Ditto. I was also surprised how much happier I was when I deleted all the news apps off my phone. I realized that there's really no good reason for most people to get real-time news alerts except to feed an addiction.
Yes. I would categorize as "bad news" (or "news news") all the FB outrage, policital stuff, the Waymo lawsuit, etc. Bad as in getting to read them for very small content almost everyday doesn't help.
On the other hand, HN is very useful for keeping up with developments in my area, interesting technical articles, insightful discussions. HN is usually not "news news".
Somewhat agree as I'm not as depressed as when I'm on reddit. But just in the past few weeks we've had things like: active shooter on youtube campus, all the facebook doom and gloom, cell phones cause cancer in male rats (I think I got that from hacker news), China's social credit system, etc.
I have a friend who actually doesn't follow the news (I'm not sure he knows what cambridge analytica is yet) and he tells me all the time how doom and gloom I am just from reading hacker news.
HN's bubble is a bit more tone-sensitive, where rowdy rabble-rousing from any side usually gets squashed...but the thresholds of tolerance are a bit skewed with softly-worded comments.
Carefully crafted traditional/conservative comments do get voted up, particularly if written knowing that they're addressing a potentially hostile audience. Those posting progressive viewpoints can generally get away with more blunt/aggressive language.
Others would classify it as "conservative" or "libertarian" rather than "liberal". Which really means it's not a very effective "echo chamber". You will read opinions different than your own on HN. If that's upsetting to you, HN may not be your cup of tea.
I don't think anyone would classify the HN crowd as "conservative" in the US political spectrum sense. Libertarian I can see, but I don't think I've ever seen socially conservative posts/comments voted up.
