They call it "programming" for a reason,,,

How many of you have given up TV? Sometime during Shock and Awe, i don't remember when exactly, i turned off my TV and haven't watched since. Shortly after, i noticed i began thinking a bit more clearly, i didn't feel as distracted as i usually did by some catch phrase i heard stuck in my head. I felt less of a "need" to buy stuff, and was able to significantly reduce my consumerism. I filled the void in my life that quitting television has left with positivity. Instead of watching TV, i'd read a book, go hiking, or biking/skating.

I feel like i've significantly improved my life simply by not accepting the mind control feed directly into my home. For thise that argue that TV isn't mind control, look at what you'd see on tv, and then look at the people around you, and how they dress and act. People think that mind control involves subliminal messages, special signals, and a conspiracy of ray guns hidden inside your tv screen. It's really not that complicated though, and it's a lot more subtle and devious. It's done through the timing of commercial breaks, the flow (or lack thereof) of a linear sensory input. It's the portrayal of "reality" in a fictitious world. It's the rapid fire psychological bombshell, then a change in topic to something pleasat that programs the way our attention span works. It's the portrayal of skewed valuses fed to parentless youth (not that they don't have parents, but have parents that use the TV as a babysitter) who from an early age get their first glimpses of the world portrayed with a corporate agenda to create capitalist robots.

Have you refused the mind control yet? If so, I applaud you and your efforts, when you're already watching, it's hard to turn off the TV, but it can be done.

For those still glued to the screen, i challenge you to try not watching TV for a week. If you don't like it, plug your tv back in and continue to be a manipulated part of the scam of consumerism and wastefulness buying stuff you would have never knew existed without tv. If you turned off your tv for a week and didn't cheat by visiting friends to watch their tv, i bet you'll notice a difference in your thinking.

It'll also open up new concepts, before you gave up TV for a week, you couldn't imagine not watrching for a day, right? After a week, did you wake up early and/or rush home from work to get your fix? Or maybe you realized that TV isn't that impotant, and maybe you actyually feel better not having big businesses' will forced on you unwillingly and unwittingly. Maybe you do turn on the TV after 7 days and 2 seconds, to get your fix. After doing without for a week, examine what you're being presented when you do turn it back on. If you can't find anything wrong with watching, then go back to watching tv. For those who take notice of what they're being fed that they didn't realize before, think about how what you see nd hear affects you. It's pretty insulting to your intelligence, isn't it? It's okay if you feel like you were fooled, a lot of peoople have been, and still are. If you can see why you need to break away from "programming", take that step and do it permamantly.

After not watching for a few years now (not that i watched a lot before that), when i sit down to watch TV, it just doesn't work like they want it to anymore. I need to force my attention to the thing in order to recieve from it, and when i do, i'm left slightly nauseous.

Also, since TV is a major thing to give up, and you beat the addiction successfully, what else can you conquer that will make a difference in the world? Maybe since you're not rushing home to TV, you can take your time getting home, on foot orby bike, reducing your usage od petroleum. Maybe you don't need to buy everything you saw on tv, reducing your wasteful spending. The whole thing is, you won't know until you try.

Do you feel like you're trapped in the matrix? That "yeah, the world is messed up, but what can I do?" feeling? What you can do is take small steps towards a greater goal, do your part and ask your neigbor to do theirs.

Once you turn your TV off, talk to your friends and family about doing the same.

Excellent post, I'm 100% behind you on this. I have no interest at all in watching TV myself, alough it is sometimes unavoidable. I can't avoid it at time's due to the fact it really would look as if i were avoiding people and staying away from the living room. I find it hard to sit and watch something and give it my full attention, it's just such a waste of time.

I think you're lumping everything on TV into one group when its really not. I for find entertainment value in watching sports games and a few other shows which I find comical. I also find the history/discovery channels to be quite nice as well. I agree that most of the crap that is on is what you say it is, but lets be honest here, you are still ultimately in control of what you do. I see all those commercials and it doesnt make me want to go out and buy a bunch of crap. Its called willpower.

Great Post, I was only thinking about this the other day. I rarely watch the TV at all anymore, I do watch a couple of shows here and there, but nothing like I used to.
You certainly don't miss anything by turning it off.

Originally posted by McGuirk
you are still ultimately in control of what you do. I see all those commercials and it doesnt make me want to go out and buy a bunch of crap. Its called willpower.

That's only one aspect of it, and are you really in control of what you're exposed to? I watch documentaries, online, with no commercials.

I'm not speaking as much of topical content, but the format and the device in it's entirety, therefore i'm lumping all things with the 7-10 mins of "content", 2-3 mins of commercials, and a few more mins of content. It' doesn't matter what you're watcing, just the fact that your attention span is being programmed to make us more easily distracted.

i understand what you're saying about the attention span thing. what about channels that dont have commercials? Like hbo and stuff like that? what about the other things people use tv's for? like watching dvds or playing video games? i think you specify if you specifically mean CABLE tv or just the tv as an electronic item in general.

Originally posted by McGuirk
I think you're lumping everything on TV into one group when its really not. I for find entertainment value in watching sports games and a few other shows which I find comical. I also find the history/discovery channels to be quite nice as well. I agree that most of the crap that is on is what you say it is, but lets be honest here, you are still ultimately in control of what you do. I see all those commercials and it doesnt make me want to go out and buy a bunch of crap. Its called willpower.

But I think it is all in one group. I sounds to me like you think the purpose of TV can be to entertain or to educate. But the ONLY reason TV exists is to sell you products. It started with radio. Radio was free to anyone who bought one because it was a tool to sell you things. Right now I'm thinking of the movie a Christmass Story and the little orphan annie/ovoltin decoder ring thing.

Then there are pay channels which are commercial free. I'm a bit biased against the whole movie industry but lets say you watch an hour long commercial free documentary on whales. I can garuntee that you will learn far more spending an hour reading a book on whales.

I really hate TV.

Gave it up more than a decade ago.

Vas

Originally posted by Vasilis Azoth
Then there are pay channels which are commercial free. I'm a bit biased against the whole movie industry but lets say you watch an hour long commercial free documentary on whales. I can garuntee that you will learn far more spending an hour reading a book on whales.

Whale documentaries kick ass! But yeah, commercial free documentaries like that are educational, PBS has a lot of good ones. Movies contain their own propaganda, and besides, 99.9% of movies i've seen made in the last 10 years just seem like manufactured contrived crap for a dumbed down short attention span audience. The studios are catering to the robots the networks are creating. It's all connected but we're not taught to make connections. No, we dicvide everything into separate categories and connections, speaking of connections, anyone ever see Burke's show of that name? Now that's educational.