© Corbett Report
You can tell a lot about an item by the nicknames we give it. So what do our nicknames for the television tell us about that device?
"The idiot box."
"The boob tube."
"The tell-lie-vision."
It doesn't take a super sleuth to puzzle this one out. From the very inception of commercial television in the 1950s — when the phrase "boob tube" was
first coined to lament the dumbing-down effect that the device was presumed to be having on the populace — to the zenith of the TV's cultural hegemony in the late 20th century, fears about the television's ability to create zombified couch potatoes out of its passive audience have been ever-present.
It's no coincidence that the 2006 comedy (or should that be
docudrama?),
Idiocracy, introduces its viewers to the eponymous future idiocracy — in which the intelligence of the population has declined to shockingly low levels — by showing a junk food-ingesting "lawyer" in the midst of enjoying the hit television show of the year 2505,
Ow! My Balls! It's also no coincidence that the same movie sees protagonist Private Joe Bauers formulating a plan for heading off the development of this idiocracy by encouraging people to read books rather than watch TV.
We all know the trope: television makes you dumb, lazy and passive, and (by implication) it renders you susceptible to the lies and manipulations of those who create the TV programming. But is it true?
As it turns out, not only are concerns about the content and the presentation of TV programming well-founded, but there is an even darker side to the device than is commonly realized.
There is ample research to suggest that the TV is actually designed to send you into a trance-like state that lowers your cognitive defences against the lies the TV networks (and their corporate owners) are attempting to push on their docile audience.
In order to understand this neglected part of the television story, we first have to reconsider the advent of commercial radio in the 1920s and the civilization-altering effects it wrought on the world in the 1930s.
Comment: Commentary from Twitter about the missile test:
Putin jokes about the state of US tech with a journalist saying that no, Russian's are not developing Mach 3 technology, because they're already at Mach 20:
See also:
- Satellite photo reveals wreckage of $2 BILLION US B-2 Stealth bomber, landing gear gave way after emergency landing - reports
- New AUKUS anti-China alliance could spark global arms race, Moscow warns, as Beijing sounds alarm over West's 'Cold War' tactics
- US warship intercepted by Russian Navy while trying to sail into country's territorial waters, Moscow says amid drills with China
And check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal: Why You Should Question Media Reports About China 'Causing Covid' And 'Invading Taiwan'