For anyone seeking an entertaining or sensational thread, this is not going to appeal to you. It may even instead be something you don't want to
hear.
This thread is about hypocrisy. Mine and maybe yours. It starts like this...
One day months back and still some times today, I find myself frustrated over the fact that people around me watch so much TV and are obviously
affected by it. I said to myself that it's bad for them, and that the news isn't always accurate and often lies about important topics. Then, I
looked at myself and my own habits and saw that while I didn't watch any TV, I sure spent a lot of time on YouTube. I also watched movies from RedBox
or Netflix or even full movies on YouTube (e.g., Star Wars).
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So, it's clear I was a hypocrite. How many of us here will knock the 'sheeple' for watching TV yet spend
hours online "researching,"
watching video after video mixed with some reading of articles (that makes it seem more scholarly)...? We must admit that much of the things we watch
might as well be on a TV too. In fact, some of comes directly from TV, like the Ancient Astronaut series from the History channel. Yesterday I saw a
video someone embedded in a thread with Maury (talk show host) covering a story that there might be a UFO under the Sphinx. Then of course there are
the documentaries like Zeitgeist or others related to the banks. And, now people are getting their news from YouTube (e.g., Russia Today).
Think for a minute about how much time you have spent on YouTube,
for whatever reason. It's clear to me that we can come up with plenty
of reasons to justify our own zombie-box viewing habits, but when it comes to others who watch for other reasons, we are quick to blame them. (Maybe
they are less knowledgeable on certain subjects but just listen.)
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Now think about how much time you spent watching TV growing up or even recently watching movies, even if it isn't much. Think about how those movies
(and/or TV shows) had an effect on you. Anyone remember watching a lot of any of these...X-Files, Star Wars, Stargate series, or other sci-fi films
like the Alien series or many of Spielburg's films. Then there are more recent ones like The Matrix or James Cameron's Avatar.
I think what we are doing is cherry picking which videos are "acceptable" to watch and then justifying it for our own special reasons. The impact of
these movies goes pretty deep. I've heard people on this site say "Stargates are real." Maybe it was a joke, but a lot of truth is said in jest.
The impact of The Matrix is very far reaching, as is Star Wars. What makes us think we are not suffering from delusions just as the 'sheeple' are
due to our own viewing habits? What makes us possibly immune to the hypnotic effects of TV and movies?
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It's established that people usually do not think much when they are watching movies or documentaries, because thinking requires time, and to pay
attention to the movie, that would mean pausing it repeatedly throughout the entire movie. Most people, I assume, check a few facts if that then sail
through the rest. Any suggestion, verbal or otherwise embedded, will be accepted by our brains unless we consciously stop to think about what it means
and to check it against other facts. This is how hypnosis works. Is it much a mystery now how often we feel sleepy after watching a movie? (Learn more
and experiment with self-hypnosis yourself to prove it. Here are instructions, free, from one of the founders of the technique:
Emile Couee's Principles of Autosuggestion)
The thing is that anyone can gather facts and shape things in a way to convince an audience or viewer of his point. The boiled down recipe is simple:
what message do you want to convey, what facts support that, what images and music helps paint the message clearly. Ever notice how after watching a
movie like Zeitgeist, all the facts seem to align with the point they're trying to make? Think the film makers would include points of view from the
other side that might poke holes in their theory?
Here's an example of just how the 'facts' can be twisted or our perceptions can deceive us: The History Channel showed the Ancient Astronaut
series. They featured the really smart guy with the wild hair (Giorgio Tsoukalos), and he talked about how the hieroglyphs or paintings showed
pictures of submarines or helicopters. Maybe he only said they "seemed" to look like them, but either way, most people watching (me included)
thought this surely
seems to be 'the truth.' Thus then we believe they might be "highly advanced" and maybe had technology as advanced as
ours. But...
then not long ago, I read here on ATS that those only seemed to be that way (in the shape of submarines, etc) due to something
called "overwriting," which is how they saved space. They would simply write over old designs. Did the History Channel tell us that? No. They kindly
decided not to include that bit of information if my memory serves me right.
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Now, this leads me to a final comment, which is only a theory. I believe that to handle the people who might think they are 'waking up' and want to
stop watching TV and escape the lies, there's another way to hook those people on
some kind of entertainment. The internet serves that purpose
because many of us feel "safer" on the internet because we're the ones picking what we want to watch. (But, really, isn't our mouse the equivalent
of a TV remote?)
But, taking what's on TV and just making it available online isn't crafty enough. What if those internet crowd could be made to believe it was real,
that it was not a movie or a TV show, but it was
equally or more compelling?
Enter
the news. The news has become more like an action thriller movie than ever. It is my belief that, if not done purposely, it is a
consequence of the competition between the news stations and other programs airing at the same time. One of the essential things entertainment must be
is
dramatic. And, over time, it must be made
increasingly dramatic because people get used to the effect, and so the effect must be
increased.
So, necessarily, the line between reality and fiction is being blurred, I believe intentionally. While a movie or TV series show amounts to a limited
amount of control in the way it has the ability to allow us to escape for the length of time it lasts, the news is different. People believe the news
is real, and most of the small stories may be. But, for the 'big stuff,' I think these stories are made to be so dramatic
that people like it as
a form of entertainment even though a part of them knows intellectually it is real. People watch
news that has drastic consequences yet
fail to
respond responsibly, which is tragic.
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I think it's getting very hard to sort through all the stories in the news. It's so easy to lie but very difficult to ever get down to the bottom of
a story. There are mountains of facts and admissions then denials. How do we know who we can trust? I think in the end, we base it on what we feel is
right, instead of what we know. I don't believe we really know anything. We can only sort through and piece together the pieces in a way that makes
sense to us. But, remember where most of the pieces came from in the first place.
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So, I'd like to sum it up. To keep our heads clear and working well, we must avoid falling into the same trap as the people at whom we are quick to
point our fingers. Through self-observation, I can see we may be disguising our own bad habits of subjecting our minds to the hypnotic effect of TV &
movies, and unconsciously entertaining ourselves through the news. The news, in my opinion, is more and more a circus of sensational content that
people either find emotionally moving. I do feel that even bad news is "good news" for many of us because it's better than feeling "nothing" aka
being bored. While we can say we do not like it, we keep coming back for more.
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Please take consideration of these things. I hope we can all learn something through the comments and such, as far as what action might be
appropriate.
Should we avoid certain types of news? Some news is good. For instance, we would want to know if seafood may not be safe to eat.
What about other news? Does it really matter about OBL or BO's birth certificate? What are we going to do about it anyway?
Should we trust ourselves to watch movies that dip us into fantasy? Are there effects on us long after the film is over that alter our perceptions of
'reality'? Is it possible to watch too often or too many movie(s)?
I'll end it on a light note.
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