Cable TV Ruins Bhutan

Christ-on-a-bike writes "This article in The Guardian discusses the negative impact of TV on the population of Bhutan. It has only been legal there for four years. Violence, crime and drug use are on the up. Was this inevitable, and what does it say about the influence of TV on Western cultures?" Our previous story about Bhutan talks about the radical impact of television, but without as much emphasis on the darker side.

Comments

Too bad for Bhutan.

[Threni]

I mean, I'm sorry, but who cares? If people can't control themselves that's their problem. Perhaps if they just watched the good things that are on tv, such as the news, wildlife shows and the Simpsons?

Re:programming, not television

[robbyjo]

Screening is not a good solution just like censoring is a bad idea.

The better way is to explain or display negative examples in a positive way. This way we can educate people on what is good and what is bad.

hah like the west needs help

[hfastedge]

what does it say about the influence of TV on Western cultures?

um...dont you mean "what does it say about the influence of TV on Western cultures?" who gives a shit about the west, it has some of the highest standards of living in the world. But moreover, its WESTERN TV that has fucked up this non-western country, so its them that we should be concerned about.

It takes a typical westerner to exemplify what true selfishness means, and this poster displayed his attitude quite clearly.

I think the article counters the headline best.

[OwnerOfWhinyCat]

I have to agree with gad_zuki and Leki Dorji who says in the middle of the article:

Yes, we are seeing some different types of crime, but that just reflects the fact that our society is changing in many ways. A culture as rich and sophisticated as ours can survive trash on TV and people are quite capable of turning off the rubbish.

These people went from a kingdom without television to a democracy with it in a four year span.

Dayam.

In my culture (US (and yes we have one)) our resistance to change is so comical they make movies about it "Trouble. That starts with T which rhymes with P, that stands for Pool." Pool halls didn't ruin us, we pulled our heads out after the first Prohibition, Bingo halls didn't turn into dens of inequity when they finally got licensed for pull-tabs and other wimpy forms of gambling.

I laugh to think of what chaos would have ensued had we not had 200 years to sidle up to modern life, and I think these people will be doing extraordinarily well if they make it through the transition without having to return to some outdated, unworkable fundamentalist stupidity, that so often follows culture shock on this scale.

Re:Oh, give me a break

[axxackall]

It's entertainment, nothing more, nothing less. I watch wrestling, but that doesn't mean I solve my problems with violence.

Sure you do. If not with a physical violence then with a mental one. For example, in databases you ignore ACID and that leads you to choose violently unstable MySQL instead of PostgreSQL. In application programming you ignore the elegance of Functional Programming (like pure Haskell) and you have a daily based violence when debugging your imperative Java or C(++) code.

On a serious note, if you have an opportunity to "help" your boss being fired, won't you use it to improve your career chances?

The fact that you think that the word "violence" can be applied only to "physical" actions just proves that your mind is already very deeply corrupted by watching too much of physical violence scenes on TV.

Re:Is it really worth it?

[Zemran]

And I suppose you are one of those numbties that says "guns don't kill people".

I always thought that TV was benign until I studied child phsycology. Someone like yourself, with an arguement populated with sound bytes, is probably a product of a TV childhood. It is a problem that is getting worse yet for the politicians it makes the populace more pliable.

Parents now sit their children in front of a TV rather than look after them. The children grow up without true interaction. They grow into disfunctional adults. They have not learnt to debate or rationalise and reply to any discusion with an appropriate sound byte rather than a rational and considered arguement. They have not learnt to be rational or to consider an arguement. They cannot formulate theories or change those theories based on new information.

Sound bytes like "guns don't kill people" are typical retorts but show a lack of deep or true understanding of the problems that guns pose, regardless of whether you are in favour or opposed to guns.