On Tuesday, 29 January 2019 13:42:22 UTC, michael adams wrote:
"Martin Brown" wrote in message
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On 28/01/2019 12:24, michael adams wrote:
"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
Many of us suspect that the media doesn't always tell us the truth. Maybe that's a
bit
of an understatement. But here's an example that's of little real importance in
itself
but maybe indicates how they deceive us with never a second thought.

There are all sorts of programmes in which people have to 'achieve' something. Maybe
they have to complete an archaeological dig, or bring an old barn-found car to
pristine
condition, or transform the home of a disabled person. And there's always a time
limit,
and almost always it's entirely spurious.

Archeologists digging in a field are just that, archeologists digging in a field.
There is no structure there to turn into a TV programme.
Set them an artificial time limit and you have a "story" with tension which will
keep viewers watching, hopefuily to the end.

Actually there can be a strict time limit since the archeologists are typically digging
in a field

Indeed . Especally in towns. But what the OP was complaining of and what I was addressing
was the type of artificial deadlines set by TV companies for purely economic reasons.

Im have often wondered why DIY SOS mostly restrict themselves to 9 days.
But I'm betting the planing has been done before the start of day one.
I have noticed they do start before the first day too on some projects.
My G would be why 9 because it the last single digital number ?
Myabe it's like £9.99 being cheaper than £10 same psychology.




A I hour self enclosed programme made out of 4 days digging may just about be
feasible in terms of likely ratings.

Filming over 4 or 6 weeks with no guarentee of a positive outcome would simply
never get commissionsed. Unless there was a series on the Richard III car park
thing that I missed.

Which only happened after they found something.


to establish if there is anything interesting there before someone digs foundations for
a warehouse. Some key sites are protected and revisitable but many are strictly time
limited and about to be completely trashed by a building site. TV always chooses pretty
rural photogenic sites rather than grimy industrial ones.


I doubt that.



I had a bit more respect for garden makeover programmes after I tried to do one myself
with similarly tight timing constraints (but no cameras).

That might seem to imply that you actually believe they keep to the deadline
shown in the programme.

I would say they do mostley. They even do so on master chef, but of course they don't do it in real time.


In any case being professionals, having carried out similar projects for years
(or being advised by off camera by people who have) they will know all the
tips and tricks.

Don't we all.


When I was a little kid my mam warned me that adverts in the paper might not be
wholly
truthful; the implication being that the editorial matter in the Daily Mirror was as
good as Gospel.

Only if you believe the Gospel to be an accurate record, but who believes that ?

If anyone says to me it's the gospel truth then I say "you mean it's a lie then".


There is no such thing as the whole unvarnished truth. The different participants in
any event may never agree on what actually happened.

Some things really did happen though. eg

Apollo went to the moon.

Indeed. But why precisely did the US govt decide to devote so many resources
to such a project ?

Why do you think there is only one reason ?


Was this simply a further consequnce of the profound shock delivered to the US
system by the totally unexpected launch of Sputnik !?

Did the US see the Moon project as having actual strategic value rather than simply
propoganda value in its cold war rivalry with the USSR ?

Does the subsequent distinegration of the USSR have any bearing on the US
abandonment of the space programme.

Or is this simply a result in a general decline in optimism ?

Or the cost and the risk or a disaster.


The Earth *is* an oblate sphere orbiting the sun and flat Earthers are categorically
wrong. The Earth is more than 6000 years old (bishop Usher's best guess from Bible
study).

But those are easily verifiable geological facts.

Are they ?
Could you prove to me that the earth is more than 6000 years old without using someones else's evidence.
Do you know how to carbon date things and can you do it in your home or do you need someone to do it for you?

Don't forget that virtually everything we know we have learnt from others.

I've just done this with a student who asked me if I can tell him how to connect a switch up I said No. Use a DMM to work it out for yourself, that why yuou might remmeber rather than forgetting it by tomorrow.



This applies equally well to what happened yesterday as it does to events in history.

History you have to remember is always written by the victors.

At the time most certianly . But unless they adopt a thoroughgoing scorched earth
policy along with a policy of thoroughgoing genocide once the vanquished make
a recovery and ideally devevelop a system of teriary education a new generation
or revisionist historians will emerge.

Perhaps.


Much history, in tems of any sort of record for much of the past doen't exist at all
of course. So its never been written by anybody.

That's pretty meaningless.
We know the earht anf the universe existed for a long time a very long time before man existed and started writing about it.





There may be error bars on the answer but the scientific method works. It is *not* open
to interpretation.

Unfortunately journalsts working to a deadline don't have that luxury. T

Although in the interest of social cohesion its always preferable for people to
believe that at least someone knows what going on. Or at least to feed them a
"story" with "heroes" they can identify with, and "villains" they can shake their
proverbial fists at.

And it was ever thus.

There seems to be a lot more rabble rousing today than there used to be..

Are you sure about that ?
How do you know ?

Death threats
against a defence lawyer who is merely doing their job being a very recent example of
this new ugly populist meme.

And death threats have never been made in the past ?
What happened to julius caesar lots of LOLs I assume.


That's simply social media for you.

No it's happened in real life too.

Have you ever heardc anyone on social media cast a spell on anohter ?
Well it used to happpen in the middle ages and I'd say such things have gone on in other times too. But you won;t see that on social media will you.


Basically without the gatekeepers
who nobody is willing to pay for (cue argument "who is to decide
who qualify as gatekeepers) social media becomes an ideal vehicle
for both the hard of thinking and the devious to peddle abuse,
racism, simplistic nonsense to the similarly hard of thinking.
Basically its electronic mob rule.

and in the few 10,000s of years this hasn't happened before social media.

I'd say Jesus being executed is one of the first recorded social media events.
He wasn;t hanged because of anything othe rthan the perception of what he could achive socially, rather than physically.



And there seems to be no real answer to this.

Humans may evolve, although looking at some of these students I do wonder.



michael adams

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