It is not out of a lack of intelligence or boredom, I just don't know how people know so much about geography,history, news etc and Im always clueless. TBH, I'm seldom interested and would rather donate or volunteer and other stuff instead of knowing every name and date. But I'm often impressed as to why I can't seem to catch up. Do people not work the same hours as me or check news at work? Do people look at flags and capitals in their free time? In school, we did many things but I relied heavily on short-term memory (studying on the bus before the exam) and then it was out of my brain in about half an hour. Im modestly intelligent and a fast learner at work,college etc but I seem to be always behind politically and generally. It does not feel good. People will be like "remember when x political person (not high profile) went to y country for z reason 10 years ago,and I'm like what, who, when ,where)

I've recently (past year or two) become very frustrated with r/news and r/worldnews as there is always a decided agenda amongst the users. Whether or not you agree with that, I think news shouldn't be biased and should present facts and let the reader decide.

So, what are some good sources that you guys use?

I'm thinking something like Wikipedia's "In the news" or "Current events" sections, but more user friendly.

(Resubmitted because I forgot to tag as serious)

I realize that many people have voiced concerns about r/worldnews over the years, but usually those complaints seem to come down to people criticizing the heavily partisan political leaning they perceive it to have or, to a lesser extent, its reputation for facilitating amateur Internet sleuthing and ensuing misinformation.

Ever since the revelations of Russia's interference into the 2016 US presidential election, redditors have been paying a lot more attention to Russia, while Hong Kong and the coronavirus have been major catalysts for discussions of China over the past year or so. These are important issues to be sure, and therefore it's understandable that redditors would want to discuss them. That said, I think if you told me six years ago that there would be such a daily onslaught of news about Russia, China, and Donald Trump, I would have laughed in your face. Sure, everyone knew that Russia and China were our main geopolitical adversaries, but could anyone have imagined just how profoundly that fact would filter into popular consciousness vis-a-vis mainstream news subreddits?

If r/politics has an insatiable appetite for hit pieces on Trump (and I'm saying that as someone who would probably agree with most of them), then the same would certainly apply for r/worldnews and articles attacking China (or circa 2016-2017, Russia), and the more editorialized/sensationalized the headline/title the better. Recently many of these submissions have been sourced from Indian media that have a clear political bias regarding China, but some level of bias is inherent in Western media as well.

However, this goes beyond what kinds of content users happen to have an appetite for; comments sections also tell a similar story. In many cases the top comment reads like something that could have been sourced straight from US foreign policy propaganda, like "the world must come together to condemn China and exclude it from the global economy as punishment for X". This was also a common pattern in threads on Russia back when that stuff was at its peak. Certainly only a minority of comments explicitly call for a hot war with China or Russia, but more broadly speaking many of the top-rated comments in such threads adopt what would normally be considered an exceptionally hawkish or belligerent stance if they were made by any US politician other than a sycophantic Trump loyalist.

The sheer degree of consensus in these comments sections also far exceeds anything I've ever seen before in Reddit threads on political topics. Some redditors have effectively made a name for themselves by sharing copypasta enumerating the sins of the Chinese/Russian government, while countless others simply spam some variant of "fuck China". Any mention of the US' flaws can be swiftly dismissed as disingenuous "whataboutism", and the very idea of comparing the US with Russia or China is roundly mocked as if the US hasn't established itself as the top practitioner of foreign military intervention over the past 70 years. My point here is not to equate the US with Russia or China on human rights issues, but to illustrate that there is little room for real discussion in such threads (they primarily serve to further reinforce the growing consensus).

I'm not sure to what extent this trend may be indicative of a shift in the wider zeitgeist outside of places like Reddit. There will always be new generations coming of age, and perhaps the Iraq War and ISIS (and their illustration of the terrible cost associated with US foreign intervention) are already fading from our cultural memory which has become increasingly short-term. Or maybe this is partially due to there simply being more articles in the media about the US' main geopolitical adversaries as a new set of issues enter the popular consciousness.

Perhaps this phenomenon mirrors the more aggressive foreign policy stances adopted by the politicians currently in power in the US and elsewhere, organically or otherwise. If there was ever a time where politicians are incentivized to deflect blame and people are primed to look for an external scapegoat, certainly a global financial crisis and pandemic is right up there.

That said, I am confident that to some degree this is just a function of redditors behaving how redditors are known to behave (playing armchair general, seeking out something to be outraged about that doesn't affect them personally, circlejerking, embracing conspiracy theories, etc.). However, I don't think the idiosyncrasies of Reddit users can fully explain what is happening here.

Redditors are acutely aware of the threat posed by Russian hackers, CCP censorship, bots, trolls, and shills, but if there is any country whose foreign policy interests and agenda have gained support from the Reddit consensus over the past several years, surely that has to be the US as it quickly bounces back from the PR disaster that was the Iraq War. Given that public opinion serves as a primary gatekeeper for military action in a democracy, is anyone else concerned by this development? I'm not sure whether it is indicative of a larger shift in public opinion or particular to Reddit, but I'm seeing a dramatic rise in jingoistic/hawkish sentiments in r/worldnews over recent years.

What do you think- is this manufacturing consent in action, or am I imagining it?

There was an article about Ireland wanting to redefine genocide, to containing the blocking of food aid to civilians, so it applies to what Israel is doing.. because that IS a form of genocide.

As most of us here likely know, Ireland experienced genocide in the form of Britt’s causing a famine by forcing the Irish to export more crops than they could feed themselves with, on top of other colonizing crap. Ireland is calling a spade a spade, because they’re experienced it firsthand.

But holy moly, the blindly pro-Israel sentiment on that sub just baffles me. There’s loads of people in the comments saying that you can’t criticize the Israeli government because that makes you an antisemite. That’s nonsense, right?

Anyone who shared my view that the Israeli government is bad, Hamas is bad, and everyone should be doing everything they can to minimize the suffering of Jews AND Palestinians… was getting roasted and downvoted in comments.

Somehow, the brutal murder of civilians, forced relocations, blockades of food aid, and desire to erase culture and settle on someone else’s land, isn’t genocide.

What’s going on with that sub? The majority are very pro-suffering of Palestinians.