> feel free to carry on and go book your vacation to the Ukraine, drive a Volkswagen, work for facebook...
These could all be researched at the time of purchase though. There's nothing in the daily news about VW or Ukraine that can't be learned more efficiently by doing some research just before purchasing a vehicle or vacation.
There's nothing wrong with keeping tabs on the latest headlines, I personally do so and am fine with it, but there's nothing essential about it either. A person who never reads the news will still find out about something like Covid from a hundred other sources in short order.
The post lists several other things along with those examples that I think DO make it essential:
> use too much water during a drought season, have your garden furniture blow through your windows when that storm rolls in, have a BBQ during a high-risk fire season
If you’re going to check if there’s a drought every time you use water - congratulations, you’re reading the news!
I am very skeptical of the effectiveness of combating something like a drought by hoping most adults read about it on the news and individually decide to take appropriate actions. These sorts of cases need to be handled at the government and utility level.
I live in a drought stricken region and everybody here is well aware of it, regardless of their news habits, because they learn about it from many other sources.
As one example, the water district regularly sends out fliers telling people there is a drought, making suggestions on how to conserve water, adding restrictions on water use, and more. These messages are far more ubiqutous and effective than current news articles.
These could all be researched at the time of purchase though. There's nothing in the daily news about VW or Ukraine that can't be learned more efficiently by doing some research just before purchasing a vehicle or vacation.
There's nothing wrong with keeping tabs on the latest headlines, I personally do so and am fine with it, but there's nothing essential about it either. A person who never reads the news will still find out about something like Covid from a hundred other sources in short order.