The Boy Who Cried Wolf

Anyone familiar with the The Boy Who Cried Wolf fable? Its about a boy who lies about being in danger so many times that when he finally gets in real danger, nobody takes him seriously anymore and he dies.

It seems to me that since the media has been spending the last 10 years scaring people of things that never materialize, people have finally stopped reacting to it. Now we even get annoyed by people who spread fear. 10-15 years ago, nobody would have been accused of fear mongering because we didnt see the tactics back then. Its only in the last 5 years or so that it has become very apparent that there is a systematic attempt from the media to try and scare us.

Like Pavlovs dogs, we have learned to disregard warnings. All this fear cause people to want relief. We stop watching TV, we dont visit news sites and we dont care about current events.

What if all this was done for a specific reason? Perhaps it was designed to make us this way. Tired of fear, we no longer listen.

So when the real danger comes, just like the boy who cried wolf, we disregard it and die.


[edit on 15-9-2009 by Copernicus]

Good point, and to expand on this, people don't watch the news or pay attention to current affairs because they say it is sad. They don't want to watch someone telling us about soldiers dying, people starving and an economic depression.

reply to post by Copernicus


Desensitization.

Pure and simple, desensitize the people then provide them with bread and circuses

but whatever, did you see the media stunt at the VMAs...

I suppose if nobody watched the news, it would maybe be shortened until eventually it was axed, or only covered celebrity news, or stories about old people and their cats, and the newspapers would do the same. Over time this would numb the minds of the public, allowing those in charge to do whatever they want because we would just follow, droid-like. Although, I this is one of those scarey stories, which will, as digger said, desenitize people, so is it not just human nature to predict the worst. It could be a form of survival instinct, to prepare for the worst. Maybe people have always done this, but only in the past 10-15 years we have been surrounded with news coverage, so these fear-filled stories were only just spread around world-wide.

reply to post by 1232112321


Bad English in previous post, just sorted it out. Still says the same basic thing though.

I suppose if nobody watched the news, it would maybe be shortened until eventually it was axed, or only covered celebrity news, or stories about old people and their cats, and the newspapers would do the same. Over time this would numb the minds of the public, allowing those in charge to do whatever they want because we would just follow, droid-like. Although, this is one of those scarey stories, which will, as digger said, desensitize people, so is it not just human nature to predict the worst? It could be a form of survival instinct, to prepare for the worst. Maybe people have always done this, but only in the past 10-15 years we have been surrounded with news coverage, so these fear-filled stories were only just spread around world-wide?

reply to post by 1232112321

When I see the news on TV I see stupid tabloidised televised tosh, some exceptions like channel four news (which still has it's issues).

What worries me most is the amount of people I 'respect' who watch the news as if it is an unbiased account of the real world. Very scarey.

Yeah. News. When i last saw TV ( little more then year ago, i think) it did not "try" to scare me as much as all the daily doomsday posts here.
So in reality i was desensitized by ATS. I do not fear rumors of Zombi attacks, depopulation,pandemics, meteorites and even TPTB FEMA HAARP joint parties.
Actually i demand moral compensation for lack of stress!

Politicians and the media are the biggest "wolf criers" of all time. The past 8 years it has been used over and over so many times, I don't even hear it any longer. Every time I think to myself "what are they trying to shift by the American people this time?"

Then many people fall right into the fear mongering, and all I can do is roll my eyes and shake my head. The biggest one right now for me? Health care. ie: death panels etc. ignorance is not an excuse for stupidity. Especially in this day when the internet makes it really easy for those who are interested in true information and not propaganda to educate themselves.

Harm None
Peace

I can't remember if this was a big thing in america or not, but in europe the biggest and most obvious of these was Bird Flu. My mum told me (she works in the NHS) that it was rubbish, and so I never got that into it, but I remember this kid telling me 2/3 of the population of earth would be gone, and I remember seeing books about how to protect your family from it. I can't imagine the amount of money that must have been made by the media, and possibly the government. Now, of course, that has totally blown over, and no-one even thinks about it anymore.

This is what happened to many in NOLA when Katrina was heading toward land. They had been warned and evacced before and nothing happened. They just didn't think it would be that bad.

Darn, I could have sworn by the title that this thread was about Alex Jones. In my opinion, he is the perfect example of conspiracy overload. When I first became involved in issues that are covered here on ATS I was interested in what he had to say, but I can only handle someone yelling in my ear for just so long before I eventually go deaf.

The same can be said for the 24 hour news cycle that has crawled out into the sun. Say it loud, say it often, and hope you can sell enough advertising time to do it all over again.

The last thing that they would want is for everyone to stop watching tv;
the tv and media is one of their major powers, the other 2 are military and money