Path: utzoo!dptcdc!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!lll-lcc!mordor!joyce!cslb!fernwood!asylum!oli-stl!tekbspa!optilink!cramer From: cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: New morality of Communications/Computer Science etc. Message-ID: <1230@optilink.UUCP> Date: 17 Apr 89 16:57:24 GMT References: <232@imspw6.UUCP# Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA Lines: 107 In article <232@imspw6.UUCP#, bob@imspw6.UUCP (Bob Burch) writes: # # # # From Ted Holden, HT Enterprises: # # ........................................................ # From: Clayton Cramer: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA # # #One good reason: there are a lot of people who feel, just as strongly, # #that magazines like Playboy and Penthouse should be prohibited because # #they provide the same unrealistic, non-consequential view of sex. # #Do we really want to repeal the First Amendment? # # Whatever the framers of the amendment DID have on their minds, I know for # damned sure it wasn't TV. There comes a point at which you have to take # a look around you and deal with reality as it is now, and not as it was 200 # years ago. Playboy doesn't have a push-button, 24-hour-a-day point of # entry into all of our homes which we eliminate only by relinquishing access # to our news media as well as other, more welcome and civilized fare. Your # starting point for TV isn't Jefferson or Hamilton; it's McLuhan and Allan # Bloom. Gee, does that mean that computerized typesetters wouldn't be protected by the First Amendment under "freedom of the press"? # I would like to think that this point of entry into my home and the homes # of my neighbors was a privilege, which I might have some say in whether a # company was using in a reasonable manner. My reaction to DC's WTTG showing # WWF wrestling, for example, would ideally be to remove the privilege and # the bandwidth from WTTG and give them to some other company which promised # to do better. I'm sure such a company would not be long in forthcoming. Even better. Stop watching it, if it offends you so much. What this enthusiasm for censorship is really about, isn't protecting yourself -- it's protecting all those "other people" who aren't as smart as YOU are. # You end up having to make choices. I can look at the books which European # children read, and at the TV shows and video games which American children # watch and play, the music they listen to and at what volumes, and a hundred # other things related to culture or, more properly, the near-total lack # thereof amongst the young in this country, and I don't need to be Albert This assumes that only "old" culture is real culture, and that which is native to this country isn't. That's a very arrogant, elitist, irrationally Europhilic view of things. # Einstein to figure out what America's position in the natural order is # going to be ten years down the road; it's not going to be the top of the # heap. It all depends on how thrilled you are about the prospects of living # in the third world. Certainly, competence in reading, writing, and other academic skills will make a difference. But that someone listens to rap, not Bach, has nothing to do with the economic future of this country. # We've got generations of kids being RAISED by TV sets, which would be bad # enough under any circumstances, but they apparently aren't even watching # real shows anymore; it's mostly these video atrocities which flicker from # scene to scene ten times a second. Friends who teach five and six and # seven year olds tell me they are seeing kids whose attention spans are # exactly what you would expect from this, about one tenth of one second. I'm concerned as well, and this has a lot to do with my efforts to channel my daughter's interests and energies into more creative efforts (though a small amount of TV isn't a problem). But amazingly enough, children with any creativity at all seem to lose interest in the boob tube after a while. I know I watched LOTS of TV when I was very young -- and as my reading skills improved, my interest in TV declined. Concentrate on positive alternatives, like reading. # They tell me these kids have to be protected from holding their mouths open # in the rain and drowning, like turkeys. This is nonsense. # I find it a particularly appalling thought that someone with skills similar # to my own actually PROGRAMMED the hideous arcade games which I observe in # the 7-11 stores and other public places: the ones in which people beat # each other to death with sledge-hammers or which pierce the air with the # death screams of some bit-blit karate fighter every 5 seconds. I can't # picture anybody actually PLAYING one of those games longer than five # minutes, much less the lengths of time which kids actually DO play them, # without suffering permanent brain damage. More hyperbole. I find video games boring. Some don't. From my observations, I doubt very much that the video game addicts would be using their brains for anything more interesting if they weren't available. # It is very clear to me at least, that the world would profit from having # the perpetrators of these abominations given some kind of a serious lecture # on some kind of a new morality regarding communications/culture/computer- # science etc., possibly at gunpoint. The only other way to deal with this The Cultural Revolution comes to America. This fascist attitude of yours scares me more than all the vidiots. # Ted Holden, -- Clayton E. Cramer {pyramid,pixar,tekbspa}!optilink!cramer Governments that don't trust most people with weapons, deserve no trust. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer? You must be kidding! No company would hold opinions like mine!