NOTHING is black or white!

a reply to: and14263
Polarity, the red vs blue thing has been used for along time, in all types of ways, in all walks of life, and in all civilization. Today its merely more refined, its one of the cornerstones of memetic evolution in the human ecosystem. Its even just another manifestation of the dualistic universe plus and negative, zeros and ones...Or is it? For all you people know, even that is a lie you have been accustomed to.

originally posted by: and14263
Labour or Tories

Republicans or Democrats

That's the result of a "First past the post" electoral system. Such systems naturally evolve towards two-parties systems because it's how they are designed.

The main reason for America's majoritarian character is the electoral system for Congress. Members of Congress are elected in single-member districts according to the "first-past-the-post" (FPTP) principle, meaning that the candidate with the plurality of votes is the winner of the congressional seat. The losing party or parties win no representation at all. The first-past-the-post election tends to produce a small number of major parties, perhaps just two, a principle known in political science as Duverger's Law. Smaller parties are trampled in first-past-the-post elections.
—from Sachs' The Price of Civilization, 2011

en.wikipedia.org...

If you don't like it then you want to change your voting system to allow for smaller parties to exist too.

originally posted by: and14263
CAN'T YOU SEE WE'RE BEING DUMBED DOWN HERE?

Most people are dumbing themselves down actually. To forge yourself a personal opinion requires a critical sense, to read information from many different sources, to educate yourself about the subject discussed.

Most people are simply too lazy to do it and prefer people from "their group" to think for themselves. Humans are social animals and thus have a herd-like mentality.

Don't blame the media, blame evolution. Not everyone is predisposed to be an independent thinker.

a reply to: JUhrman

Do you think the media has effected evolution? I think it is effecting us negatively as humans.

It certainly effects society, which effects how we think and behave.

originally posted by: and14263
Do you think the media has effected evolution?

I don't think you understand how evolution works. It doesn't operates on such small timescales.



What you have is simply the good old fear of technology. It's OK everyone becomes like you when they get old.


Socrates was saying that the writing was bad because it would "create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories".

Conrad Gessner was saying in the XVIth century that the printing press would overwhelm people with data and that this overabundance would be both "confusing and harmful" to the mind.

Actually, when you say the media are bad you fall into your own trap and call them black. The irony




Just like today someone would look at Socrates and Gessner and think they were silly and that both the writing and the printing press were major tools of the intellectual emancipation, in 100 years, someone will dig this old thread and see your comment and think "Silly and14263, being afraid of the media and thinking they were bad, that they prevented people to think from themselves".

Not all is black or white my friend

originally posted by: Develo

originally posted by: and14263
Do you think the media has effected evolution?

I don't think you understand how evolution works. It doesn't operates on such small timescales.

...

That's why I asked the question. I do not believe the media has been around long enough to effect evolution. However I used the term devolution in the OP I think... meaning we are devolving, becoming dumbed down. In that context I think the term works.

Technology is a wonderful thing.

Manipulation of content within media is an evil, especially when it is disguised as unbiased and helpful/good for us.

To use you wonderfully non-condescending turn of phrase:

I don't think you understand what media is.

Welcome to ATS, I'm sure you'll make lots of friends here.

originally posted by: and14263
Welcome to ATS, I'm sure you'll make lots of friends here.

I'm not here to make friends, just to deny ignorance

The truth lies somewhere in the middle...

That's my signature...
Mediator's the name, painting in grey's the game.

a reply to: Develo
The funny thing is both Socrates and Gessner were right. Its all just habit and habitat. Or actually its backwards, first comes habitat which sets habit. And in a more technological future, well things will change even more.

a reply to: and14263
It not so much the media is doing anything new. There merely using old tricks which have been known for ages to achieve there ends. So basically there just using things which have been inbreed into us vie evolution for thousands to hundreds of thousands of years to reach there goals and outcomes.

Things like polarity and the whole herd aspect of humanity. So no! Media as you see it today has not been long enough to effect evolution, they just use certain things which humans have evolved through to gain there ends. The tricks of the trade to sort of say. But its all just part of evolution, even media.

originally posted by: Develo

originally posted by: and14263
Welcome to ATS, I'm sure you'll make lots of friends here.

I'm not here to make friends, just to deny ignorance

Okay, well start denying ignorance...

media1
ˈmiːdɪə/
noun: media; plural noun: media; noun: the media
1.
the main means of mass communication (television, radio, and newspapers) regarded collectively.
"their demands were publicized by the media"

Source

technology
tɛkˈnɒlədʒi/
noun: technology; plural noun: technologies
machinery and devices developed from scientific knowledge.
"it will reduce the industry's ability to spend money on new technology"

Source

a reply to: and14263

I wouldn't go that route if I was you since television, radio and printing press are all devices developed from scientific knowledge.

Like all technologies media are just tools, and tools can be used for good and bad.

Nothing is black or white

a reply to: Develo
I'm either being trolled or you are missing my point...

What we see on the media - as in newspapers, television shows and online news/publications, is IMO having a negative effect on our thought processes.

I'm not a Luddite, it's not the devices used to communicate the media, it's the content.

You get what I'm saying?

originally posted by: and14263
You get what I'm saying?

I get you make the same mistake you denounce in your OP, painting the content of a medium as mainly black.

The truth is that the content of a book, a TV show, a paper, doesn't make you dumber, no matter how bad or manipulative it is. If you are dumb you'll stay dumb. If you are critical you'll see right through it.

Some shows, papers, make you smarter and more critical, and some simply leave you as stupid as you were before.

You are like these people saying comic books make kids dumb, completely ignoring it's a major media just like books and movies and if you want good content of course you can choose good authors.

a reply to: Develo

I think our brains are VERY different.

a reply to: and14263

I think you hate to admit you are wrong. It's OK, happens to everyone really.

originally posted by: Develo
a reply to: and14263

I think you hate to admit you are wrong. It's OK, happens to everyone really.

Keep it up. It's been a while since I've bitten like this.

rationalwiki.org...

When presented with only two options, the false dichotomy alarm bells should start ringing.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

An illustrative quote favoured by the "right" wing.

A single moral premise, what is good cannot be evil, combined with polar opposite states of inertia or agency to create a unconditional self-fulfilling prophesy by ignoring the conditional tautological paradox.

The problem is that people have limited imagination, subsequently they also like things simple. They are also intransigent once they have concluded their "thoughts" and dislike any form of criticism, overt or otherwise.

This is the very stuff that feeds the machine of western civilisation.

They reinforce all media with it, main stream or not. Newspapers, television, film and electronic media to all sectors of the population by doing so. One side talks it "up", the other talks it "down".

Cultural idioms reinforce it. Business sells it. Politicians rely on it.

This forum is an example of it.

I am a believer/I am not a believer.

Take the red pill, or the blue.

With us or against us.

These tactics to suppress come from only one desire. To rule by division of all others. Those that feed the mechanism by perpetuating the division reap the rewards whether their supportive actions are explicit or tacit in nature.

Men divided from women.

Secularism from all religious belief.

One religious belief from all other religious beliefs.

Straight from gay.

The enabled from the disabled.

Rich from poor.

Black from white.

What is being hidden is evident at the roots of the metaphors espoused by religion. It should be at the heart of all science, in the striving of all man.

Compassion through empathy and understanding.

If this post can ever hope to avoid the accusation of falling into it's own trap, I will be the first to proffer that it cannot contain all the truth of the matter, but I would argue against all intransigence that it could ever be described as wholly wrong.