If we didn't watch tv news any more...

[Mac1958]

Thinking of the polarizing nature of politics today, fear of Islam, ISIS, ebola, etc. all comes from news media, what would we lose if we quit watching news broadcasts? Anything important?

Am trying a personal experiment and not following any news whatsoever. See if I'm unable to function in society for it. My hypothesis is I'll actually function better, lose a lot of stress, and lose alot of aggitation at what's going on while not noticing anything different from my immediate surroundings. Short of the President or ISIS or ebola coming to my neighborhood none of it really exists unless I make it exist by watching tv news.

I think a reasonable argument could be made for either not watching the news or keeping it limited.

But that's not the problem.

It's the networks like Fox and MSNBC, the partisan blabbers on the radio, all the hardcore winger websites, all the hardcore bloggers and all the political "guests" and "pundits" fighting for teevee time that are causing far more damage, taking people who are already radicalized and turning them into crazed, narcissistic, wild-eyed lunatics.

We've always had crazed, narcissistic, wild-eyed lunatics, granted, but that population has grown, substantially and rapidly, to the point where it influences politics now.

I don't see how this gets reversed.

.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Thinking of the polarizing nature of politics today, fear of Islam, ISIS, ebola, etc. all comes from news media, what would we lose if we quit watching news broadcasts? Anything important?

Am trying a personal experiment and not following any news whatsoever. See if I'm unable to function in society for it. My hypothesis is I'll actually function better, lose a lot of stress, and lose alot of aggitation at what's going on while not noticing anything different from my immediate surroundings. Short of the President or ISIS or ebola coming to my neighborhood none of it really exists unless I make it exist by watching tv news.

I think a reasonable argument could be made for either not watching the news or keeping it limited.

But that's not the problem.

It's the networks like Fox and MSNBC, the partisan blabbers on the radio, all the hardcore winger websites, all the hardcore bloggers and all the political "guests" and "pundits" fighting for teevee time that are causing far more damage, taking people who are already radicalized and turning them into crazed, narcissistic, wild-eyed lunatics.

We've always had crazed, narcissistic, wild-eyed lunatics, granted, but that population has grown, substantially and rapidly, to the point where it influences politics now.

I don't see how this gets reversed.

.

As with everything else change comes only over time. But a necessary first step is being aware of what's going on.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

Who watches TV? I sure in hell don't rot my brain with that crap.

 

[Pogo]

I

If we quit reading books we wouldn't have to worry about historic perspective and those damned math. problems. There are lots of benefits to being ignorant.

The glaring difference of course is that the book is a passive source that the reader mines at his/her own speed, depth level and side interests, in the reader's own time of readiness, while the boob tube sits its victim down and actively pours a premasticated psychologically-engineered complete sensual package designed to hypnotize the subject into a state of obedient catatonia. The book (including the audio version) allows the imagination to breathe and fill in the details and contexts. The TV by contrast prohibits imagination. It dictates everything.

Walk into a room where people are watching TV and instead of following the herd to look at the telescreen, watch the watchers and note what you see -- passive sponges, sitting silently eyes wide open, obediently infusing every nuance of artificial experience the boob toob dictates, unaware of the real world or even the real people around them. All sensory input is shut down, because that input is already dictated by the telescreen.

The purpose of all of this is to spongify the subject so that he/she will be vulnerable to the advertising message, whether direct (in a commercial) or indirect (in the script). It's hypnosis without the countdown. And it produces the same kind of zombified drones.

If you ever get a chance, meet a child who has never seen television. The vibrancy will be immediately obvious.

I'

The difference between books and T.V. is what? The passive source that "the reader mines at his/her own depth level and side interests"? What is it about T.V. news that prohibits the reader/observer from mining information at their own depth level and interest? The dirty little secret is that the radical left today isn't much different from the radical left that determined Nazi policies in the 1930's. Certain information would be available to citizens but book burning would be a legitimate form of censorship.

Rambling incoherency. Didn't address the point at all.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

"If we didn't watch tv news any more..."

Or perhaps if one were to get his news and information from a wide range of diverse sources, research the issues of the day, and come to an understanding of the issues based on facts and the truth as opposed to relying on a single medium or source and its 'understanding.'

Not for everyone, granted – but an option nonetheless for those so inclined.

 

[whitehall]

Democrats assume that everybody is as dumbed down as their pop culture base and they learned different last Tuesday.The left wing places the blame for the stunning defeat on too much information. Democrat solution - burn books and stop the information intake? No surprises here.