From: bunker@physun.physics.mcmaster.ca (Alex Bunker)
Subject: Re: WORLD GOVERNMENT
Organization: Dept. of Physics & Astronomy, McMaster University
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 15:53:10 GMT

In article <1992Aug18.050634.14094@ncar.ucar.edu> gary@isis.cgd.ucar.edu (Gary Strand) writes:
>ab> Alex Bunker
>sm> Stephen McIntyre
>
>sm> Citizens become more susceptable to propaganda precisely because they lack
>sm> a good education.  With T.V. and commercial magazines doing the thinking
>sm> for them, people are killing off their minds, strangling the very thing
>sm> that could protect them from irrational pinheads with a presuasive voice
>sm> and power on the mind. So, what can we do then? Keep TV from the people?
>sm> Regulate the hours a station can run programming? I don't know. Any sug-
>sm> gestions?
>
>ab> Simple, restrict television advertising. 
>
>  Well, there goes the freedom of expression. How many other freedoms are you
>  planning to trash on your way to an all-Good, all-knowing, all-wonderful
>  world government? It's beginning to sound more and more like 1984 to me. 
>
>ab> Television will become more educational and less commercially-consumer
>ab> advocating pander to the lowest common denomenator.
>
>  Interesting. Get rid of ads, and we get better TV. Um, how does this TV 
>  get paid for in the first place? Advertisers. You make it sound as though 
>  advertising itself is some kind of evil thing. Sorry, but if you remember
>  creating a resume, you were advertising yourself. Basically, without it,
>  the flow of information decreases greatly. Again, your future world sounds
>  less and less inviting and desirable the more you talk about it.
>
>ab> Look the best television is on the channels without commercials PBS TVO
>ab> BBC etc...
>
>  Here in the US, the Discovery channel and A&E are doing quite well, and
>  presenting quite good TV, with commercials too! I think I'll take a stu-
>  pid commercial every 15 minutes over interminable "pledge drives" any day.
>
>  Believe it or not, capitalism is not the source of every stinking festering
>  problem facing the world. If there's one thing your posts indicate, you 
>  have become radicalized by reading the Net. I remember a kindler, gentler
>  Alex Bunker a short time back. Relax, and get mellow. No need to sound so
>  final and declarative and know-it-all.
>
>--
>Gary Strand                      Opinions stated herein are mine alone and are
>strandwg@ncar.ucar.edu            not representative of NCAR, UCAR, or the NSF

There seems to be a misunderstanding here my comments on television
and advertising have NOTHING to do with world government. We got sidetracked
and they are a seperate issue. I do not particularly like commercial television
because it is not a free form of expression because it is beholden to
the views of the advertisers. We see this in comparing PBS to A&E. The
quality and intellectual depth and vartiety of perspectives available
on PBS is FAR greater than pathetic ultraconservative A&E (the 
standup comedy-documentaries about war from a hawkish perspective channel)
I want a TRULY free form of expression. What is commercially viable is
not free. What about programming that is anti-capitalist? 
or exposes great wrongs in the consumerist status quo?
We do not get
to see these shows because the advertisers hold the networks in blackmail.
Even PBS is underfunded so it is conservatised by its shows being 
sponsored by right wing think tanks. TVO and BBC are better examples.
As freinds of mine from other countries have said countless times "its
funny there is 20 channels here and only 3 back home buit there there is
allways something interesting to watch but here it is just mindless garbage.
But I hear you say." If the government controls it it can be made into
a governemt propaganda machine. It has been shown that this is not necessarily
the case with the BBC in particular. The covenrment and viewers can sponsor
a network and then give it free reign. I probably would not believe it
myself if I had not really seen it working.

Also interrupting with commercials has been shown to have a very bad 
psychological effect lowering our attention span. I just want to 
allow commercial only on the hour for five minites.

ALEX
.
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