Reply #16: You described our entire capitalist sytem, NOT television.

[Atman]

Magazines are about ad sales (read: ratings). Newspapers are about ad sales (read: ratings). We've even made the viability of our subways about ad sales. Those posters on the walls subsidize the trains, or else you wouldn't be able to afford a subway ride. Every argument you made against television can also be applied to every other media in our culture, from iTunes to the New York Times...providing content which is appealing enough for the reader to want to pay for it. That is simply "capitalism," not television. Now, if you want to argue the brain rotting effects of capitalism, bring it on! But I'm not buying tv as the be-all end-all brain rotter. You might as well say we should all just be ignorant cave dwellers only concerned with gathering food and keeping the fire lit, otherwise we're not "pure."

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