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Has reading national news or keeping up with politics ever benefit you in a real life scenario? If so, in what way?

Also, what do you think of Chomsky's 'Manufacturing Consent'?

Agree with you mostly, though on occasion it's nice to know if my taxes are increasing or decreasing soon, and where most people in my country stand on "Merry Christmas" vs "season's greetings" (whatever that means).

It has saved my life once, via weather report. It has let me know that there was a disaster in the area where I knew people I cared about greatly were, enabling me to prep some support. And once, it told me that a project my then-company was working on was indirectly doomed by the advent of this little thing called the iPhone. Off the top of my head.

I think Chomsky is fairly correct, but a bit blinkered.

Your turn: How to you think Manufacturing Consent applies to message boards like this? Does that tell you anything about human behaviour, whether or not mediated by institutional imperative?

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