Morbid news or morbid public?
Wanted to share some of my thoughts on today’s media and news broadcasting.
Here are few today’s headlines:
-Muslims Assault U.S. Embassy in Indonesia
-Scientist say California quake could cause Katrina II
-Tens of Thousands Lack Power in Northeast
-Filipino Victims Buried in Mass Grave
Is it just me or all of the stations and news providers are bringing ONLY bad news?
I don’t really blame them since they are doing it for ratings. News stations will go where the money and ratings is. No question about it, but what I do resent is that public curiosity became so morbid and dark that anything related to mass deaths or chopping the heads off will bring them to the computer screen or make them read it. A decade ago we had only a small percentage of people surfing the net for news like that, and you could find it only on certain sites which are gaining in popularity these days. Right now everyone is doing it. Yahoo, MSN, etc. Every time I go to yahoo to read the news I am left out with emptiness and feeling depressed and I just want to blow my fricking brains out, since the world is coming to an end (at least according to the news)
Then I realized that the truth is: world is not coming to an end and it’s a beautiful place. It’s just not in the news papers. Some people might say that I am dreaming and that I lost a touch with reality. Well, I think that person creates world around him with the way he thinks. Problem is that public will absorb only “bad headlines†(not that there is any other choice in the mainstream media) and create a picture of a world that is going to hell in a basket. So what’s the answer? How to keep up with current events and not turn into death hungry psychopath? I think there are only two choices:
1. Watch the news and become seriously disturbed and insecure individual
2. Don’t watch it at all and the only way of knowing if Iran is built WMD is if you see a mushroom cloud through your window.If there is another choice, please let me know.
This led me to question:is public driving the media to a morbid direction or is it the other way around?
February 20th, 2006 at 9:19 am
I try not to read any of the major news outlets anymore.
My site has enough news for me
February 20th, 2006 at 5:59 pm
The point you made about the early days of the internet, and what was considered news – Is almost proof that what I say now is true. The early internet primarily consisted of technically proficient, and generally a more educated audience. Now that the rest of the population, and the Corporate Monster has sunk its teeth in – we are destined now to only get the daytime, soapopera drama , and political propaganda suited for the mass uneducated.
February 22nd, 2006 at 9:18 am
I agree that the early internet was populated with a more educated user base and the focus of it much more directed. The Internet is now driven by advertising. It’s ruining it just as it ruined the potential of television as an art form.
As long as people want free entertainment whether it’s music, movies, porn, gambling, news, reading blogs, or watching television, this entertainment will be supported by advertising and will therefore be third rate which is an apt description of the internet at this time.
February 23rd, 2006 at 5:54 pm
I agree that the news is often sensasationalized, and that that death is often a selling point. However, its often death at a safe-distance, like passing a train wreck. That allows people to indulge in their morbid curiousity, thus it sells. Paradoxically, REAL dangers to our safety aren’t emphasized enough. That would disturb people, and ratings would go down. Can’t have that.
February 23rd, 2006 at 8:07 pm
Set an example: dont click or watch. Instead, go to church on Sunday. People are nice there and the news is always good.
February 23rd, 2006 at 10:56 pm
There is no news in church. Just discussions on what happened 2000 years ago and what will happen. There is no middle or current discussions, therefore there is no news in church.
(hence the name “news”)
February 25th, 2006 at 6:53 pm
Don’t make things up. Go to church and then talk about it.
February 26th, 2006 at 6:17 pm
America has said goodbye to the Enlightenment and modernity. In a few years, you will be burned at stake if you dance or teach evolution.
February 26th, 2006 at 10:58 pm
Occassionally, I dance and teach evolution at the same time to the throbbing beat of a Euro-techno track called “Natural Selection.” Needless to say, the Southern Baptist Convention has boycotted The Viscount.
But moody is absolutley correct. There is no real “news” in church. To take what is being said seriously, you have to suspend your ability to put it to a rational test. Also, its complete garbage to say “the people are nice” in church. No they’re not. A church is a social organization like any other, a few nice people and a lot of assholes. In fact some churches really cater to the asshole demographic specifically, providing a sorts of myths of persecution that people can fit themselves into, villafying Jews, gays, the shadowy “liberal elite” for their own personal misery.
February 27th, 2006 at 1:19 am
Hear hear Viscount!
February 27th, 2006 at 4:08 pm
Another thing about the stuff you hear in church is that much of it involves miracles. Now, there very well maybe a God, but I think the justification for miracles is pretty lame.
First off, unless you actually witness the miracle yourself with your own eyes, it contradicts good judgement to believe in a miracle. On one hand you have the testimony of someone telling you about an event that makes no logical sense. On the other you have a life time of experience concerning the world that tells you such a thing could not occur. Unless your life experience has been a novel by Garcia Marquez, reason dictates you have to go with the latter. To choose the former would be an act of faith, not sound judgement based on reason.
Second, have you ever noticed how miracles, like UFO sightings, tend to be told by the mentally insane and/or substance abusers? Kind of hurts the whole credibility of it all, doesn’t it? I knew a guy who “witnessed” to me about how he was saved… This occured when his daily breakfast consisted of three shots of Jack Daniels.
Third, the idea of miracles is often self-contradictory. A lot of Christians (among others) argue that the world and everything that happens on it is directed by the will of God, and that everything has its purpose. Well if thats the case, whats the need for divine intervention? Does God have an indecisive personality, so that he contradicts his own will from time to time? This is kind of frightening: The ruler of the universe is a “flip-flopper.”
So to restate, there is no news in church, mosques, or any other such facilities. Just speculation with no rational basis.
February 27th, 2006 at 5:22 pm
My biggest problem with God is the “free will”.
If God gave us free will and then came down to save us and then said “the only way to gates of heaven is through Me”, then what kind of a choice is that? There is no choice so there is no free will. If God tells you: you can belive in me and accept me as your saviour and you’ll go to heaven or don’t believe in me and you’ll be eternally damned, which choice you will pick? Hmmm let me think…
Not much of a choice there. it’s already laid out for you.
And as far as the religion goes , i think its the opiate for the masses. There are some good things about religion but if you’re going to believe in God, then by all means have faith and believe, but thats between you and God. not between you and church. I don’t need to show off to everyone around me that i belive in God and go to church on every sunday, nor do i need prayer to be publicly presented over the PA on the stadium right before football game. To me thats showing off. you think God will not hear you if you’re not going through the PA? Like i said, it is between you and God. Not between God and stadium or God and church.
February 27th, 2006 at 7:38 pm
Moody –
Lets think about what you just said… If God came down looked you in the eye, and said I am in charge…. then I would totally agree with you — that there is no free-will in that. Thats exactly the whole premise of free-will in Judeo/Christian thought. The Angels for example, dont have free-will , why – because they see, and know God, hence no free-will. Mankind on the other hand must decide for himself whether or not too believe, and there you get your free-will. You either get it , or you dont, thats totally up to YOU.
February 27th, 2006 at 7:46 pm
But if the evidence that God exists is so overwhelming (according to bible and the church) then there is no free will. In order for me to believe is by evidence. If you believe that God exisist just on faith then something is worng with you. You need some kind of evidence, and christians and catholics claim that Bible is undisputed book with overwhelming evidence, which proves my point that there is no free will, otherwise christians would debate bible not blindly follow it.
This is a chicken-egg paradox. If God came down and told us to believe then there would be no free will. If God didn’t came down and no one heard of God then there would be no reason to believe and we would probably make up a higher being just not to feel alone. Therefore it is a paradox.
February 27th, 2006 at 7:49 pm
“You either get it , or you dont, thats totally up to YOU.”
And who’s it up to if i am dumb and cannot get it? I think its up to my creator. Don’t you think?
February 27th, 2006 at 7:50 pm
Ok … well prove too me with scientific facts, and figures…that you love your wife, and while your at that prove that love exists…
February 27th, 2006 at 7:53 pm
If you dont get it — I would say that was your choice… not that you were too “dumb, but that you chose to put your faith in something else, be it science, money,USA, Mohammed, or Michael Jordan….
Its a concious choise to believe or not .
February 27th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
Ok, here it goes.
X(would)+die(for)+Y = love
Where X is me and Y is my wife. You can apply this formul to anything.
Besides, my question was about belief not a proof.
February 27th, 2006 at 9:08 pm
Although I do not consider myself a religious person and find organized religion often times abhorrent, it is pretty amazing what it can do. Let’s remember that the Civil Rights movement in this country was started in Baptist churches in the South, that Gandhi was profoundly religious as was Mother Theresa. Religion can create communities and make people do good things in the world and can be personal transforming experiences. But I think that when it becomes a dogma–a blind belief in something at the exclusion of everything else–then it becomes a political weapon and a literal weapon eventually in times of war.
Also, the Enlightenment is a religion in itself. The whole scientific method, while I firmly believe in it, is also based on a large amount of faith. That is, we still have to believe that 2+2=4. And finally, even an atheist has faith: he/she believes that there is no God. This in itself requires a leap of faith.
February 28th, 2006 at 5:15 pm
The Enlightenment is not exactly analogous religion as we think of it. 1) Unlike other religions, you can be a Christian, Muslim, whatever, and believe in the Enligtenment. Of course, you will be going on faith alone, but for the true believer, thats the point anyway. 2) What is interesting about the Enlightenment is that even though it was great period of intellectual advancement, the Enlightenment wasn’t so much about discovering previously unknown knowledge as it was challenging the basis for previous knowledge. For example, challenging the validity of Natural Religion, which claimed to explain the workings of the world, or undoing the idea of cause and effect. Unlike religion, the Enlightenment doesn’t make claims to truth so much as it puts claims to truth to rational test.