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You Cannot Turn it Off: News Addiction
BizangoBob writes: "In this time of madness, I find myself staying up later than usual, watching more tv than ever before, tracking more channels, with more open browser windows than even I did before. As though KNOWING more will somehow help. There's a great piece about news addiction in the Washington Post. It made me feel I'm not the only one."
Frankly, I feel the exact opposite. Although I want to know the latest as to what is happening in the rescue efforts and investigation, it seems to me that much of the news is simply the same facts being repeated. Particularly with the addition of one, or even two, news tickers, I am getting too much of the same news over and over again, at least on the major networks. It seems that Fox Cable News, CNN, and (C|MS)NBC break up the hard facts enough with experts to pique my interest.
- Someday the voices will stop, and I'll be able to rest...Someday -
I was glued to the TV/computer the first day, and most of the second day too. I realized something the second day, however. Everything I was hearing was speculation. I figure that if I wait a week to really dig into the articles, things will be more coherent and more of the facts will be layed out for me. Once a real breakthrough is made, I'm sure people will be buzzing about it. I havn't stopped watching the news completely, but I'll save the rest of my attention span for something other than pictures of people jumping off of buildings.
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson
The piece is suggestive of something: instead of proudly being an American by being fully aware of all that is taking place, proudly be an American by doing something to help instead of sitting around watching TV.
Media wants you perpetually on the edige of your seat and it's no mistake that you end up in that position. Better to absorb the content of commercials that way, when your neurons are all primed, ready to absorb info.
I suppose I've tuned out. Listening to an audiobook at the moment and am about as close to bliss as one can get.
Or lack thereof, rather. Everyone knows television is super addictive, its just that the relentless advertising finally takes its toll on our brain and we are forced to turn it off. Think about it, when was the last time you've seen four straight days without an ad in sight?
It's probably NEVER happened before and this is what's causing the widespread television addiction. Full length interviews, they don't force the callers off the line because they have to "take a short break". Im dead serious about this folks.
Although I am an agnostic, you do have a point. You can abstract the causes of these acts beyond religion. Underneath, the common and necesary factor is hate and intolerance. Religious fanatasism may help an individual justify murder, but it need not be present. The individual must, however, be so consumed with hate that, in thier futility and rage, can rationalize attacking innocent strangers over some petty difference. The difference can be nationality, religion, race, etc... Some people are able to hate individuals on the other side of some difference because they have not overcome thier primal instincts to fear that which is different from one's self. The real problem is getting people past this instinct.
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson
While I agree with you to some degree, I'm not so sure this is a bad thing.
I'm in Europe, physically far away from NYC, but there are signs of it everywhere: people handing out leaflets declaring candlelight vigils, literally thousands of people outside cathedrals standing together in respectful silence, non-Americans singing The Star Spangled Banner, flowers and flags piled high at embassies and monuments, and words of condolences to our brothers and sisters when we hear their accents during our daily travels.
We, on this side of the pond, are standing in solidarity with the United States of America, sharing every moment of grief, pain, and hope through the wonders of the Information Age. It's truly an unprecedented event.
Peace be with you.
Now, here's a write-up on an add-on that lets you learn to fly commercial jets. This one is for a 777, but there are others for just about any model you want.
Do-it-yourself terrorism, without even going to flight school. The possibilities are really scary!
One dealer: http://shop.store.yahoo.com/fsc/77prof.html
Excerpts from the product description:
Authentic instrument panel with fully operational pedestal and overhead panels that include 4 multifunction LCD's (Liquid Crystal Displays), MFD (Multi Functional Displays) dimmer controls and multi-page EICAS (Engine Indication and Crew Alerting System) and Honeywell FMS (Flight Management System).
Includes 2 comprehensive printed manuals! A fully illustrated aircraft manual explaining among many other areas, instrument panel controls and FMC (Flight Management Computer) operation, and a second manual with aircraft performance tables
Includes the following airline variants: British Airways, Air France, Delta Airlines, United Airlines and Aeroflot.
What the experts are saying about 777-200 Professional:
"I had the pleasure of testing this package and found it to be as real as it can get for a computer simulation. If you were wondering what it would be like to command the 777, this package will give you all that and more. From its greatly functional cockpit to the aircraft flight dynamics, sound and graphics, I found it to be a rewarding experience to fly and highly recommend this package to all." John L Carbone SR (Retd.), Former - 777 Captain
Minimum requirements: Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000, Pentium II 266 PC, Windows 95/98, 32 Mb RAM, 250 MB Hard drive space CD-ROM Drive, Sound Card.
This nation was founded as a Christian nation on Biblical principles.
Yeah RIGHT. Try the State/Church Quiz, might clear up a thing or two.
I spend my time in front of a computer most of every day (work @ work and then work @ home). Many of those days I think it might be wonderful to be a "jungle-dwelling, bamboo-eating half-monkey"...
Do Testify!
The only thing that cut through my slack-jawed numb shock of seeing the atrocity unfold on live TV, was about three hours later when each network had managed to have it's own unique theme music and spinning 3-D logos of "Day of Terror" or "America Under Siege" or whatever. (as if someone was selling tee-shirts.)
Apparently they still felt they had to sell us on paying attention to the gravity of the situation with market-weasel glitter. I found it abhorrent; it really bothered me that I was so distracted by it when I knew damn well that I was witnessing a calamity on a scale that could not be previously imagined.
The longer that these news outlets contrinue to push this 24/7 news schedule, the longer it will take the rest of the american (and other countries as well) people to return to a sense of normalicy, which is what we ought to be striving for to show the terrorists that this attack did little to stiffle the American spirit. Sure, I'd expect to have soem expanded news coverage as events break, but we should be watching regular programming at this point. Particularly this weekend, as families have a chance for family time, it's important that the networks offer fare that the entire family can enjoy as opposed to more news coverage.
And yet another sign that terrorism has won a bit is the fact that several movies, TV shows, and video games are being pulled for the time being or revamped in the short term to accommodate the loss. In some cases, such as Anrold's new movie or FOX's "24" or the video game Majesty, this makes sense; events are too close to reality that pulling them for the short term just makes sense. I also being not holding the bulk of sports events this weekend is also a reasonable step (both emotionally and technically; how do you get all those people from one side of the country to other with air travel only just starting to get back to normal?) But then you also have cases where, for example, a new Tim Allen comedy in NYC is pulled since it simply involves the WTC, a new Jackie Chan movie being pulled and revamped completely despite the amount of footage already shot since Chan's character in it was a window washer for the WTC, C&C Red Alert 2 being pulled since it shows NYC on fire on the cover of the box, Microsoft immediately altering the next version of it's Flight Sim to remove the WTC from the NYC area (and in the UK, the flight sim being removed from shelves as it was claimed that the terrorists could have learned to fly from that), and numerous other examples which are more knee-jerk than thought out. Again, each of these knee-jerk actions are wins for terrorism, because that's the type of lifestyle that we've come to enjoy and expect, and now, at best for the short term, that's gone.
Yes, at least according to the President, we're in a National Emergancy, so I expect some parts of our lives to be distrupted. But it is much more important to show that the American resolve and spirit cannot be broken as easily as it was, and thus, we must strive to get back to normalacy in our lives, and unfortunately, the constant barrage of news is not helping.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
People do understand that fact on some level; learning about something does give them information to act upon.
Here is some information which has not been reported in the general news: guess who the commander-in-chief of the Afghan military is.
I'll type the article in in part since it is on an extremely slow server even without the slashdot effect.
"MOSCOW, Aug 30 (UPI) - Russia's Foreign Ministry on Thursday condemned the appointment of Saudi terrorism suspect Osama bin Laden as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban regime, the official RIA Novosti news agency reported."
I am not setting this up as a link because for some reason the Slashdot editor (in Netscape) insists on putting a space in the number 216037, and I can't get the link to work. If you wish to see the original - copy and paste the address into your browser and delete the space.
http://www.vny.com/cf/news/upidetail.cfm?QID=216 03 7
Several comments:
What did you do after the Oklahoma bombing?
We went and found the guy that did it and put him to death.
Go to Oklahoma and start killing this guys family and frinds, and the guy who rented him the truck, and the guy who sold him the fertilizer?
If his friends and family started shooting at the police officers when they went to arrest him then they probably would have been shot back at, and tried as accessories to the crime.
The evidence that we have is pointing to Bin Ladden and his group. The Taliban are making it clear that they are willing to go to war to protect Bin Ladden. I personally think that the U.S. should give the Taliban 48-72 hours to produce Bin Ladden for extradition. If they refuse then we make it clear that we will go in and retrieve him. This puts the fate of the Taliban/Afghanistan in their own hands.
I know exactly what you mean.
When I saw the first news I headed over to all the news sites that I could find (I found out shortly after the first crash) and I was engrossed. My first reaction was one of "woah!" and I just wanted to follow everything that was happening, almost on the edge of my seat waiting for the next thing to happen. Figuring that a building could not possibly stand up after being hit by a plane, I headed over to here (love that site) to find out everything that I could about how those buildings were built. I was glued to the screen for a good 2 hours, until a thought stuck me. I was looking at one of the images, and said "man, that looks so fake" and caught myself thinking (one of those 1/2 second back-of-your-mind thoughts) "they should have done a better job on the CG of that one"...
BAM!
Then it hit me. Almost all of the images looked like something out of a movie. I had been so desensitized that, upon seeing these images, my mind just assumed that they were fake. It did not want to accept the idea that they were real, so it was neat to want to see all about it that I could find.
Man was I disgusted with myself when I figured that one out.
Flame me down if you want, but I know that I wasn't the only one who thought that way. Once it sunk in that this was real, and those falling bodies out of the windows were real people, and after the first tower collapsed knowing that for the same reason the second one would collapse, and looking at it and knowing that there wasn't shit that I could do, and knowing that the people outside and the firefighters knew the same thing, man. That was a shock. I tried to donate but the stupid amazon form wouldn't accept my postal code, so I went and gave blood instead. I was half of the mind to go down there to see if there was anything that I could do to help (I was about a 5 hour drive away, I'm 1.5hr from the US border in Toronto) but when the borders were closed, and I came to my senses, I realized how entirely useless I was.
I just hope that some good does come out of this. I stopped watching the news after about 4 hours because I was disgusted at the media trying to grandstand with every little bit of information that they had, and watching the rumours go from the first emergance, and hearing them spread from newsteam to newsteam like a bad game of broken telephone, I knew that I had to stop.
Ack. May the passing of the deceased pave the way for a new era of peace and harmony amongst all beings on the earth. I would hate to know that all of this happened and the result was nothing more than a little revenge. Lets hope that this anti-terrorism coilition will stand tall over time and help to eliminate this uglyness.
If God gave us curiosity
Best Thread Ever is posted at Ars Technica.
For those of you wishing some sense of closure, perhaps the Ars Technica thread will assist. It contains dozens upon dozens of photographs of people around the world memorializing the tragedy.
It is touching. And in between the pictures, the words of support and gratefulness will move you.
If there is a single positive outcome to this terrible event, it is that over a billion people have realized the important truth: we are all one people, united in humanity because we are all human.
Together, we could create a utopia. Divided, we create terror, pain, and tragedy.
Let our next thoughts, next decisions, next actions lead us toward a better world.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Knowing more *will* help, insofar as making you more informed then the rest of the spoon-fed populace, and maybe able to enlighten a few other people with your knowledge. But don't watch CNN or any of the mainstream networks that are geared toward angry, emotional soccer moms. This is not yet a time for mourning, it's a time to educate ourselves, make the right decisions, and preserve the stability of our nation.
Research the history of the conflict, get to know all sides of the story, get to know the people we will eventually be fighting. Something as simple as going to the "world trade center attack" category on Yahoo! and surfing around is a good start.
Ponder the incredible ripple effect an attack would have on the rest of the world, and how difficult are the decisions we face. There are a million variables in the diplomatic equation in this crisis -- I hope Joshua is working on the problem full-time.
all the civilized countries throughout the world will classify other countries as either pro-terrorist or anti-terrorist. As of Tuesday, there's no middle ground, no room for dissembling or prevarication: they're either with us or against us, either for or against terrorism. Governments will make their choices... and they and their citizens will bear the consequences, terrible consequences.
My country stayed neutral during the cold war. My country has participated in peace keeping for ages and hosted conferences where nations have brought closer to each other.
I can't find the words to describe how sad and disappointed I am to hear how USA demands my country to give up on our neutrality and choose side. It's absolutely revolting how the strongest country in the world forces countries to look at the world in black or white.
Based on a poll 29% of US citizens do not support bombing. Is USA going to make these people "bear the concequences?" Or is US going to respect their right to free speech and own opinions? If so, why does US prohibit this right from peaceloving countries?