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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023

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Something might have no impact on your life now, yet still have impact later through a chain of consequences. And the right time to do something about it may be now. It's a bad idea to ignore all steps of the chain other than the last one, on the grounds that they have no immediate consequences for you.

It's a problem of the boy who called wolf. Yes, we know there are real wolves. But you can't cry wolf anytime someone's 4 legged fury pet walks by your front door.

The analogy of course breaks down because different news events have different relevance to different people.

A hurricane is a real event with real danger, but if it's only gonna hit Florida I really don't need to hear about it. But people in Florida do need to hear about it!

I get that the differentiation is difficult. But I think the news channels (and their consumers) tend to prefer stories with drastic consequences and minimal reach over stories with minimal consequences and large reach.

I work with people that get on Fox news and talk about inflation. They get bumped all the time for updates about the latest scandal, or Trump Trial, or a war in country that most people can't find on a map.