbiosis"? It feels like we live amongst the Ornarans who think that they desperately need felicium (where, to keep my analogy clear, I'm thinking of as MSM/social media) to survive. Imagine you were one of the few people who knew it was a hoax, and that you knew if was the drug was what was causing the illness (because psychologically, there is a lot that's similar between how various drugs and addictions work and the clickbait/dopamine cycle that MSM/social media abuse). With the problem being planetwide, I don't think a 'literacy' campaign would really do much. If anything, it'd just be immediately squashed.

That criticism being said though, I'm still all for it, give it a shot, because I don't have any alternatives.

>>177958
one of the most based episodes

>>177910
I really appreciated this post. Despite the fact that I enjoy reading about the world and finding out about current events, I'm also frustrated with TV news and MSM news in general. They never provide enough information to develop your view of the world, only to tantalize and get you invested, then they hop onto the next story. There's a total lack of growth, or of substance, the people who have the need to keep up are given a very surface level look at how the world actually operates. So in a sense, it lures them in with a psychological need that is not necessary (the fear of missing out), and then also deprives them of becoming informed.

I particularly agreed with your point here:
>People who increasingly don’t have friends or connections IRL resort to their “fox and friends” for banter and belonging. It’s sad but these consumers are also sort of obnoxious, they get off on ‘owning’ others IRL and boxing you into a corner where they can label your position etc, and the people who consume MORE of this media have more knowledge of the issues they force you to discuss - this is a big normalfag thing, like people who love football treating you as an alien if you don’t know anything about it - in part it’s often because that’s the field they can move conversation onto and feel ‘ontop’ of the conversation.

The terminus of reading the news/keeping up isn't to actually be informed and to use this information to guide your life. You could easily skip all this unimportant nonsense and live for years without ever encountering a problem that would have been avoided by watching the news. It makes nobody's life easier, and it solves none of your problems. It only makes you equipped to grandstand and posture like yet another talking head, and to butt up against other amateur TV hosts who are hooked on the same substanceless narratives that you are on. The only practical use that people have for the news is to brag about how much they know about the news later. Not to mention how utterly pointless it is to have "debates" between laypeople who have no real power or expertise, but still fight as if the world hangs in the balance.

I agree with you that it's a lot like porn, the way that the "news product" is jammed into us as if it will answer the dissatisfaction and absurdity of modern life. The world doesn't make sense, and the people who are supposed to be informing us are failing to do so. In American culture in particular, people have fallen for the mistaken belief that they can make sense of the entire world just by sitting down in front of a screen for an hour or two every night, like a little ritual to banish away the constant creeping realization that alienation and futility are everywhere. Believing that the complexity of the world can be boiled down into a thirty-second long "story" isn't much different from believing that the naked succubi on the screen are in love with you.

It's easy enough to dodge away from watching TV news once you see this, but undoing the assumptions and norms that come from a world that still subscribes to them isn't. Neither is handling the underlying problem which feeds into the psychological need for news, which is that ever encroaching disillusionment. So many people choose to believe "main stories" of the day because it seems like it makes sense of the world. It does not. The mind is still unsatisfied, but is having its curiosity massaged away, scattering its motivation and delaying the necessary realization. Having small pieces of larger stories sprinkled across your dashboard doesn't make you informed, there's no possible way that it could. It's only deliberate and time-consuming reading and research that makes people informed, they can't plug into a video and go asleep in the head to passively gain knowledge. That's just ignorance wearing a hat.

>>176472
This sounds stupid, but:
- I just found out uBlock can be installed in Brave, too.
- I just found out the "block element" thing that let's you just click on the area of the page you want to block.
This has made StackOverflow a million times better for me. So many sites, holy shit.

Also, millionshort.com and curlie.org have been great.

I really have to emphasize that my mood has improved dramatically since the beginning of this year. I think as a consequence of that, I've been trying to learn more technical things and programming. And, it makes me realize that that's probably how the MSM is intended to work. It's _supposed_ to make people depressed so that way they susceptible to a toxic codependency with MSM.

Tl;dr, uBlock and millionshort is fucking amazing.

Hey man thanks for saving this thread. I have been able to really commit to this and cut out my news and sports viewing significantly thanks to the advice in this thread. Hope you guys are doing good! I have been able to learn a lot about computers and become better and better with them ever since I stopped being so dependent on the infotainment bullshit. This is a great thread

Fuck. I fell off the wagon. More than that, I didn't even _notice_ it. I mean, I noticed it. I've suddenly been a lot more depressed the past few months, but only now after rereading this thread have I realized that it's because I totally _forgot_ about my no-news resolution.

This stuff really is poison.

>>180142
Picrel.

Anyways, I just want to say that as simple as it sounds, I think what I learned from this failure was that I _thought_ I'd be able to easily identify clickbait and how it's structured, but I guess I've not. Stuff like:
* the sidebars on Stack Overflow or Youtube.
* Going directly to your subs only.
* Not going to aggregators.
Etc..

Well, it's the middle of the year now. Anyone been trying to keep up no-news?

>>182554
I gave up on the news around a year ago as I realised most of it was just demoralisation propaganda at that point. I'm faring quite well I must say. I don't miss it in the slightest, and the fear of not being in the loop about world events turned out to be unjustified: if something is important enough, you'll pick it up through others or on the Internet.

been doing this for a couple years and much happier because of it

No news is so easy to do and it makes life so much better

I never watch the news and I never have, other than catching glimpses of it when I pass by my parents, I don't see the point, it's either local black people killing other black people or something about some war in some country that I don't care about

>>176300
Same here. Did a lot of good for my mental health. Two extensions that helped me immensely are PocketTube and Channel Blocker. The first is a YouTube channel subscription manager that is managed locally so it doesn't require a YouTube account, and has almost completely replaced the home page for me. The second one places a little "X" next to a channel's name so you can hide it from view forever, and you can also use RegEx to automatically block channels and videos with a certain keyword in their name. Sick and tired of some normie succubus who gets pushed onto you by the algorithm? Just filter any video with her name in the tiles/comments and begone. And of course AdBlock.

>>182929
Anon, thanks for the suggestion for PocketTube.

Regarding Channel Blocker, why not just use ublock origin to block out comments and sidebar suggestions entirely?

Most news is of irrelevant events and trivia and so not worth paying attention to, but every now and then I get interested in a particular story. The fall of the Afghan puppet government has a particular poetry to it.

I feel like this video and me take completely different approaches. My thoughts on clickbait is that _I'M BEING MANIPULATED_. I don't want to be manipulated. So, my approach to clickbait isn't, "How do we make the 'good' videos have better clickbait?" It's, "How can I protect myself from clickbait?" This is why I love shit like ublock origin taking out thumbnails or the entire suggested video bar entirely, or word filters finding the common clickbait word combinations and eliminating them entirely. It seems trenchantly obvious to me that the way forward is to eliminate clickbait from your personal life, not to have more and more and more of it.

I've been playing with simple word-filter add-ons for the browser. I have to say, I am VERY surprised how effective a simple word-filter is at changing my behavior. I've put into place word filter for any and all hyperbolic words and it's like I found this magic switch that destroys my "Ohhh, I got to click on that" reflexes." I'd highly suggest it.

It's funny, because all of these word filter add-ons are targeted to censoring swear words for kids; but they seem like they were born in life just for this higher purpose.

>>183034
>Regarding Channel Blocker, why not just use ublock origin to block out comments and sidebar suggestions entirely?
Because most of the time the suggestions are actually fine, since they're based on what I've watched previously (YT manages to keep track of this even without an account using fingerprinting/cookies I guess) and they're quite useful to discover new music I could like, for example. However sometimes the algorithm slips one or two unrelated but "popular" videos in there and those get filtered ou (in fact I haven't seen a "bad" suggestion in quite some time).
I rarely read the comments but anyway they're related to the video I'm watching, and since I don't watch "normie" stuff it's unlikely that they'll contain something that triggers me.

News and media are the strongest form of mind control that exists. It's stronger than societal pressure. You have surely done right by simply rejecting following news and any information taught to society by news. Take a look at the covid situation that dominated the news for the past 1,5 years. You need to keep your distance from mass psychosis to see through the lies.
I personally have to wage slave and comply with the coming of the new world order where I live, so I've been following media very closely in order to avoid falling into deception.
In the end, it depends on your living situation. If you are actively engaging in society one way or another, I'd suggest not to miss out on the biggest historical turn of events as long as you'll be able to keep a critical eye. If you're isolated from this rotting humanity, it's the best decision to quit reading news.

>keep having arguments in my head where I BTFO my political opponents
>this makes me agitated to the point my body temperature rises and I lose track of time
>heart jumps whenever I see an article or video with certain keywords
>can't get this out of my head, keep scanning imageboards catalog for related topics and even mildly similar words are misread as certain keywords
>this literally never happened before until I started caring about politics
It's like I got MK Ultra'd.

>>183213
You did, the mind parasite successfully latched on.

I kind of disregard the media and news almost entirely. I follow local news about, idk, the local Chinatown burning down, but otherwise I couldn't care less about politics. What I think helps is following the news from autistic but credible yet unimportant outlets.
I watched how big ostrich-like birds were roaming around Germany on DW but I follow pandemic news and Afghanistan from there as well. But there's no Kamala Harris, no Joe Biden, no ATF stealing ammo, no nothing. Just news of a flooded German hamlet.

Sharing some more general filters for JewTube. These are for hiding every thumbnail, from subscriptions to "Home" and "See Also" sections, playlist thumbnails included. I found out myself that the clickbait resides mainly in its thumbnails, and focusing on a picture might help making the clickbait kind of less obvious. When I'm just reading the titles it becomes clearer which videos are worth to watch, or which ones I would actually like to watch, and also helps recognizing the filthy mind games hidden in how they present them. If you're into youtube-dl/mpv, watching them through there unironically helps, especially with the extra waiting for the buffer to load.

www.youtube.com##ytd-thumbnail
www.youtube.com##.ytp-videowall-still-image
www.youtube.com##.no-transition.ytd-playlist-video-thumbnail-renderer.style-scope > .yt-img-shadow.style-scope

I'd like to thank the few more wizzies as well for debating about the mind-trapping properties MSM has, helped me understand quite a bunch of stuff.

>>183311
Forgot to mention: these filters are written for uBlock. May work for AdBlock with some little changes in syntax.

>>176108
Congratulations, but I don't understand how someone would even start watching/reading it in the first place. By about elementary school I realized it was all just mind control, and very inflammatory mind control from a US perspective.

It's just the king's order being slammed in your face. Why would it not make you feel more positive to be rid of it? They're going to ban everything anyway just for shits and giggles but no one will have to obey if they just ignore the narcissists in charge. As it is half the world watches it, or at least half of the US population does, and then they bother the other half to let them know. That's how the machine runs. Also as it is I don't have a social life nor a job so I'm completely immune as a wiz should be.

>>183311
>>183312
I was looking for something that does this earlier today. I plugged your filters into my uBlock and it works Thanks man!

I finally figured out how easy it is to create filters on uBlock. It's literally point and click on region. Pretty nice.

My setup so far relies on four extensions:
1 - uBlock to block recommendations feeds, because they're always MSM recommendations anyways and bullshit manipulative clickbait. Also comment sections on places like Youtube have been a good move.
2 - "Advanced Profanity Filter" so I can take common clickbait phrases or words and filter them to say the word "clickbait" instead. It's weird how specifically making clickbait phrases say the word 'clickbait' immediately makes my brain recognize the trap and not be enticed by it anymore.
3 - "Site blocker"–should be obvious, but just explicitly blocks media sites. I don't get too stringent with this one because I know I'll try to get around it otherwise, but I do block all the MSM sites as a minor reminder in the background. Usually doesn't come up, but when I do, I'm glad for it.
4 - PocketTube, so I can get around Youtube's bullshit subscription system trying to push me into crap I don't want.

I hope that helps any others in this thread trying to do this. So far, this has probably been the most positive thing I've tried to do for myself in years.

>>183571
Here are some specifics.

Links to grab extensions:
uBlock
https://ublockorigin.com/
Site Blocker
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/site-blocker/caecgafeepgkgjfenbdenkkhfcflkapj
Advanced Profanity Filter (ignore the intended profanity use case, just use it to block common clickbait phrases)
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/advanced-profanity-filter/piajkpdbaniagacofgklljacgjhefjeh?hl=en
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/advanced_profanity_filter/
PocketTube
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pockettube-youtube-subscr/kdmnjgijlmjgmimahnillepgcgeemffb?hl=en-US
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-subscription-groups/

uBlock to block: Youtube/Odysee/Bitchute/Invidious/Stack Overflow/Imgur recommendation sidebars, thumbnails on Youtube/Odysee/Bitchute/Invidious, comment section on Youtube/Odysee/Bitchute/Invidious, Youtube/Odysee/Bitchute/Invidious front page suggestions.
Site Blocker to block: the usual MSM subjects (ABC/CBS/NBC/FOX/CNN/VOX/VICE/NYT/etc.–including their Youtube channels if I happen to come across them as well, and then some miscellany like Kotaku/RPS, and finally Zerohedge/Gateway Pundit)
Advanced Profanity Filter: Biden/Trump/Obama/"Highest in"/"largest in history"/"lowest in"/"never seen before"/"simple trick"/"smallest in history"/"what happened next"/"won't believe" all filter to "clickbait"

Reminder that if you watch the news, you're partly at fault for supporting the fear politics that have led to the bullshit lockdowns around the world for the past two years.

>>183572
Welp, it's been another month, and I feel I have to update: I'm glad I kept at it trying to get this working this this year. This has go to be one of the most positive changes I've made in my life for a long time, and I feel like I was eating poison every day and didn't even realize it.

>>184011
>caring about this specific thing as a wizard
News is for faggoty sheep indeed but such faggoty sheep would care about lockdowns more than a wizard me thinks.

you are totally right and only now realized that because your country is not a hell. Where I live everyday news is about death, murder, succubus related, "hate crime", media usual fake news and some politician trying to fuck you. After stopping reading news not actually related to me, my life got away better. I usually only read tech news. I totally recommend it, same for a Nonews month.

>>176300
>It's harder to maintain than I thought. For example, I learned the hard way that even if there's any Youtube channels I like, I have to instead bookmark their individual channels instead of navigating via the homepage because I'm inevitably going to see some bullshit clickbait news. There were also a lot of sites I didn't realize were showing me the most depressing news in the world that now I have.
Try RSS feeds and Youtube Channel Blocker. As I've not a YT account and all I consume is by rss feed, my recommendations (aided with channel blocker) are only, in most time, related to my feeds ending up shaping a nice bubble around me. Sometimes I mess up with the recommendations but cleaning up cookies is enough.

After following the news for some time due to Corona, I decided it's not good for me and I'll stop.

>>183572
Here's another extension that I found that helps with blocking search results on search engines like google and duckduckgo.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublacklist/pncfbmialoiaghdehhbnbhkkgmjanfhe

>>176108
If ignoring the news is hard, I'd say the best thing is to list your priority for news:
Your street
Your neighborhood
Your city
Your state
Your country
Your continent
Your world
It's obvious which of those are the most important for your right now. In a way, you could discard world and continent news at once. What happens in China hardly affects your life(what about covid? Well, were any of your leaders able to not let covid get into your country? Of course not, that means they would be offending China by closing the borders to them. If they couldn't do anything, neither would you, so you could just ignore what happened there and then learn about covid when it hits your country!).
I never left the "city" part. I have 0 interest on what happens outside my city unless I decide to visit any other city. Even for my city, I still restrict it to around my area when I do read the news(which is quite rare).

>>184416
Wizards might avoid the world, but they still have to live in it. The only people who don't care about lockdowns are privileged assholes with enough money not to care. Wizards or not, people without money can't just ignore shit like that.

Does anyone else here at least get weirded out by how PERVASIVE the news is? Airports especially, where you can't walk ANYWHERE without a TV on CNN fucking blaring at you, and you have to actively seek out a place to be away from the news. But more generally, things are being more and more designed so that the news is just fucking PUSHED on you. Most web browsers now FORCE news stories to display on the front screen. Phones are set out of the box with notifications for bullshit news that take quite a bit of time and effort to shut off.

I remember watching dystopian films and reading dystopian books and getting creeped out by all the propaganda posters and loudphones that would surround them at all times, but now we live in it and it seems like no one cares.

>>185654
yeah i fucking hate when web browsers, apps, operating systems, websites, etc try to include news

they try to make it seem as though it's not just bullshit and it's personalized JUST FOR YOU but it's all lame

>>185654
Even on wizchan, one cannot escape the news and those who consume it habitually.

>>185654
I don’t see news anywhere that I go or ever got any on my phone, maybe my brain just ignores it but I don’t think it’s that big

This thread is right, news is such a waste of time. You could replace every report with a clip from a nature documentary showing monkeys screeching and flinging shit at each other and you'd get the same effect. You're not going to get anything from watching the daily record of trivial events, if you want to be "better informed" then read philosophy and literature and you'll learn everything essential. I consider even a wizard who knows nothing other than video games and anime more enlightened than the habitual news watcher.

I remember being blissfully ignorant of the propaganda in 2012 and I really want to return to that state. A few months ago I had a moment of despair and lost my focus, so I wandered back to /pol/ for the latest round of psyops. It's disgusting. It will take years to decontaminate myself and attain true wisdom.

>>185661
If you set up your life right, you can do that; but it's not by default.
>>185662
>I consider even a wizard who knows nothing other than video games and anime more enlightened than the habitual news watcher.
Seconded.