The News: A User's Manual | Alain de Botton | Talks at Google 

Alain is brilliant ideator, adaptor and ideology-free thinker. His books and talks are eminently accessible. He has a flaw that vitiates his talks. Consequently his words begin to pall on the listeners. He speaks at breakneck speed, straining the salivary glands. And his voice is placed at a relatively high pitch, climbing higher to make a point rather than dipping lower. He is an enviably free spirit. He must free his voice so that it touches the heart and not pierce the eardrum alone.

This is a great presentation, and it needs to make it to the front page of life.

God, love this man.

As a reply to the question at 46:54, Alain should have mentioned contemporary television dramas like The Sopranos, Mad Men, House of Cards and Game of Thrones. At their best, these shows do an excellent job of combining popularism with the kind of high-brow seriousness that's often regarded as "unmarketable".

There are so many key ideas in this talk I've made a ton of notes with a dozen key points. Top of the lis is to _keep thinking_. I forgot to add, De Botton wrote the last of his books using Google Docs, as he said, _I cannot thank Google enough_. And one of those titles was in realtime docs with a colleague in Tasmania ..

One of the key things I took away from this amazing talk, or perhaps the most important and 'common sense' is that, news should only be read for the sake of our understanding regarding a specific subject, while the time consuming it should be bounded with a specific time frame. Doing so, we'll able to make the most out of the news, in terms of knowledge and understanding of current political/social/economic events, but simultaneously not being emotionally affected by it easily.

Very enlightening and thought-provoking, thank you.

Brilliant as usual.

One of the smartest and most charming people around!!! (Obviously, I don't know everybody in the world :-))

Very thoughtful presentation.

I found it interesting how he talked about envy. I never looked at envy in such that we could use it to find what we want to be. So in a way, we can use our envy to find our ambition. That's totally cool.

In response to the question at 48:30, I'm very sure that what Alain de Botton is saying is not the Chomsky line is actually the Chomsky line.

It's not boating to spend time to a child ! It's a fine way of learning to be really alive again, I did not expect you to think this way about this matter!!!!!

That last thought hit the nail on the head I think 👌🏽👌🏽we stopped thinking hard

A very good dissertation, on what is wrong with the news.

Dear Mr. Botton , you are explaining the best reason to take P4C the mandatory subject in Education system !

To my ears he could reach more souls talking slower, or pausing once in a while, and possibly ending up with a shorter, clearer message - don't hate me for saying :)

so brilliant.

Around 27:40 he says we need bias, someone that tells us what to Think, but the absolute end he says that not thinking is the entire problem. So maybe we should ask how media that makes us Think looks like.

What we need is something like an RSS feed reader that presents ONLY ONE topic per page and: - Links to original sources ( or reliable sources ) or give only objective facts. - Links to other takes on the news (biased) and sorted by popularity or by something like 'reddit karma'. - This way the effort is spent just gathering facts and the other effort can be offloaded to other people / organizations that want to present their view on the topic (it's a bit like how people remix original music).

Great talk that puts into words the anxious feeling I always get when I watch the news: a sense of confused meaningless in a mass of information that should (in most cases) have real importance in our lives. I love the idea that information should be contextualised and analysed thematically, with the implications/ lessons in our own lives explored, and with suggestions for possible action. But I feel that having more bias in the news would add to the confusion and lack of orientation that we experience already. I think news should be told in the words of those involved, or in photography/ film. Then, the biases are of those involved in the situations, the information can be contextualised better, and there'll be at least some extent of representation. Aljazeera's 'Witness' and VICE documentaries are quite good in this respect, although not perfect of course. But they instil curiosity and a sense of importance about the subject matter. Point is, I think social media will help the voices of those involved in events be heard better, to enable us to understand the reality, rather than the intrigues and technicalities that take up air time. Palestine is a key example. A lot more people have become attuned to the reality of the apartheid there because more voices from those involved are coming through in social media. But of course, these voices can be flooded with mindless droll. I need to go to bed.

wow! what an amazing talk this was...

Saint Natalie of Taking Your Child to the Park :-D

it's being suggested here that there are individuals who run the news who decide how the news is presented, as if they're saying "we run the news, we want the story in ukraine to be portrayed to confuse and scare the population". Who are these people?

37:00

Very good talk but why did he made his head shine like that? It distracts me a lot. So i just minimize the talk.

31:00

8:00

6:50

I think his insightful philosophical arguments are bouncing off the head of techi nerds of google .....he is so engaging and the audience is annoyingly passive

I am hoping that vox.com does something to rectify many of these issues.

Alan de

The most spectacular failure of AdB's talk was his omission of ”old school news” - which in very few instances is still surviving even today. A respectable ”old school” print media outlet - such as The New York Times - would provide virtually everything he complains it lacks: the basic information, all sorts of context, op-eds presenting multifaceted analysis, editorials/opinions, photojournalism (where applicable). Even special editions. This is still doable - and done - in both print and online (UK's The Guardian also produces some terrific pieces of journalism). The main culprit for the current status of ”The News” ain't ”The News”, for once - it's the public. Who rushed towards a ”fast news” menu, with all of its shortcomings. All that most of ”The News” has done was to respond to the demand of its audience, oftentimes at its own peril. But constantly refusing to update its economic model was a fatal move. The vast majority of good journalists, those who think with their heads and don't bow to their bosses, have left the industry for good. They were replaced by drones subservient to their employers. The funny thing is that these drones are better suited to cater the needs of large swathes of the ”new public”, which has the attention span of a fruit fly. I'm not saying we should go backwards and his isn't a rant; I found the presentation to be most entertaining. And wrong on oh-so-many other levels I won't get into. :)