Let's Ban Television!

Originally posted by cartenz

Originally posted by beezzer
...

In tv we can also change the channel, or turn it off.

When I first quit television, and encountered one that was on (two examples I will use are: at a friends place or the court waiting rooms), I would, without saying anything just switch (or unplug) the television. People were often irrationally angered by this action.

In one instance when I arrived at a friends place and did this his objection was "Hey I was watching that!". No. I explained the whole concept of social interaction and that the purpose of my visit was not to sit and watch television. I explained that if the TV set was a person in this environment (my friends shed he lived in), this person would spent try to dominate the conversation, tell us about topics we dont care about, not listen or even acknowledge our input, then try and sell us products we neither want nor need. This seemed to cause a great deal of offence, I fail to fully understand why. My logic was sound...

In the court-house waiting room however, my action of unplugging the television was met with a threat of prosecution and the re-activation of the television set....

People get pretty upset when you turn their TV off. After the court incident I stopped doing it

So basically, you saw the TV as competition?
If someone were to come into my home and attempt that, regardless of how well I knew them or if I were related to them, they would be leaving my home immediately. If you wish to not have one in your own home, fine, but don't go to someone else's and dictate what they should or shouldn't do.
Your very actions described here are the same foundation that you are arguing against.

TV is the way the older generation gathers their news and it also provides programming for other generations depending on what station you view. Kentucky Educational Television is very worthwhile as is the Discovery Channel and I happen to enjoy Syfy very much as well as my news channels. By your logic, internet would be the most destructive force and should be banned well before TV is. However, most of us realize that it is up to the individual to determine what they will and will not "watch" or what websites they will visit.

If you choose to not have TV, fine, but don't tell the rest of the world what they can and cannot do. That is forcing your own values down the throats of everyone else and is one of the most blatant forms of communism that exists. It reeks of ultra-right wing-dictatorship, the fundamentalist evangelical conservatives who demand that everyone in the world not only accept their beliefs and thought processes, but participate as well. If the reasons you have outlined are the basis of your argument, then logical step would be to ban yourself as you attempt to practice the very things you are attributing to TV.

reply to post by Astyanax


I agree I rarely watch the idiot box anymore, I remember my Dad telling me in the early 70's when I was growing up that the idiot box would rot my brain. And I tell my 17 year old daughter the same thing, although she also has an Iphone, an Xbox, a laptop, an ipad you name it, she's got it.
So effectively its not just TV, its all the diversionary gadgets geared to entertain you and stop you using the old grey matter.
Its all part of the plan. Dumb us down and entertain us.

If there wasn't such a thing as the internet, I would say you "might" have a case. However, if someone is looking for quality programing, there is the internet and the mouse is the remote. You still get AD's on the net unless you block them and you can get viruses too. Thing is, if people want the real bad, nasty and inane stuff, the internet is perfect for that. IMO TV went down hill when the internet started to be "socially" popular (think about it). I don't think the TV of the 80-90's was that bad, G.I. Joe, Ninja Turtles, Mr.Wizard and Inspector Gadget rot my mind or any one elses, if anything rots it, its police brutality vids and what not that I find on the web (ATS). Way back when Mr.Wizard accounted for more of TV then if it were on today, for many, that show was what got them into science.

Banning TV is like banning porn or guns, people will find a way and become criminals doing it and only the sheep will follow the law. Why not ban money and religion, its killed alot more people then TV's and hitler combined!

OP I only watched tv to see the debates and Ron Paul...thats it.

However, I caved last night to watch "Breaking Amish"....after watching the first show (curious about Amish culture) I can't watch it any more....its proving to be the Amish jersey Shore.

I want something of substance, I miss watching the National Geographic Presents, Jacques Cousteau, and heck even Bob Ross and other educational programing with my grandpa as a kid....My kids 6 and 8 actually sat through WW2 in HD with me on the History Channel, usually its countless reruns of Pawn Stars, and everyone from that show getting a show......mindless dumbed down entertainment, with the doting Chum Lee distracting the audience from learning anything of historical value.

Ban television? pointless. and the people whom champion it on the internet are being silly considering most spend equal or even more time watching videos and such online anyhow.

So, the argument then is, ban one form of entertainment because I stopped using it, but don't touch my new form.

Ban the net, ban television, ban radio, ban books, etc.

I am not a mega tv guy, I got a few programs I enjoy watching, otherwise, I tend to spend my time online, or just go fishing. I don't need it running all the time as some sort of noisy companion as many do, but that doesn't make me wiser or anything..I am a heavy gamer and prefer that form of entertainment over random movies.

Originally posted by kat2684
OP I only watched tv to see the debates and Ron Paul...thats it.

However, I caved last night to watch "Breaking Amish"....after watching the first show (curious about Amish culture) I can't watch it any more....its proving to be the Amish jersey Shore.

I want something of substance, I miss watching the National Geographic Presents, Jacques Cousteau, and heck even Bob Ross and other educational programing with my grandpa as a kid....My kids 6 and 8 actually sat through WW2 in HD with me on the History Channel, usually its countless reruns of Pawn Stars, and everyone from that show getting a show......mindless dumbed down entertainment, with the doting Chum Lee distracting the audience from learning anything of historical value.

If you got extended cable, you might check out the science channel, they got fascinating stuff on there, often cosmology and such. Some sensational stuff also (top 10 natural earth ending disaster type stuffs..fluff), but there are some really good documentrys on from time to time.

What is worse...Simpsons, or Pawn Stars?
At least with pawn stars, people may realize that the junk they are about to toss may be worth something, more value in that than any soap opera anyhow.

Originally posted by kudegras
reply to post by Astyanax

 

I agree I rarely watch the idiot box anymore, I remember my Dad telling me in the early 70's when I was growing up that the idiot box would rot my brain. And I tell my 17 year old daughter the same thing, although she also has an Iphone, an Xbox, a laptop, an ipad you name it, she's got it.
So effectively its not just TV, its all the diversionary gadgets geared to entertain you and stop you using the old grey matter.
Its all part of the plan. Dumb us down and entertain us.

And it will work as well.
You might suggest to her that the more distracted she is, the less she has time to focus on herself, and will make her a boring person to be around.

That sometimes has results (young people are very vein and want to think they are the most interesting person on earth)

I rarely watch TV and yet it is on most of the time. For instance it is on right now. There is a movie on and I could not tell you what is going on if you paid me. Because MOST of the time I am too tuned into the internet. I think that Internet via Computers and Cell Phones have pretty much for allot of people taken over their lives more so than TV at this point in time. Sure we watch TV, but while watching TV we are checking the net, E-mail-Cell Phones etc...When I do watch a TV show like actually watch one without doing any of the above, it is DVR'd so I watch no commercials. To really unplug a person you would have to do WAY more than ban the BOOB TUBE.

I'm approaching this from a parents point of view (three boys, one girl), I get to play dictator in my house and I have banned television long ago. We have no videogames and Internet is allowed under strict supervision and only if it is nessecary for educational purposes. To be honest, the difference between them and their nephews and nieces is amazing!!

From time to time I also let them get bored because I have this theory that it stimulates their imagination.......I'm weird, I know.

Am I a boring farther? Maybe, but my job is not to be friends with my kids, my job is to get them ready for the real world. And the real world is not happening on the television.

Peace

Originally posted by operation mindcrime
I'm approaching this from a parents point of view (three boys, one girl), I get to play dictator in my house and I have banned television long ago. We have no videogames and Internet is allowed under strict supervision and only if it is nessecary for educational purposes. To be honest, the difference between them and their nephews and nieces is amazing!!

From time to time I also let them get bored because I have this theory that it stimulates their imagination.......I'm weird, I know.

Am I a boring farther? Maybe, but my job is not to be friends with my kids, my job is to get them ready for the real world. And the real world is not happening on the television.

Peace

edit on 10-9-2012 by operation mindcrime because: (no reason given)

Not gonna talk you out of it, I would actually ask you journal and share your findings (try to be as impartial as possible with respects to results.). A graph of GPA, and other aspects, along with number of friends, and perhaps even political affiliation...
If your running a social test, then bring out the documentation..sounds fascinating.

reply to post by SaturnFX


Will do, they are only 9, 6, 4 and 1,5 years old but results are already showing.

Peace

Originally posted by beezzer

Originally posted by Iwinder

Originally posted by beezzer
reply to post by Astyanax

 

There would have been a time where I would have agreed with you, OP. But that time has passed. Just a brief glimpse of the intraweb stands testiment Intrawebz is the tv now. TV is no better or no worse than the materials displayed on the screen.

Where does ATS get much of its material? TV, internet, MSM.

Here we disect the cadaver left for us by the media outlets. We carve away the fat, toss out the useless offal and proudly display the hidden gem that was hidden.

A ban on tv would not eliminate the needless garbage, because many would just turn to www-dot-tv for their mind candy.

Instead, might I suggest refining the filter used when exposed to the outlets of media.

cheers,

beez

I agree but I disagree also, let me try and make sense here.

TV (a medium we gave up almost 20 years ago) feeds you the information.
The internet is a whole different ball game, you actually get to pick and choose what you read and if you are like us you suffer no advertising whatsoever at all.
Regards, Iwinder.....read my signature below

In tv we can also change the channel, or turn it off.

If your mind is so fried you may not be able to turn it off, We were lucky enough to escape this very situation.....
Who owns almost all of the TV stations and whom owns the web sites you serf are two different ball games all together in my opinion only.

Here is a good read....Link below
www2.bakersfieldcollege.edu...

TextSecond, and I’ll get altruistic here, I think that knowing about advertising is crucial to anyone living in the modern, Western world. Some statistics indicate that Americans see an average of 8.5 hours of TV a day. On average, that is 136 TV commercials in a day. On top of that, we see over 1600 ads, logos, and product placements in any given day. Those come from bumper stickers, vending machines, t-shirts, super markets, bus benches, or just about anywhere we look ever. In fact, in most rooms of any given house you can count dozens of logos and brand names making up the invisible white noise of our environment. With this proliferation of advertising in our lives, it is crucial that we understand how they work. The best psychologists and profilers in the world are hired by the advertising firms on Madison Avenue to get into our heads. Nothing in an ad is accidental, and it is all designed to manipulate us, to mold our behavior and make us consume. I hope you’ll take from this lecture and our Media and Message readings, a solid understanding of how we’re manipulated by our very environment to consume. Advertising uses several methods to get into our heads, and below, I’ll list several of them. Learn them, not just for your class, but for your sanity!

And it gets better after that, so I do agree to disagree with you on this thread........

In my opinion if you unplug your tv for one month I doubt you will plug it back in.
If you do it would have to be a good reason, example here is the winter Olympics are cause here in Canada to plug the bastard in and hope it still works like it did 4 years ago


Give it a try I am sure you will be surprised just how many hours are in a day, I love the internet but it does not hypnotize me or the wife like TV once did and never will again.


Regards, Iwinder

Originally posted by cartenz

Originally posted by RealSpoke
The internet is the thing creating all the crazy baseless conspiracy theories, not the TV.

Conspiracy theories happened prior to the mass uptake of the world wide web, the difference with TV is that its a one-way communication, so if the network tells you its a "baseless conspiracy theory" you have no forum to address the charge. Online we have the luxury of having a multi-way discourse where ideas can be shared and developed--this scares those in the traditional media who took it upon themselves to shape public policy by manipulating the dominant reading of current events.

Best post on this thread so far me thinks.....It says it all in one very tidy paragraph.....
Star for this.
Regards, Iwinder

I should and will clarify our position, To ban TV is useless but to not watch it is very beneficial to say the least.

I can and do go days without my internet fix it has no grab on me like TV did years ago it was almost like a magnet to my brain.....
I hope this clears up my thoughts on the issue, I would love to post more but the new episode of the Simpsons starts in half an hour so I got to go here



Regards, Iwinder

Originally posted by Astyanax
Now here's something I think we can all agree on, sceptics and conspiracy fans alike.

As those who've read my posts know, I'm what some of you would call a sceptic (others may prefer ruder names). I don't believe in the conspiracy theories so earnestly discussed on this web site, though I enjoy reading the discussions, and like to stir the pot myself on occasion, just for the fun of it.

Conspiracy theories have always been big in American popular culture – and right now, they seem to be bigger than they've ever been. They are no longer the obsession of a small, tinfoil-hatted minority; they've gone mainstream, and not just in the US either. They've gone global. They've gone mass market. They've gone mass media.

They've gone television.

And it's been happening for a long time. On TV, today, is where most conspiracy believers first encounter their pet conspiracies – sometimes in fictional form (e.g. The X-Files), sometimes as credulous 'documentaries' (stand up, History Channel and Discovery Channel, and take your bows), sometimes as paranoid ravings on talk shows like Jerry Springer's. Any of you can provide better and more contemporary examples than I just did; I don't watch television, you see, so I don't keep up.

But while conspiracy-specific programming has had its part to play, the mainstreaming of tinfoil hattery by television is actually the result of something a lot more insidious: the widespread confusion, now evident among conspiracy theorists and ordinary viewers alike, between television and reality.

I suppose I once helped cause this confusion; I am a former advertising executive, after all. But during my 25-odd years in advertising, I always believed that consumers and TV audiences were more intelligent and perceptive than they were given credit for. I held fast, as many admen of my era did, to David Ogilvy's famous dictum: 'The consumer is not a moron; she is your wife.'

Sadly, I have lost my faith in that statement. I can no longer attribute much intelligence to the average consumer, the average TV viewer. It has become appallingly obvious that habitual TV viewing by three generations of the general public has produced a world in which most people can't tell the difference between the sensationalised, consumerised, art-directed world of television and mass media, and the actual, physical reality their bodies inhabit – the reality of the objects and creatures around them, of actual events occurring within the range of their own five senses.

When people find the news on TV is as real to them as what is happening in their own backyards, when they think the gadgets and ideas sold to them by the media are as important as the concerns and relationships that feature in their own lives, they lose their anchors. Clueless and foundering, they will believe anything, grasp at any straw. They will support the most bizarre conspiracy theories, such as the claim that the Aurora theatre shooting was the work of the local police chief in cahoots with the Illuminati. :shk:

The world is full of real problems. When the general public takes leave of reality, it just makes it harder to solve those problems. Conspiracy theorists, of course, recognise this; here on ATS, they assert it all the time. Of course, in the view of sceptics like myself, it is they who have lost their grip on reality.

Be that as it may, you have even more reason to agree with me if you are a conspiracy theorist. Isn't the mainstream media the source of all misinformation, distraction and mindless noise, the tool most favoured by the Illuminati/NWO/Rotschilds/Masons/Jews/Bilderburgers/Bohemian Grove perverts/(your choice of fiend here) when they seek to bamboozle and distract the masses?

Well, then, let's get rid of it, so that the sheeple won't have to graze on lies and propaganda any more, and will be forced to see the truth of that aliens-abducted-Obama's-birth-certificate theory you've been researching all these years! I may laugh in the face of your theory, but on this, I'm with you: it's time to slay the dragon.

So come with me, friends, and let's strike at the very root of the evil: let's get rid of television, this monster of misinformation. Let's ban the box and get people back to the real world, before we all float off on a tinfoil cloud of misinformation, misconception and false aspiration for ever.

Come on, ATS! Let's all speak with one voice for a change. All together now...

BAN! THE!! BOX!!!

edit on 9/9/12 by Astyanax because: of edits.

I 100% agree with you man. It is ridiculous how dumbed down people have become because of their televisions. I'm done with it. All of us Americans should stand against the broad casting of television. Whether everyone believes it or not when you watch t.v. you are allowing the t.v. to do the thinking for you. ( t.v. = no brain power)

Let Ban TV!

What the hell makes you think you have a vote! Hello, uhmm Lucifer? Yes gentile, what? Will you please turn off your swirly magic box of mind control?

Come on bro, this and everything else is mute. We live in a soulless society for a reason, a part of me thinks all the early American wars were nothing more then a great kill off a white men, whom still had a soul. Still would fight to the death. There was a time in America when Men would fight for good. They were misled. On purpose, to extinguish there souls!

Now we have forum tough guys, protests? sit ins? etc, etc... All that jazz was crafted by the CIA to keep us exactly where we are. This very site is here for a reason, Ron Paul was there for a reason, Alex Jones is allowed to do what he does for a reason. This is how they control knowledge, efforts, uprising, you name it.

Banning TV is a virtual impossibility, no different then your election vote. You never had a voice or a choice in the matter to begin with. TV archival footage is amazing, you can trace the creation of all culture. You can witness the same machine that exist today for the past 50 years in action. Every decade shaped a new, via the same tool set.

I agree it is one of there most powerful forces at the moment, the Internet has usurped TV. The "truth" movement? Give me a break my friend, culture created by the masters courtesy of the Internet. There have been books discussing are current state, secret teachings, society's, communion with gods, ritual craft etc, for all of America's existence. There is a reason nobody reads, there is a reason almost every government control's books, burns books. I can assure you information at every avenue is being controlled. What needs to happen is like minded individuals like us, we need to start are own secret society. We need to embark on a struggle of the ages, a struggle well past your and I's lifetime, we need to usurp them from the inside, as they have us. For all this is nothing more the free will. We allow this all to happen, all of us. Free will is always the key, the root in all this.

We can not win, there is nothing to fight for. This is a sit down and watch kind of party at this point.

reply to post by Astyanax


I mean, don't believe me and the rest of the people who are telling you how bad t.v. is for you. Go ahead, just look it up yourself. As a matter of fact, check out this google search for studies on television watching..

www.google.com...=en&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=studies+on+television+watching&oq=studies+on+tele&gs_l=hp.1.2.0l4j0i30l6.11307.40167.1.431 05.15.13.0.2.2.0.989.3570.1j7j2j1j6-2.13.0.les%3B..0.0...1c.1.SprDZoxmlss&psj=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=d6947c89b83a8fba&biw=1024&bih=677

Yeah, let's ban TV. Lets ban TV cos some paranoid wackos are worried about it controlling their minds. You can watch whatever the hell you want. If you don't wanna watch those #ty reality tv programs, then don't. Not difficult.

Y not ban internet

reply to post by ruthlesstruth


So browsing the web? doing google searches all day is that much better?

If the Internet was created to bring enlightenment to man, I wonder why 75% of it was dedicated to perverted pornography on it's inception?

I mean every conspiracy theorist should be able to run 15 miles and be stacked, head to toe in abs and muscle. Yet, we are not. Nobody practices what they preach, most talk a good game then eat "the mans" food. They have a death lock on us. TV is just modern form, for example was the earth really flat? NO!!! NEVER!!! Come on, the elites with the knowledge knew this, but who did not??? The folks like you and I, the surf.

We have been systematically destroyed. Every single one of us can be held accountable. TV is just a out right in the open form of sorcery.

Socrates said "don't hate me if I tell you the truth"

I say it's been this way a very long time.