People with no lives are frustrating my own

Muahaha...that's so that you'll have to read it over and over and over and over and over....

Try to give it a praise ;) :lol:
 
Anomica said:
Muahaha...that's so that you'll have to read it over and over and over and over and over....

Try to give it a praise ;) :lol:
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I smell a twilight zone episode in the works...
 
Much of what I would have wanted to say on this topic has been said by others already (beautifully summarized by Anomica may I say, not least because we beat Finland again :innocent:). However, I'd like to add the observation that if we (meaning western civilization people) are so much like the Romans in our taste for bread and games (or circus, or circuses, or circi, pick your favorite), doesn't it follow that we'll have the same fate as them? We're going down in flames, people, we're going down.  :ninja:
 
Natalie said:
We're going down in flames, people, we're going down.  :ninja:
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Nah, it wasn't all that bad. The fall of Rome was a process that went from ~235 (give or take thirty, forty years) to ~635 (again, give or take thirty years), so we've still got plenty of time. ;)
 
True, not to mention only the Western empire collapsed into the Dark Ages, which was actually a lot of fun with all the Heretic burnings and all :D, Byzantium was alive and very well.
 
Excuse me while I pack my things and head to the east in order to escape the future heretic burnings under Onhell...:P
 
Onhell said:
True, not to mention only the Western empire collapsed into the Dark Ages, which was actually a lot of fun with all the Heretic burnings and all :D, Byzantium was alive and very well.
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...Until that thing with the whole invasion thing.  But hey!  Rennaissance! :D
 
Raven said:
...Until that thing with the whole invasion thing.  But hey!  Rennaissance! :D
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Hehe, I love it when people so openly show their misconceptions about history.  :innocent:
 
It does become tempting to blame television for the problem articulated in this thread, but let's not forget that t.v. is still one of the most important inventions of the 20th Century and, for all the arguments about 'bread an circuses,' is on balance probably the most significant technological boon to democracy since the printing press.

There is, without question, a lot of inane crap being broadcast every day.  Yet, notwithstanding the thousands of hours of crummy programming available each week, the fact that every year we can get a dozen or two hours of masterpieces like "Seinfeld," "The Sopranos," "Planet Earth" and "The Wire" -- in my view, the greatest television series ever made -- makes you realize that television is capable of delivering an art form as intellectually enriching as any book or music.  Fix your TV, rent Season One of "The Wire" on DVD, and thank your lucky stars that you live in a time and place that makes such a thing possible. 

Even the low-brow crap on TV serves some purpose.  In some ways, seeing Britney Spears go nuts over her ex-husband and shave her head, or seeing Paris Hilton end up getting tossed into jail for drunk driving, teaches people a valuable social lesson:  you can have all the money you would ever hope to want or need, and your life can still be a complete mess.  Ultimately, I think that's why people watch -- to see the rich and supposedly glamorous deal with problems that are not much different than the problems in our own lives. 
 
If people didn't watch all these programmes, they wouldn't be put *on* TV in the 1st place. & I still have my dvd's & videos, so there's enough for *me* to watch [although I prefer videos to dvds, far easier to use w/ no faffing about]

If I said *everything* on TV is/was crap, I'd never have seen a programme which *I* thought was absolutely unbebloodybefriggin'lievable, & made me think about my *own* problems differently, even though it only ran for 16ep & then finished for good.
Life On Mars.  :yey:I'll never be able to drive that Cortina [I don't think they make them anymore?]  but I was happy just to *look* at it & drool over it.

TV can either make you able to see/experience things you want to but can't for whatever reason, *or* it can make you feel grateful for what you've got & relieved you're not in a particular situation or you're not ____ [insert celebrity's name] today.  Like all great songs really.
 
Since a lot of the stuff here seems to be against T.V I thought this might be relevant. I took a book they were giving away at my university called "Jews in the Media", the first chapter however, deals with the history of cinema and television in general. As it turns out, Hollywood is in the power of a few powerful studios, that make expensive productions and with the advent of the T.V they made prices higher and only a few people (still only a few... 10 bucks to watch a movie? WTF?), while Televisions became more affordable and more people could by them, thus programing had to be aimed at the lowest common denomenator. Thus programming is "stupid" in our eyes. Not to mention there is a negative relationship between years of education and time spent watching tv, in other words, the more education you have your hours of TV watching should drop.
 
Onhell said:
Since a lot of the stuff here seems to be against T.V I thought this might be relevant. I took a book they were giving away at my university called "Jews in the Media", the first chapter however, deals with the history of cinema and television in general. As it turns out, Hollywood is in the power of a few powerful studios, that make expensive productions and with the advent of the T.V they made prices higher and only a few people (still only a few... 10 bucks to watch a movie? WTF?), while Televisions became more affordable and more people could by them, thus programing had to be aimed at the lowest common denomenator. Thus programming is "stupid" in our eyes. Not to mention there is a negative relationship between years of education and time spent watching tv, in other words, the more education you have your hours of TV watching should drop.
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That is a great correlation.  I'm going to be preachy and say that more teens should take heed of that statistic.
 
*looks innocent as the TV blares in the corner*

Right you are GK...the only times I watch TV is when there are soccer games on...thats because I only get depressed when I catch a glimpse of the rest of the TV program on Austrian TV...badly made soaps punctuated with even worse commercials every half hour...
 
I have to say I LOVE watching tv more so for the commercials than the shows. It is amazing what these ads say about a society, the way we think, our ideas of sexuality, happiness and all that other good stuff. I spend at least a couple of hours (watching shows of course like the Daily Show and Colbert Report), analyzing ad after ad.

For example. there are a few local ads for "phone-dating" where local singles call a number "meet" people chat on the phone and eventually meet. the ads are incredibly ridiculous. Usually aimed at men, there is an "attractive" woman on the phone and she says to the camera, "I can't talk right now, I'm on a date!" and I just think, No, you're on your couch, but ok hehe. Others, aimed exclusively to men show a guy sleeping on the couch and a sexy voice over says, "Nothing to do? Thinking of HOT girls? well text (whatever) to (whatever number) and you'll be TEXTING (yes texting!) with HOT girls in no time!"

That particular ad is interesting to me because of three reasons. How desperate and lonely do you have to be turned on or even consider texting supposed attractive women? Two, it is depressing to see how women are still used as sexual objects and nothing more. The third reason ties into the first to: The exploitive nature of capitalism, This ad is exploiting two things, women for they are sold as sexual objects and people's, specifically men's, loneliness. How fucking sick and twisted do you have to be to want to make a buck by preying on the weak? Instead of those sort of ads, they should say, "you lonely? Go for a walk, buy a Dog, read a book dammit!", but no.
 
Onhell said:
I have to say I LOVE watching tv more so for the commercials than the shows. It is amazing what these ads say about a society, the way we think, our ideas of sexuality, happiness and all that other good stuff. I spend at least a couple of hours (watching shows of course like the Daily Show and Colbert Report), analyzing ad after ad.

For example. there are a few local ads for "phone-dating" where local singles call a number "meet" people chat on the phone and eventually meet. the ads are incredibly ridiculous. Usually aimed at men, there is an "attractive" woman on the phone and she says to the camera, "I can't talk right now, I'm on a date!" and I just think, No, you're on your couch, but ok hehe. Others, aimed exclusively to men show a guy sleeping on the couch and a sexy voice over says, "Nothing to do? Thinking of HOT girls? well text (whatever) to (whatever number) and you'll be TEXTING (yes texting!) with HOT girls in no time!"

That particular ad is interesting to me because of three reasons. How desperate and lonely do you have to be turned on or even consider texting supposed attractive women? Two, it is depressing to see how women are still used as sexual objects and nothing more. The third reason ties into the first to: The exploitive nature of capitalism, This ad is exploiting two things, women for they are sold as sexual objects and people's, specifically men's, loneliness. How fucking sick and twisted do you have to be to want to make a buck by preying on the weak? Instead of those sort of ads, they should say, "you lonely? Go for a walk, buy a Dog, read a book dammit!", but no.
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Or walk the dog.  That was bad, but given the relative closeness of the words in your sentence, I just could not resist.  :bigsmile:
 
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