QOTD: WHAT ARE YOU WATCHING?

When old people try to use technology - Imgur

I’m pretty much a Luddite when it comes to technology, especially phones and TV. I have paid for the bundle of cable, internet & phone for a couple decades. I would switch back and forth from Comcast to Verizon Fios whenever they would offer a two year special price. Meanwhile, my kids were signing up for streaming services and getting Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO and Hulu.

We stopped using our land line phone years ago. I just realized I could watch all the stations we were getting from Verizon Fios on my son’s Hulu account. I called Verizon yesterday and cancelled my TV and phone service. My monthly bill will go from $176 to $52. I love saving money.

1. Do you still have the traditional bundled (TV, internet, phone) package?

2. If not, what have you switched to?

3. Have any of you pulled the plug completely on cable TV and phone landlines?

4. How much do you pay per month for internet, TV and phone?

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VONNEGUT’S DARK VISION ARRIVED 60 YEARS EARLY

“THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.” – Harrison Bergeron – Kurt Vonnegut

Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut Short Story Bundle Common Core Aligned

Kurt Vonnegut’s short story – Harrison Bergeron – was written in 1961, and in Vonnegut’s darkly satirical style, portrayed America in 2081 as an disgracefully dystopian nightmare. Little did Vonnegut know what he considered outrageous and 120 years in the future, would be far closer to our current dystopian reality just 60 years later. The story was brought to my attention by my wife a week ago when we were talking about the absurdity of masks, their uselessness in stopping viruses, how they are nothing more than a means to control the population, being used to spread fear, and as a dehumanizing technique.

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Turn Off, Tune Out And Drop Out

Guest Post by The Zman

Television is the great propaganda weapon of the liberal democratic state, so it is a useful window into the thinking of the oligarchs. Movies and television shows still have to attract an audience, so they are usually the trailing edge of whatever the oligarchs are trying to impose on society, but the ads are a different matter. They are the leading edge of the latest Progressive fads. They know people will not abandon a show or movie just because the ads are offensive.

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THIS DAY IN HISTORY – John Logie Baird demonstrates TV – 1926

Via History.com

On January 26, 1926, John Logie Baird, a Scottish inventor, gives the first public demonstration of a true television system in London, launching a revolution in communication and entertainment. Baird’s invention, a pictorial-transmission machine he called a “televisor,” used mechanical rotating disks to scan moving images into electronic impulses. This information was then transmitted by cable to a screen where it showed up as a low-resolution pattern of light and dark. Baird’s first television program showed the heads of two ventriloquist dummies, which he operated in front of the camera apparatus out of view of the audience.

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America’s Well-Documented Decline Amid Wars in the Air

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

In 1976, some of the families sharing older ancestral lineages in my hometown were asked to march together in our bicentennial parade.  Although I was at an age where I found it somewhat embarrassing, I did enjoy waving at my friends and schoolmates along the way. Especially the girls.

Although the Saccharine Seventies manifested as a tarnishing patina on the silver platter of Norman Rockwell’s America, much of the shine still remained then in my hometown; even in the years before Ronald Reagan’s repolishing as the table was set again for his 1984 “Morning in America” commercial.

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The Epistemology of Television: The American Arc in Six Programs

Guest Post by Hardscrabble Farmer

It’s hard not to be torn on the value of television but it’s impact is undeniable. It’s sound and flickering lights have served as a backdrop for most of American life and it is a rare home that does not contain at least one and often many more screens in each dwelling. I was part of the first generation that grew up in a world of television. One of my first memories was of the day when my father took me at the age of four to Korvette’s Department store in Trenton, New Jersey to buy our first television set.

It was black and white model, color TV had yet to be invented, and it’s screen was roughly the size of a lunchbox, but it marked our family as having moved into the modern world. My father wanted it to be a surprise for my mother and so when we went to pick her up from work that day I was able to contain my excitement right up until the moment she opened the car door. “We got a TV!” I remember yelling in complete joy while at the same time feeling a deep sense of guilt for ruining the secret I’d promised to keep.

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TECHNOLOGY: DISTRACTING, DISTURBING, DECEIVING & DELUDING OURSELVES TO DEATH

“What Huxley teaches is that in the age of advanced technology, spiritual devastation is more likely to come from an enemy with a smiling face than from one whose countenance exudes suspicion and hate. In the Huxleyan prophecy, Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours. There is no need for wardens or gates or Ministries of Truth.

When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; a culture-death is a clear possibility.”Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

Image result for huxley amusing ourselves to death

Something as mundane as using the restroom at work sometimes ends up triggering deeper thoughts about technology – its benefits, deficiencies and danger to our culture. I’ve been using the same restroom at work for the last twelve years. They remodeled the restroom a few years ago with the latest technology – automatic flushers, automatic soap dispensers, automatic spigots, and automatic towel dispenser. This technology is supposed to make things better, but from my perspective the technology just added complexity, glitches and unnecessary complications.

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MAD WORLD

And I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take
When people run in circles it’s a very very
Mad world, mad world

Image result for the primal scream

The haunting Gary Jules version of the Tears for Fears’ Mad World speaks to me in these tumultuous mad times. It must speak to many others, as the music video has been viewed over 132 million times. The melancholy video is shot from the top of an urban school building in a decaying decrepit bleak neighborhood with school children creating various figures on the concrete pavement below. The camera pans slowly to Gary Jules singing on the rooftop and captures the concrete jungle of non-descript architecture, identical office towers, gray cookie cutter apartment complexes, and a world devoid of joy and vibrancy.

The song was influenced by Arthur Janov’s theories in his book The Primal Scream. The chorus above about his “dreams of dying were the best he ever had” is representative of letting go of this mad world and being free of the monotony and release from the insanity of this world. Our ego fools us into thinking the madness of this world is actually normal. Day after day we live lives of quiet desperation. Despite all evidence our world is spinning out of control and the madness of the crowds is visible in financial markets, housing markets, politics, social justice, and social media, the level of normalcy bias among the populace has reached astounding levels, as we desperately try to convince ourselves everything will be alright. But it won’t.

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Old TV Shows

Guest Post by The Zman

I have been working on some projects that have required me to sit in front of the laptop most evenings. My habit when I have to work in the evening has been to watch some television while working. Without a cable subscription, this means watching something off the Kodi or whatever movies are free on Amazon. I saw they had The Sopranos and The Wire on prime, so I decided to binge watch those two series. I watched them when they were on, but it has been ten years so I figured I had forgotten most of it.

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The Poz

Guest Post by The Zman

I don’t have a cable subscription, so the habit of channel surfing is unavailable to me, which means I miss much of what passes for pop culture. If I watch a movie, it is off the pirate system or from Amazon. TV shows I can binge watch off the Kodi, without having to sit through the commercials. Frankly, it is the only way I can watch television now. The commercials are so full of multicultural proselytizing, that I can’t make it through a normal show. That said, there are some shows that are not full of multiculti agit-prop.

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TV Off The Grid

Guest Post by The Zman

When I had a TV subscription, my viewing habits were fairly simple. In the evening, I would put on the television and try to find a sporting event. If nothing of interest was on, then I would flip around the channels until I found something, but more often than not, I’d settle for a re-run of some show like Seinfeld. I never had the patience for channel surfing, so much of it went unnoticed and unwatched. Most of the time, the television was just background noise while I did something else like screw around on-line.

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Me and TV

Guest Post by The Zman

I had been a DirecTV subscriber for years, mostly so I could watch sports, which is the only reason I have a television. I’ve gone long stretches of my life without a TV, but it is a nice convenience for when you’re stuck at home with nothing better to do. I do enjoy watching baseball and football. Some of the long form dramas produced by the big cable channels have been good too. Otherwise, I’ve never developed the habit of following sitcoms and serials. I doubt I could name one show popular in prime time.

Back in January I decided to cancel my subscription. The cost had reached the point where it no longer made sense. The game DirecTV plays is they slowly jack up the monthly fee until you decide you’ve had enough and call to cancel. They haggle with you and offer a discount if you stay with them. It is a crazy way to do business, but I suppose it works for them. Most Americans hate confrontations over money and most Americans hate haggling. My Arab friends love DirecTV.

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WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON? (PART TWO)

In Part One of this article I exposed the establishment narrative of a strong economy as rubbish by providing hard data regarding imploding gasoline usage, failing bricks and mortar retailers and plunging restaurant sales.

“Inflation may indeed bring benefits for a short time to favored groups, but only at the expense of others. And in the long run it brings ruinous consequences to the whole community. Even a relatively mild inflation distorts the structure of production. It leads to the overexpansion of some industries at the expense of others. This involves a misapplication and waste of capital. When the inflation collapses, or is brought to a halt, the misdirected capital investment—whether in the form of machines, factories or office buildings—cannot yield an adequate return and loses the greater part of its value.Nor is it possible to bring inflation to a smooth and gentle stop, and so avert a subsequent depression.” – Henry Hazlitt – Economics in One Lesson

Inflation is the opium of the masses. The establishment’s interest in dumbing down the masses through government controlled public school indoctrination couldn’t be clearer than examining the chart below. The average non-thinking, math challenged, iGadget distracted, media controlled pawn thinks their household income has risen by $6,000 since 2008 because they have no understanding of Fed created inflation.

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Nothing Is Real: When Reality TV Programming Masquerades as Politics

Guest post by John W. Whitehead

“When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.”— Professor Neil Postman

Donald Trump no longer needs to launch Trump TV.

He’s already the star of his own political reality show.

Americans have a voracious appetite for TV entertainment, and the Trump reality show—guest starring outraged Democrats with a newly awakened conscience for immigrants and the poor, power-hungry Republicans eager to take advantage of their return to power, and a hodgepodge of other special interest groups with dubious motives—feeds that appetite for titillating, soap opera drama.

After all, who needs the insults, narcissism and power plays that are hallmarks of reality shows such as Celebrity Apprentice or Keeping Up with the Kardashians when you can have all that and more delivered up by the likes of Donald Trump and his cohorts?

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TV IS DYING

As Netflix, Hulu and other streaming portals emerge, traditional TV is finding itself under increased pressure to retain its place on top of the media food chain. While it is still the most used medium by a wide margin, there are signs that indicate its future may not look quite as bright.

As figures from Nielsen’s quarterly Total Audience report indicate, young Americans are watching less and less TV. Since Q1 2011, the time Americans aged 12-17 spent watching TV has dropped by more than 25%. In the most recent quarter, teenagers spent an average of 17 hours and 52 minutes a week watching live TV, down from more than 24 hours in the first quarter of 2011.

Infographic: American Teens Are Turning Their Backs on TV | Statista

You will find more statistics at Statista