Things that don't suck
So much of what the algorithms surface is negative. For all of the reasons that mostly everyone's aware of at this point.
It's easy to get the general impression that times are dark without realizing it. I think sometimes it's good to intentionally offset algorithmic (and general human) negativity bias.
Lets do a positive news thread, I'll start:
Hungary votes out Orbán after 16 years
Perovskite solar cells hit 34.85%
Portugal hits 80.7% renewable electricity
Hidden drainage system found in human brain
First lab-grown oesophagus using hosts own cells (fully incorporated with muscles, nerves, arteries within 6 months)
And of course Artemis II! Why is space exploration somehow more positive than the sum of its parts?
Please post anything, it doesn't have to be "news". The full range of the humanities works too
How about penguins? Because I just found out Japanese aquariums have flowcharts for penguin relationships, and there is DRAMA. Divorces, breakups, cheating, enemies...
And it also includes the humans! Gotta love that humans have some enemies among the penguins too.
but seriously I kinda want live updates of penguin drama nowOn a similar thread I think it's fascinating that there's a growing body of evidence that animals have some form of consciousness:
Heck, even plants are showing signs they can count (2026)! To the extent that we recognize other conscious life forms on Earth, we have a greater potential to learn from them as well.
However, despite all the interesting research, that's not why I felt compelled to post. I came to the thread to avoid some of the doom and gloom, but seeing the most voted on post being about penguins made me uneasy since this very same week emperor penguins were reclassified as endangered species. This is largely due to a major drowning of penguin chicks due to climate change.
I don't want to bring down the thread entirely, and I don't want to downplay the insights we can gain from raising animals in captivity so I'll leave with some other recent good news: Pandas are no longer an endangered species!
Oh wow! I think the panda news honestly deserves a post of its own!
Sorry for reminding you about emperor penguins. But the rest of your comment reminded me of this video I meant to post about prairie dogs having a language. And also another story about a ten-year-old boy confirmed that butterflies can retain memories from when they were caterpillars—and their offspring can inherit the memories. (Also, that story is just so sweet because he started the experiments after noticing the butterflies he raised would fly back to him when he tried to release them.)
It's always been kind of obvious to me that animals have some level of consciousness. I thought scientists had already acknowledged that? I mean, just... any extended interaction with animals can make it clear that they're capable of experiencing lingering trauma, or develop preferences for certain foods or activities, or develop grudges against specific humans, etc.
Speaking of grudges, there's a snake named Tofu that very explicitly hates Markiplier for some reason. And this apparently goes against everything we know about snakes because apparently snakes aren't supposed to distinguish people by faces, so this hilarious grudge may actually be some sort of big scientific breakthrough. Though based on other videos, Tofu is also just a very weird snake in general xD
Fun fact about caterpillar/butterfly memories... during metamorphosis, enzymes break down the caterpillar's body into something closer to formless goo than a body, then the butterfly is built from that goo. The memories survive this process!
Yes, definitely penguins
In Toronto, a cobbler was at risk of going out of business after his (very expensive) machine broke. A regular set up a GoFundMe, and the community raised more than the goal. The cobbler now has his new machine and the rest of the funds are being donated to a charity!
Article
What a heartwarming story! Thanks for sharing!
I've been so moved watching all the news about this. Those four decent, curious, humble people doing something so daring and talking with such love about our planet and humanity, contrasted with the Iran war and Trump... it's very poignant. The best and worst of humanity.
Username checks out?
Agreed, the mission has been a breath of fresh air, and if the amount of coverage is any indication, support for space exploration is as strong as ever.
Thank you for this topic. It inspired me to go looking for “local news that doesn’t suck.” I found that Northwest Public Broadcasting has a news section named Solutions. I wish there were more stories under that tab, but nonetheless it’s pretty cool that it exists. I found the following article there:
Pierce county Washington has been reducing youth recidivism by offering them the ability to participate in prosocial community programs instead of a more punitive based probation model. And it’s had results.
Pierce County youth probation program cuts down on reoffenses
Finding positive stories isn't as easy as you'd hope. It's not that, in a world of 8 billion people, they aren't happening constantly. It's that they don't get as much engagement so there's less incentive to write about them.
That's why I sometimes go out of my way to remind myself that humanity is pretty awesome. It's really easy to forget when the bigger part of what gets published is some version of people sucking.
Thanks for the story, those are the sorts of smallish things that profoundly change the world.
Scotland recently approved legislation to require nesting boxes for swifts ("swift bricks") to be installed in new buildings, which should help them (and other birds which nest in urban areas) to thrive.
More good news
Call a Boomer/Zoomer: payphone connects seniors and youth
Scotland rewilding: bird species up 261%, pollinators up tenfold
Record kākāpō hatching season in New Zealand
^ I'm always especially excited about news related to animals featured in Douglas Adams lesser known book Last Chance to See
Reversible nonhormonal male contraception
China and India both reduce coal power generation for first time since 1973
Renewables hit nearly half of global power capacity 692 GW added in 2025
Kākāpō, the famously horny species of parrot.
Also interesting: Their enormously ineffective mating process (even when they're not screwing people's heads).
https://nokyotsu.github.io/parrots/
It's truly a miracle that they're still around.
This made me feel some sort of relief today:
Italy suspends defence cooperation with Israel
Also, the French government dropping Windows in favour of Linux! But it was already posted on Tildes.
Looks like tildes.net is recently full of hype-media (or just mainstream, call it what you want) articles linked by people fed by hype-media algorithms? Like people no longer choose their sources, but instead rely on Google News or whatever equivalent of corporate feed? The more emotional articles the better (for wealthy owning these media). Like people don't choose their own feed, don't choose their websites, don't use RSS etc. I think it may be a part of explanation.
Can't speak for others, but I always make it a habit of linking to trustworthy mainstream sources.
„Can't speak for others“ - exactly, it would be cool if somebody idk, did some analysis on Tildes main page etc. I also try to use what I think are interesting and trustworthy sources, but I don't know how it looks overally on the site.
The question may be, are trustworthy mainstream sources nowadays a healthy sources of information for our minds?
Also, are any Internet news media a healthy sources? Aren't those trustworthy mainstream media pushed to be a little more clickbaity nowadays, fighting for the viewers on a market full of shitty, emiotonally-engaging media? "Free" media get money from clicks, so they need viewers. Lots of mainstream English-language media aren't govt or ngo sponsored. I'm just thinking about it, just trying to form questions which could be worth to ask.
Or maybe the world is (or especially USA [I bet most Tildes users are from there]) in very bad shape currently, so we naturally have more sad stories to report on?
It's negativity bias. Here's an example:
Article about how a study showed that black plastic is bad for you in kitchen utensils: https://tildes.net/~health/1js2/cooking_with_black_plastic_is_particularly_crucial_to_avoid
55 votes 53 comments
Article about how that same study was so full of errors that it had to be retracted by the authors and how all the conclusions are null and void: https://tildes.net/~health/1kmt/how_a_simple_math_error_sparked_a_panic_about_black_plastic_kitchen_utensils
28 votes 23 comments.
So there were two halves to this news: one negative (all the black plastic is bad and killing you!), one positive (jk it's not actually), the negative side got twice as much attention than the other. It's likely at least twice as many people only viewed the first, negative, half, and not the second half.
No algorithm required! Unless you think Deimos was bought out by Big Ceramic or something.
Repeat that over and over and your worldview will seem more and more negative.
The title could also contribute here.
The former: "Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid"
The latter: "How a simple math error sparked a panic about black plastic kitchen utensils"
I find the first one as a pre-confirmed alert. Clickbaity in my opinion. Even the original title:
"Throw Out Your Black Plastic Spatula
It’s probably leaching chemicals into your cooking oil."
Looks very dramatic for me.
It's very difficult to make a title of the latter as emotional as former. One of the reason is that it doesn't talk about affecting our health negatively. But the former could probably be titled somewhat less emotionally. As you say, no algorithm required. But I think the title (both original and posted) and article itself were more clickbaity than an actual study they referenced and maybe it could make a little difference. For me this case you've brought here is an indication to find The Atlantic less trustworthy source than I thought before.
One thing I liked about Reddit was their r/science. As I remember, titles there were usually long and informative. Not always, of course.
/r/science has always been full of bias-confirming studies conducted with 16 freshmen at Northwest Flyover State Agricultural Bible College.
I think the original title was much more clickbaity than the changed one used on Tildes, but I agree that the latter topic's title is much less emotionally charged. You could probably formulate a similarly clickbait-y title about it if you tried, but I think it would be more difficult than for the original issue in large part because of negativity bias.
There's always a spectrum, but the difference for me is whether the "source" is doing original, verified reporting or if they're trying to editorialize it. Editorials or opinion pieces are a slippery slope and for me, I'll only listen to editorials from organizations that also produce quality news reporting, or, have a reputation for being conscientious.
I try to go with trustworthy sources. The number of those available for free has sharply diminished.
Gotta pay for news for news people to make news, I say.
Exactly, people have to be paid to produce. However, I have a philosophy that I only pay/donate to media which don't use paywalls. I like information to be affordable for every person and this is my way of rewarding media that follow this philosophy. One of them is selling physical magazines, however all the articles on their website are open. And after reading I share it with my inner circle or just leave it in a bus/tram/bench so that anyone can take it.
I appreciate the philosophy -- it's something important for a society to properly function. In Canada, we have a public broadcaster that fulfills that mandate: access across the country with strong public funding for quality journalism (the stuff that requires lots of money to do).
There are private outfits here that aren't constrained by that mandate and can do the sort of niche work that a public broadcaster cannot. For those, money and a strong, reliable funding mechanism is required. Oftentimes, these outlets take the risks that the public broadcaster cannot.
My view is that we need both for a functioning system, and because of that, paywalls are required to make the whole thing work.