What is this and why should you care?

"So!" you ask, "What is it then?"

Burning World News is a news aggregator.

"Oh," you say. "Is that it?"

Kind of. There's nothing new here. News aggregators have been around for a while. They were popular a wee while ago when everyone loved RSS and the world was a sane place, and some of the best ones from that era are still going strong (https://techmeme.com/, for example). They fell out of favour when social media platforms assumed the role of chief news deliverer, but the world is a different place now, a very divided place, and social media platforms have contributed to that division by creating algorithmically guided rabbit holes and idealistic bubbles. We now only see the things we want to see, and only hear the arguments we want to hear. Consequently we're ignore everyone outside of our bubble, and our narrow worldview is reinforced. We don't consider other viewpoints, we don't ever look at them, and we're only ever even theoretically aware of them. To us they are just a bad thing that happens somewhere else on the internet. We probably daren't even look. We might catch something, or you know - end up on some list because "cookies".

But the truth is, as always, a little more nuanced than that. The news as delivered to a section of our population is leading, not following. It is delivered with a political agenda, not as the result of the audiences beliefs, and if we keep our blinkers on and don't look at what the rest of us are being served we won't have enough context to question the news in front of us or be able to consider our own beliefs and prejudices. As a result we're in a self-fulfilling prophecy of continually diverging beliefs. We are increasingly unlikely to ever agree, and if we can't agree on anything, or stomach the idea that the other side are just humans the read different news to us we won't ever be able to fix the shitshow of a world we've created.

"Ah", you say, "I get it - it's unbiased news? Like https://www.allsides.com/ or https://ground.news/?"

Yep, again - you're not wrong. It is like that. But tbh for me I find those sites a little dry and academic. The world we've ended up it is kind of ridiculous, and I don't know about you but I have a hard time looking at the news if it's delivered without a wee drop of humour to keep me sane. Burning World News is intended to be a little less earnest than those other news bias sites (he says after giving it all "let's save the world" two paragraphs ago). Being an expert, or taking some form of moral high ground, or treating the world as an academic exercise doesn't help, it just polarises even further. I think a better approach is satirical in nature. Just look at us all - Don't you think we're all being a little bit... daft?

So that's what it is. It's a satirical news aggregator. It's a news site for people who can't look at the news right now. It attempts to undermine the ridiculous of the way our media (mass or niche or otherwise) has mined the worst veins of human nature for page views and $$$. No cookies, no ads (yet, but if there ever is there will still be no cookies), just a bunch of news pulled into one place to compare and contrast and occassionally marvel at the ridiculousness of the burning world we live in.

It will all end in flames...