Yeah, LMNO, so this Patrick Henry freak...

[Captain Utopia]

I was recently reminded of some reading I did in college, way back in the last century, by a British historian arguing that the critical technology, for the early phase of the industrial revolution, was gin.

The transformation from rural to urban life was so sudden, and so wrenching, that the only thing society could do to manage was to drink itself into a stupor for a generation. The stories from that era are amazing-- there were gin pushcarts working their way through the streets of London.

And it wasn't until society woke up from that collective bender that we actually started to get the institutional structures that we associate with the industrial revolution today. Things like public libraries and museums, increasingly broad education for children, elected leaders--a lot of things we like--didn't happen until having all of those people together stopped seeming like a crisis and started seeming like an asset.

It wasn't until people started thinking of this as a vast civic surplus, one they could design for rather than just dissipate, that we started to get what we think of now as an industrial society.


If I had to pick the critical technology for the 20th century, the bit of social lubricant without which the wheels would've come off the whole enterprise, I'd say it was the sitcom. Starting with the Second World War a whole series of things happened--rising GDP per capita, rising educational attainment, rising life expectancy and, critically, a rising number of people who were working five-day work weeks. For the first time, society forced onto an enormous number of its citizens the requirement to manage something they had never had to manage before--free time.


And what did we do with that free time? Well, mostly we spent it watching TV.

...

Full text and video.

It basically makes a compelling case that TV as we know it is in decline, and once we stumble upon one of the ways to harness that wasted energy, large irrevocable changes will occur. Such that when historians look back they'll say: "The stories from that era are amazing-- people spent upwards of a third of their entire lives passively sitting in front of a glowing box"

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Such that when historians look back they'll say: "The stories from that era are amazing-- people spent upwards of a third of their entire lives passively sitting in front of a glowing box"

Actually, they'll probably say things like "Stay away from the ruins of the old ones.  They're haunted."

[Cramulus]

that was an interesting read - thanks, FP

[Captain Utopia]

Another avenue of attack might be the Neilson Ratings System - basically the thing which determines what shows live or die on US TV. I started doing some research into this last year, and it is as corrupt and worthless as you could expect given the stakes - millions of dollars move in response to a single decimal place in a rating. I looked into one story at the time - Neilson themselves, for no reason given their remit, had created a story around how one US presidential candidate was doing significantly better than the other based upon some figures for the respective conventions, or somesuch. But upon further examination, the deltas were small and well within Neilsons own stated margin of error.

In other words there was nothing statistically significant there, yet they chose to misconstrue it and make a political claim out of it anyway - presumably towards their own gain.

The point is, I think that there's enough real dirt and corruption there, such that it could provide a useful foundation for something more directed: "Liberals! Neilson is funded by adverts and thus selectively promotes shows which encourage mass consumption and degradation of the environment", "Conservatives! Neilson is in league with Obama to make sure as many programs as possible contain a hidden left-wing bias". Or something better - it is a shadowy secretive organisation which holds so many puppet strings that all paranoia can be justified.

[Cramulus]

there was a one-line meme bomb popular around here for a while which went like:

While you were playing Warcraft, we were saving lives.



I like this, although it does come with a kind of heavy moral pronouncement.


in the end, the rhetoric of resistance is kind of effete if all it does is comment on what it tries to defeat.

You can't just craft a meme which is a variation of "TV is bad"... I think it takes a multi-prong approach which includes rebranding TV (ie - associating TV watching with something else) and offering alternatives.



Compare/contrast - RWHN's program to prevent kids from getting into drugs focuses on encouraging them to seek out natural highs.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Another avenue of attack might be the Neilson Ratings System - basically the thing which determines what shows live or die on US TV. I started doing some research into this last year, and it is as corrupt and worthless as you could expect given the stakes - millions of dollars move in response to a single decimal place in a rating. I looked into one story at the time - Neilson themselves, for no reason given their remit, had created a story around how one US presidential candidate was doing significantly better than the other based upon some figures for the respective conventions, or somesuch. But upon further examination, the deltas were small and well within Neilsons own stated margin of error.

In other words there was nothing statistically significant there, yet they chose to misconstrue it and make a political claim out of it anyway - presumably towards their own gain.

The point is, I think that there's enough real dirt and corruption there, such that it could provide a useful foundation for something more directed: "Liberals! Neilson is funded by adverts and thus selectively promotes shows which encourage mass consumption and degradation of the environment", "Conservatives! Neilson is in league with Obama to make sure as many programs as possible contain a hidden left-wing bias". Or something better - it is a shadowy secretive organisation which holds so many puppet strings that all paranoia can be justified.

FP, this might be the best, most concrete idea yet.  I'm gonna do some chewing on this, but if you can refine it a bit, I think we should move on it.

I'm a dirty little girl, and as such I have no problem pretending to be a neocon with a straight face.

ETA:  By "refine", I mean get us some links, etc, if you can, and perhaps an idea for a plan of attack.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

there was a one-line meme bomb popular around here for a while which went like:

While you were playing Warcraft, we were saving lives.



I like this, although it does come with a kind of heavy moral pronouncement.


in the end, the rhetoric of resistance is kind of effete if all it does is comment on what it tries to defeat.

You can't just craft a meme which is a variation of "TV is bad"... I think it takes a multi-prong approach which includes rebranding TV (ie - associating TV watching with something else) and offering alternatives.



Compare/contrast - RWHN's program to prevent kids from getting into drugs focuses on encouraging them to seek out natural highs.

Natural Entertainment?

The problem with that... is that TV and Playstation and XBox and Broadband are just so much easier than natural entertainment.

I have a group of friends right now who spend 4 hours a night playing Rock Band. Not a single one of them actually plays an instrument though. Rock Band is easy, actually learning to play is not as easy.

I have friends that spend hours on that stupid gardening game, and they have no idea how to actually plant food or ever bother to garden... the game is easy, the real thing is hard.

What can we replace television and electronic entertainment with that is equally accessible?

I drive to a State Park and hike once or twice a month... most of my friends don't, because it involves an hour drive, several hours "just walking in the woods" when they have so many other things that they could be doing... like WoW and Rock Band.

It's a sticky fly paper trap and all the flies look like they're dancing.

[Cramulus]

well I don't think it's possible to come up with an activity which is both more entertaining and accessible than video.


But the phrase "If you're bored, your boring", all by itself, has done a lot to keep me off the couch.


If we go the one-line meme bomb route...

Code Select Expand

Your friends aren't on prime time.

Code Select Expand

Real humor doesn't need a laugh track.

Code Select Expand

What would this world be like if we spent as much time entertaining as we do being entertained?



edit:typo

[Captain Utopia]

FP, this might be the best, most concrete idea yet.  I'm gonna do some chewing on this, but if you can refine it a bit, I think we should move on it.

I'm a dirty little girl, and as such I have no problem pretending to be a neocon with a straight face.

ETA:  By "refine", I mean get us some links, etc, if you can, and perhaps an idea for a plan of attack.

I don't have too much in the way of links as I didn't keep my notes and got bored when I realised that no one would read it in my LJ anyway. My Google web history has these from that period though - they basically just cover problems with the collection methods and a little bit on margin of error and potential corruption.

Either way, I think it would would better as one line of attack in a broader strategy, as it doesn't have much "impact" by itself. I think I can work it into the "TV is killing your local community/environment/congregation" idea, though it'll take a day or two.

[Rumckle]

well I don't think it's possible to come up with an activity which is both more entertaining and accessible than video.

I think you may be right on the accessible part, but more entertaining I think is easy.

In my opinion people have forgotten that contentment =/= enjoyment.


Also, I seem to remember hearing somewhere that 9 months after massive state/city wide blackouts the birthrate spikes. Anyone else hear something similar?

Wait nevermind, just checked snopes.

[Captain Utopia]

well I don't think it's possible to come up with an activity which is both more entertaining and accessible than video.

I think you may be right on the accessible part, but more entertaining I think is easy.

In my opinion people have forgotten that contentment =/= enjoyment.

TV has something for almost everyone -- finding something which is as widely entertaining/accessible for everyone is not a trivial task - getting everyone to turn off their tvs at the same time might be an unattainable holy grail?

If you target a particular demographic though it might be easier - e.g. folk in their 20s in a city might get more of a kick out of something like larpgasm, than a retiree who might be more susceptible to community bingo nights. Or something.

[rong]

i don't watch much TV.  most people i know don't watch much TV.  is it possible that the TV is only telling us that everyone watches TV all the time in an attempt to convince us that watching more TV is the right thing to do?

I used to think the brain was the most amazing organ in my body.  But then i thought, look who's telling me that.

[Precious Moments Zalgo]

i don't watch much TV.  most people i know don't watch much TV.  is it possible that the TV is only telling us that everyone watches TV all the time in an attempt to convince us that watching more TV is the right thing to do?

I used to think the brain was the most amazing organ in my body.  But then i thought, look who's telling me that.

You must know different sorts of people from the ones I know.  I watch maybe 4 hours of TV per month, but everyone I know whose TV habits I am aware of has a set of shows that they follow regularly and watches upwards of 15 hours of TV per week.  In my house, if there is someone besides me who is home and awake, then there's at least one running TV somewhere in the house.

[Triple Zero]

To come at this from another angle - if we're looking to nudge people away from the glowing box, what are we nudging them towards? How should people be spending their time?

I got a thought related to that, also related to the "bored monkey" that was mentioned before ITT.

Last week, I shut myself off from the Internet. I didn't follow through long enough and will have to repeat the exercise, but I did notice some things.

I got bored.

But in a good way.

I really never should have to get really bored, my mind is so chockfull of crazy ideas, I have at least 10 lifetimes worth of them to carry them out.

No, I got bored for a very short while, instead of clicking the next link, surfing to the next blog (or changing the channel I guess if you watch TV), I found that both books and (downloaded) TV series have an end to them, not just the real end, but also in attention span. Sure I can fire up the next episode, but I usually don't manage to watch more than two eps of a series before I want something new.

Online, there is always something new.

So anyway, these fleeting moments of boredom, really lasted only a few minutes, I got up and did other stuff, the crazy ideas I had been having got a step closer to being worked out, and all that. (Also, the laundry got done and such things, but yeah)

So the answer to your question, what do you replace TV with, is IMO, DO NOT REPLACE IT WITH ANYTHING

Let the monkeys experience that emptiness for a little while and wonder "hey, what am I going to do next?", I bet the most wonderful (and horrible) things will come from that.

Unfortunately, it turns out that the truly bored monkey can also turn into a vandalizing destructive monkey, instead of a creative monkey.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

To come at this from another angle - if we're looking to nudge people away from the glowing box, what are we nudging them towards? How should people be spending their time?

I got a thought related to that, also related to the "bored monkey" that was mentioned before ITT.

Last week, I shut myself off from the Internet. I didn't follow through long enough and will have to repeat the exercise, but I did notice some things.

I got bored.

But in a good way.

I really never should have to get really bored, my mind is so chockfull of crazy ideas, I have at least 10 lifetimes worth of them to carry them out.

No, I got bored for a very short while, instead of clicking the next link, surfing to the next blog (or changing the channel I guess if you watch TV), I found that both books and (downloaded) TV series have an end to them, not just the real end, but also in attention span. Sure I can fire up the next episode, but I usually don't manage to watch more than two eps of a series before I want something new.

Online, there is always something new.

So anyway, these fleeting moments of boredom, really lasted only a few minutes, I got up and did other stuff, the crazy ideas I had been having got a step closer to being worked out, and all that. (Also, the laundry got done and such things, but yeah)

So the answer to your question, what do you replace TV with, is IMO, DO NOT REPLACE IT WITH ANYTHING

Let the monkeys experience that emptiness for a little while and wonder "hey, what am I going to do next?", I bet the most wonderful (and horrible) things will come from that.

Unfortunately, it turns out that the truly bored monkey can also turn into a vandalizing destructive monkey, instead of a creative monkey.