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Brain on News (betonit.substack.com)
16 points by paulpauper 9 months ago | hide | past | favorite | 3 comments



I agree with the main point of this article, I see news more as entertainment than information, but the part about BLM didn't make sense to me.

> the total number of unarmed blacks fatally shot by U.S. police in 2019 was 14

I don't think BLM were as concerned with the absolute number of unarmed black people killed by police in the US, more with the fact that unarmed black people were more likely to be killed by police than people of other races. Plus, most other countries manage to fatally shoot zero people every year, regardless of race.

Dismissing the problem of police shootings just because people die more from other things feels like the author already had a negative opinion of BLM (as they say in the article) and when they found that statistic it validated their opinion and they didn't interrogate it further.


Plus, "getting shot" doesn't happen in a vacuum. It's the fatal tip of a discrimination iceberg.


The article is probably too political to spawn any real discussion, but I just want to chime in to say that I completely gave up on the news in 2015 and it hasn't impacted me in any negative way. Anything important going on that I need to know about will eventually filter down to me by other means and I'll then research into things as needed, but I will never again watch or listen to the news, read a newspaper, etc. I would highly recommend it.




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