Alternatives to Haaretz: How can you give your brain healthier daily nourishment?

Deep down, we all know it's an addiction - and a bad habit - created due to our brain's vulnerability to inconsistent positive feedback addiction. Like gamblers who occasionally win but lose in the long run, like a girl addicted to an unstable relationship with a cheating ex who occasionally writes her: "I love you", precisely because most articles in Haaretz are poor but a few are good - we become addicted to it. Addiction to Haaretz is like addiction to Facebook, smartphones, or porn. Anonymous Haaretz readers present: ten steps to overcome the daily waste of time

Training and addiction work on the same mechanism. It's a neurological bug related to the brain's dopamine system, which reinforces behavior following a change in reward (for example: a successful surprise), rather than according to the expected reward itself, and therefore adapts quickly to change, but also becomes addicted to uncertainty (Source)

I always called it the real front page of the newspaper. While bringing the newspaper to my lazy partner in bed, I would defiantly turn the news section from the innermost page in the middle of the newspaper, so that it becomes the newspaper's front page, and tell her: This is the most important page in the newspaper. Here are the real headlines. There was always the most interesting article there, for example, a short item about an important development around the world, sometimes on an international level, that should have been a main headline in terms of its importance. But what really hid there, and was the most interesting part of the news section - was the science news.

Science news in Haaretz is a sad story, almost heartbreaking. Assaf Ronel, the current one, is okay. Even really okay. Although I would like to expect broad scientific education, which would prevent mistakes and provide depth, from any science reporter - relative to the current Haaretz, science news is often the most interesting thing in the newspaper. But what can we do when, especially in this field, the competitors are simply so much better? For years there was the Hayadan website, which presents roughly all science news published in Hebrew. But today, overseas, the best science news site ever has grown. How much better? By two orders of magnitude (excuse me) than any other. It's hard to exaggerate how amazing (deep, up-to-date, comprehensive) this site is, how talented and "understanding" its writers are, and how much it is a must-read for anyone who wants to know what's really happening in science (including computer science and mathematics! - the most difficult field to cover), that is, what's currently happening in the depth of human investigation of the world.

So contrary to her habit, the Bitch recommends content in English, because this is one of the wonders of the internet: for years (decades? centuries?), for those who are not experts (and even then only in a narrow field of expertise), there was no way to understand what's really happening in science, and to touch the edge and frontier of developments, and the picture would only become clear after a decade or two. And the exemplar set by this site can be emulated in many other fields (crisis in the humanities and social sciences?). If you have a gifted child - sit with them on this hard. If you have a curious mind, wanting to be exposed to the great adventure of science at the beginning of the 21st century in real-time in a reliable and accessible way, this is the place. Of course, you won't find there all the PR fake science articles (We found the brain area responsible for dialectical materialism! Researchers found the smartphone of the biblical era!) that flood and drown science news in the popular press (including Haaretz). So why do we need science reporters at all, when we can translate from Quanta? (As the world's most important newspapers do). 20 out of 10 on the Bitch's scale:

Quanta Magazine – Illuminating Science
(Severe warning: Almost every article there is worth reading. The level is about a hundred times that of Haaretz, and accessible to every reader)


Ziffer was never strong in the field of short story publishing. He generally prefers poetry over prose (and the Bitch suspects it's because he doesn't like to read!). Fortunately, there's an excellent short prose site in Hebrew, which has recently deteriorated into over-representation of politically correct Arabic literature (which only convinced the Bitch that Arabs are far behind the world in prose as well), but it has a huge archive that allows exposure to quite a few current (or exemplary! no less good) short fiction from around the world (8 on the Bitch's scale):

The Short Story Project
(The site's interface is terrible - but not too terrible)


Alaxon is a magazine about which one could create a "Degeneration of Alaxon" site. But it's still worth following, because it doesn't have fake headlines and clickbait like Haaretz, and the subtitles allow a glimpse into the content of the article from the outside, separating the wheat from the chaff. Although it's mainly worth reading because of the countless wonderful articles published there at a dizzying pace until two years ago. I wish it would return to itself, because if there was a sharp drop in the quality of quality sites on the Hebrew web in recent years - it's Alaxon (from ten on the Bitch's scale to four, that is, to the current level of Haaretz's supplement):

Alaxon - Thoughts Begin Here


Those who still want to read current commentary are invited to read Haaretz's greatest commentator, but with zero Haaretz mind-boggling, but with countless mind-boggles (what's the difference? All the difference between clichés and sophistications, and between professional babbling and babbling professionalism, and as you can see, it's really contagious!). Amir Oren floats on Walla like a letter in a bottle from a lonely island - lucky he left the sinking ship (always maintaining his level and admired style - 9):

Amir Oren: Latest Articles


Those who want a real and quality alternative, much more cultural and literary than culture and literature, owe themselves Dehak (deteriorated from 10 to 9 due to some stagnation, which is still a thousand times more challenging than Ziffer). Here's a journal that shows that an agenda can actually be contributing and interesting, and that's because it's a cultural agenda, not a field-politics agenda (what was called, before Foucault, activism) like Ziffer's:

Dehak - Journal for Good Literature


A substitute for the book supplement - the weekly book review of Israel's permanent, sober, and serious critic, who actually writes in Yedioth, and is always worth reading. If only Haaretz, in its two book supplements, had even one such critic - that can be relied upon (9):

Free Critic | Arik Glasner


A substitute for Gallery:
Fortunately, there's no need for a substitute for garbage. Garbage is like garbage - on Facebook.

* All the above substitutes are free and without ads (Walla works well under an ad blocker)



In the Bitch's corner in collaboration with Dan Ariely (and under the supervision of Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler), a recipe is offered that worked for at least one thinking bitch, and it seems it can help even thinking people. The slogan is taken from the Bitch's grandmother, a serious bitch in her own right, who summarized all her life wisdom (including one Holocaust) in one immortal sentence, which should be hung at the entrance of every house and engraved in every kennel: "There are no problems in life - only good habits and bad habits".

One of the meanings of this unfathomably deep sentence is that you need to structure and engineer your life so that you don't have to make decisions in real-time in the present (in which you will frequently fail), and you don't have to rely on your willpower or wisdom (which are always prone to failure) - but on your habit, which you planned in advance, with a forward-looking view. Therefore, you should structure an environment where you won't be tempted to enter Haaretz the next time you want to turn off your tired brain (because after all, you are a thinking person). Instead, as a substitute, you'll enter content that you truly appreciate and that's worth your precious brain time and contributes to you, your soul, and your spirit (yes, there is such a thing), and maybe even to your soul (yes, even that exists).

So now, when you're making decisions about the future, that is, according to what you really want, and not according to the temptations of the grinding present, you should immediately delete the Haaretz app from your smartphone and the Haaretz bookmark from all your favorites on various devices. And exactly in the same place, instead, put a folder (it works on smartphones too) with links to content that you really want to enter your brain and enrich you. For example, the content suggested above, or any other quality content that you don't find time for, but it's also not too heavy for you, and that you appreciate more than Haaretz and its inferior current affairs (not difficult). If current affairs are really important to you, try adding a generic news flash site to the mix, where the flashes appear in a line without images and clickbait, and that won't waste your time.

And what is the ten-step method? You simply stay in this state for ten days, and every time you feel like Haaretz - you replace it with something better than Haaretz. After ten days - you won't want to go back, and you'll get rid of a bad habit that wasted countless hours of yours over the years.