Television may be doing your thinking

Neo: I know what you're trying to do

Morpheus: I'm trying to FREE your mind Neo, but I can only show you the door. You're the one who has to walk through it.

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The bible puts it this way, "As a man thinketh, so is he..."
I remember getting this message from Angry Patriot89 a few months ago saying "Kill The Tube". Well, I did. Amazing how much more time I have on my hands to waste on other more "important" things, like Current =P Yet, it's no clearer to me more than now how many dull and lazy-minded do actually adopt their attitudes from what they watch on commercial television. It's good to unplug from the world that is pulled down around your eyes to blind you from the truth.

Television is indeed a tightly-gripped and controlled (high-priced) medium. Many of you would be wiser to remember that. Much like the Lizard of Oz, there is someone determining, controlling, calculating what we see...and they are extremely cognizant of how we react, and respond, en mass, in fact. They spend a LOT of money carefully engendering and conditioning the thought processes of millions of Americans to think what they want them to think about "their" world. Whoever dismisses this as triviality on par with their dog barking in the back yard is blatanly paying cheaper selfishly-convenient lip service to what demands more honest and open dialog, though just the idea is shocking enough to some. The success of corporate america in larger part is that they damn well do count on television to influence the masses. You'd be kidding yourself if you didn't think it was a science. They all want access to your mind, and usually it's to think (and inevitably do) a certain way. Their way =D

I had this idea, only to find out that it's been attempted before, that even movies ala alternate endings etc., could be modified to cater to specific groups or needs and potentially make even better profits for movie makers via service fees enabling people to get just what they want. Say, perhaps unpopularly like me, you don't care in the least to have homosexual propoganda that hardly advances the art form much less the plot, jammed down your throat in the movies you buy, or the tv shows you watch...they could be easily edited for taste without compromising the show so to each his own (as they say). But I believe it was the MPAA who fought this tooth and nail, despite better/huge profit potential guising their argument as some warping/censuring of art from. Well, they should know, shouldn't they, that beauty, rather, is in the eye of the beholder, and not what they tell us it has to be. The simple-minded will always conclude it simply MUST be, for absurd lack of any other imagination. So what a load, in my not so humble opinion. They don't want enabled, empowered, free-thinking self-governing society. That's heresy to them. They want easily-branded easily-maneuvered, manipulated dumb as jack-asses cattle. Simply, they want control. Control to tell you and I, and if not you and I marginalized free thinkers--your gullible naive, underestimating neighbors with their dogs barking in their back yards, the ones you hardly even know anymore these days (or care to)--HOW and what to think. It's pretty simple, especially for them, since they can't really think without that blur of television going on in the background. Hell, for them, if that TV were actually OFF, well things would seem pretty damn odd, wouldn't it! Alone with your own thoughts! haha! Think of how dangerous that could be! ;)

Wake up.

Mass media TV is damn sure mind control.

Yes, Neo...Yes, Angry Patriot89...KILL THAT MF'N TUBE.

Sure it is a dance. A dance to make you so preoccupied with issues out of your reach so time goes by and you do not get to resolve or participate of the things that it is within your reach. It works like a formula, and it works all the time and the worse it is that the majority of people keep supporting it every single day. So here it is the question -What is going on with You and your neighborhood?

http://current.com/items/88941468/what_tv_can_do_to_help_us_reach_the_greatest_n...

It is all but a dance, you can lead or you can follow.

It is too simple to say the media is doing your thinking for you. However, it is obvious that media is participating in the cultural discourse. And for that reason, one is handicapped if they are ignorant of the media and television.

Right now I am watching TV (current on comcast) and typing this. ( And my dog is barking). I often ignore the television even though it is on. I channel surf and multi-task. I don't think we will be escaping screens anytime soon.

I like twodee's trenchant and terse "turn the mfer off, nobody's holding a gun to your head" verdict on the facts presented here =D

Thinking is boring. I am going to watch this season of the real world in stead.

i thought people already knew this

I am not against Television. What surprises me it is that a great part of the public cannot wake up for the fact that they have been excessively brain washed by it. So TV it is the biggest hypnotic machine of the XXI Century.

At worst, television and film undermine creative imagination by leading it's viewers by a leash.

That would explain a lot.

I tried to read this, but... tv.

I read an article that the media is using low level mind control recently, I will try and find it. I am sure they are using subliminal message also. TV has to be limited, I like Free speech TV FSTV and honest venues like it.

Namaste!

My tv is telling me that this isn't true at all ;)

Just an person experience with tv: Up until the time I was ten, I had a black and white tv in my bedroom. I only used to watch a few programs; Benny Hills Show, the Three Stories, Different Strokes and the Honeymooners. Odd I know but those were my favorite shows lol.

I pretty much only started watching color tv when I got my first game system, cable and a VCR. But I found myself overall watching less and less. By the time I was fourteen I was hardly watching at all, only movie rentals.

Now when I go to friends an families homes or the odd occasion I watch it in my own home, I'm SHOCKED at what I see, and I can feel myself being unable to turn away and go into a dreamlike state. It's so bizzare and I wonder what the hell are these networks are doing to their viewers!

mjsmith11, There is no shoving down of throats. There is an OFF button. Turn off the TV instead of blaming the TV for not serving your entertainment and news the way you like it. You could hurt the TV's feelings. And it will get violent and start shoving things down your throat again. Where did you buy that very animated TV anyway?

I think the people on MSNBC and Saturday Night Live believe that they are doing the thinking for us. I am so outraged at how T.V. journalism and entertainment has been reduced to shoving ideas down our throats. Let me make up my own mind on what to think of Sarah Palin, for example. Why should a news brodcast or an entertainment show make my own mind up for me? I think it is great that people have their own opinions and points of view. I just wish the people in the Television Industry would realize that their opinion and viewpoints are really not that important to me. Just entertain me if you are supposed to and bring me the news if you are supposed to. I miss Tim Russert.