Lots is already written on the "dark side" of TV, so your mind, dear reader, may already be racing ahead, showing me darkness. We could start with all the overt drug pushing, shocking to British viewers that time they tuned in, to hear Oprah interview the royal couple or whatever it was. The TV itself is just a device, but a lot of folks hope to turn it into a bully pulpit, including me from time to time.
On the topic of bully pulpits: how different are these from soap boxes, and how do we train a machine learner to distinguish between the two? When is so and so being tyrannical, and when is so and so exercising freedom of speech, and how do these overlap? For analysis purposes, we need a spectrum.
Spectrum: on the one hand, you have someone sounding bold and sincere about a topic, with no obvious leverage over the listeners i.e. the power of the rhetoric, lets say invective, is what the speaker is banking on, the powers of persuasion (hold that thought). On the other hand, you have a commanding officer barking orders surrounded by people trained to obey. The speaker has more than "just opinions" when able to use powers of coercion. The spectrum runs from persuasion to coercion.
Powers of persuasion: that gets us back to advertising and using what we know of human psychology to develop compulsions and motivations. TV is for brainwashing (socializing) around lifestyle practices around associated brands. The term "lifestyle" is just a placeholder here, perhaps a euphemism. Slavery is a lifestyle, as is soldiering. The word itself connotes glossy magazine shots of well off civilians, with their cigarettes and alcohol and healthy bodies, around a swimming pool. Wouldn't you want all that for yourself? Come to our workshop, our church etc.
Change of subject (sort of). My YouTube recommendation engine, giving me a "beaten track" through the jungle, is queuing up lots about "toxic fandom" (a bad thing) i.e. paying customers registering their disappointment with a given product. A typical pattern is the remake. Confronted with the design science revolution as the "next big thing" the cowardly capitalists shy away, preferring to re-fight World War 2 in some dimension, and in the meantime they remake past hits with live action and computerization, like in Mary Poppins. The acting may not be getting better, but the computerization sure is.
Hollywood seems to be charging down a dead end tunnel associated with the wider California mindset, which is tainted by gold rush "get rich quick" fantasies. With enough action and special effects, and demographically focused pandering, to some semi-fictional Gen Z or whatever (sounds Russian), we should be able to recoup the investment and then some, winning a money game that top guns respect. Some of us respect Scientology because of how much money it made for itself, and for no other reason. I'm not saying that's me, and I've never been a Scientologist (Quakers have "clearness committees" or "committees for clearness" -- I've blogged about that observation).
I respect California for broader reasons, including for its trippiness e.g. Esalen and like that. We're talking epigenetics here. I have no interest in discussing "racial stock" or "preferred genes". The sense in which Social Darwinists were right is the sense in which Social Darwinism failed to compete effectively. We're beyond Marx versus Darwin or whatever it was.
Likewise I respect the IC (intelligence community) for what I anticipated it might become, and it became, i.e. an outgrowth of networks and networking beyond the masterminds inside any government. We still have the high seas and its own laws, beyond the supervision of landlubbers. That sounds like the premise for many a TV show, ala Joss Whedon or someone else with a Matrix mentality. I'm coming from Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth obviously (obviously if you've been doing your homework).
I always thought we were cowardly to make Amsterdam bear the brunt of drug tourism, not that we have to call it that. All the downsides of an experiment, concentrated in one place, means only a few types of solution get tried. I was glad when Portland stepped up to the plate, and other cities willing to work within an alternative legal matrix (a different namespace). We want to keep moving in the direction of medicalization versus letting the punitive morality police be in charge. Back to bully pulpit.
How much are nurses bullies, when upholding an oath to fight for life? They do things patients find uncomfortable, to try to keep them alive. What if the patient would prefer to die? That's a perennial question for the medical sciences. We prefer investigations in psychology over how much time in prison our predecessor gave out as prescriptions. The entire culture is obsessed with putting so and so in jail, even where the diagnosis is some kind of crazy. The same issue comes up around guns. How does one keep the crazies from enacting their fantasies?
Speaking of crazies and their fantasies, who would have thought: a tank war in the 21st century. That something so dark ages could break out was presaged however. The degeneration of international law as a namespace ended up putting nation-states through the blender in some ways. The crazies saw no reason to obey. They saw a direct path from A to B. How does a mental hospital self heal, when the doctors themselves are obsessed with nutty theories? That's not just an academic question.
I'm skeptical that the medical profession has its act together insofar as the war on drugs does not get more intelligent attention. Tucker Carlson says all the bad stuff is coming across borders, but what about by small airplane, and what about cocaine? Follow the cocaine to Wall Street and major money laundering by the deep state, or pick on the poor and homeless, the pedestrians, the street people. When you think "drug dealer" think "private plane". That being said, I'm for medicalization as I've said. Be frank about a president's drug habits. I enjoy cannabis here in Oregon, perfectly legally. I don't use cocaine.
Why do I keep bringing up drugs in connection with TV (the dark side)? Because lifestyles are about anthropology and psychology and because TV is about programming the people, on a spectrum from persuasion to tyranny.
