Conditioned Human Apathy? Why do people no longer get pissed off? (Terence Mckenna)

originally posted by: LS650
Why don't people get more pissed off, more often?

What's the use in getting angry? Have you ever known a situation where reacting in an angry manner has actually helped? I haven't. Getting "pissed off" usually tends to amp up the negative nature of the situation, whatever it might be, and only make things worse.

A better reaction is to stay calm, and concentrate on trying to make positive change where you can, while knowing that there are some things you can't alter, whether you are positive or negative about it.

This is the best piece of advice I'm seen on this subject.

Getting pissed/anrgy turns off the brain and a large portion of the 'media' we are constantly bombarded with is designed (need better word - more like spun or crafted) to provoke feelings of anger so that we common people don't think about any given issue we just react to it in the manner of our conditioning.

I agree that food and flouride play a part in 'dumbing down'. I think that not having an at-home parent (due to economic need) is a part of it.

There are two primary things I think have driven this apathy over the last 40 years (and I'll refrain from getting into the policies that have driven these changes).

One is the systematic distruction of the public school system. It is in school that we learn to get along with others, learned a shared (if not always accurate) history, learn basic science and math, and most importantly critical reading, thinking and writing skills. The last forty years the system has been tested, underfunded, and polititized into little more then holding pens for children while their parents attend to the business of making money to survive.

This eduction in the public shool was modified and extended by the family at home. Top dinner conversation was about what you had learned that day and how it fit or did not fit with your family's values and goals. You heard two sides to the conversation, not one.

Which brings me to point two:

Media consolidation and the lost of news independance. During the sixties, the news was, by law (regulation actually) run independently from it's parent organization as a PUBLIC SERVICE. In order to get a FCC licence media outlets where required to allow their news departments editorial independence. There was also the FAIRNESS DOCTRINE that required all commentary and analysis to present both sides of an issue.

Not so surprising is the fact that it was difficult to find (easily) online sources for the above (I'm not all that good at finding the best online sources and certain search engines only provide paid-for or current results whatever your search - see "The Filter Bubble" by Eli Pariser) so Wiki it is:

en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...

My trouble with finding good sources on the News issues is an example of how the internet has contributed to both the demise of public education and critical thinking and how the media reinforces 'dumbing down'. If you search for information and only find what a search engine (no fairness doctrine required) wants to show you - how can you educate yourself on important matters.

One - Education - independent, teacher-led education.
Two - Independent News

and a whole slew of money from special interests (remember the 501(c)s are considered by the IRS as 'educational non-profits')

Ultimately, the blames lies with each and everyone of us. I choose to live in my delusional fantasy land more then the real world, I've been conditioned to the quick fix of media, I need that hit of violence from TV and the News, I need that anger that LS250 mentioned. And only I can back off from it and think and act calmly because that is what is required.

Here is a link to a Time article on the Fairness Doctrine:

content.time.com...

The doctrine stayed in effect, and was enforced until FCC chairman Mark Fowler began rolling it back during Reagan's second term — despite complaints from some in the Administration that it was all that kept broadcast journalists from thoroughly lambasting Reagan's policies on air. In 1987, the FCC panel repealed the Fairness Doctrine altogether with a 4-0 vote.

The act is rooted in the media world of 1949, when lawmakers became concerned that by virtue of their near-stranglehold on nationwide TV broadcasting, the three main television networks — NBC, ABC and CBS — could misuse their broadcast licenses to set a biased public agenda. The Fairness Doctrine, which mandated that broadcast networks devote time to contrasting views on issues of public importance, was meant to level the playing field. Congress backed the policy in 1954, and by the 1970s the FCC called the doctrine the "single most important requirement of operation in the public interest — the sine qua non for grant of a renewal of license."

originally posted by: FyreByrd
One is the systematic distruction of the public school system. It is in school that we learn to get along with others, learned a shared (if not always accurate) history, learn basic science and math, and most importantly critical reading, thinking and writing skills. The last forty years the system has been tested, underfunded, and polititized into little more then holding pens for children while their parents attend to the business of making money to survive.

Yup, agreed, I wrote an entire well recieved thread on how our schools have been turned into fact regurgitating machines for tests rather than teaching children how to think and question the very systems they are embedded with-in.

Read here: Neil DeGrasse Tyson - Best point ever made on childrens ambitions lost by parenting and testing

It's a sad state of affiars. I really think that much of education has been dumbed down and Americans, and many similar countires like the UK, are trying to produce a populace that doesn't want to learn and are quite happy to just get normal 'cog in the works' jobs. China is excelling in good eduation, just check their literacy and mathematical literacy scores vs the west, and we are failing. Everyone knows the hardest working people at uni nowadays are Chinese students. This is half the reason why the west is slowly becoming a declining, ignorant empire.

I no longer get pissed its bad for the blood pressure.

And with the internet its SOOOOOO easy to get EVEN.

I went in to get my truck smoged and the smog place told me that it failed because the check engine light did not work.
after two days of taking the dash of my truck apart and tracing wires i found there was no connections from the computer to the check engine light on my truck and never had been for that engine.
I got the truck smoged at another place and went back to the shop that i had been failed at and wanted my money back .
they refused.

That shop has now been burned on every site i could find on the internet and i filed a complaint with the state Bureau of auto repair because the state smog machine readout said there is no check engine light i the truck model i have.

originally posted by: ANNED
I no longer get pissed its bad for the blood pressure.

And with the internet its SOOOOOO easy to get EVEN.

How have you gotten even?

Unless your blood is boiling you haven't raised your BP enough.

In 1945, Grand Rapids, Michigan, adjusted the fluoride content of its water supply to 1.0 ppm and thus became the first city to implement community water fluoridation. By 1992, more than 60 percent of the U.S. population served by public water systems had access to water fluoridated at approximately 1.0 ppm, the optimal level to prevent tooth decay.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) considers fluoridation of water one of the greatest achievements in public health in the 20th century.
This answer is based on source information from the National Cancer Institute.

Born in 45? You'd be a prime age for causing a ruckus in the 60's. By the 80's, many kids being born had parents who had been drinking this stuff for years- and now most people in their 20's has been drinking it their whole life.

Drugs that make us docile, cell phones that keep us distracted from whats going on around us (Kids cant even sit and think for five minutes while they take a crap anymore)- and more edited and orchestrated mass media than you can shake a stick at being fed into our every oraface during our every waking hour.

I've said it before and I'll say it again- the average person is clueless about the world. Most of them are perfectly happy to work 9-5, rent their apartment, lease their less than five year old car. They pay their taxes, consume their products, and take their medication. They're so tuned into their system that they angrily reject alternative views.

Until their minds can be set free, they are one with the enemy.
And they outnumber us, by a thousand to one.

While we get mad about tyrannous leaders taking our freedoms,
they get mad about netflix buffering.

We get mad that huge corporations are conspiring to take control of our last channel of free speech (the internet),
they cheer because youtube traffic will take priority over our communications.

While we fret about the future and what to do when the fuel stops pumping or the "money" stops flowing,
they idly go about their lives- Go to work, pay their rent, watch their popular television and buy that hot new product.