Ming the Mechanic:
TV ruining Bhutan?

The NewsLog of Flemming Funch
 TV ruining Bhutan?2003-06-16 01:46
2 comments
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Bhutan is one of the most remote and isolated countries on the planet. Or, rather, it WAS very isolated. A buddhist shangri-la where people lived a basic and happy life, far away from outside influences. There were no public hospitals or schools until the 1950s, and no paper currency, roads or electricity until several years after that. Bhutan had no diplomatic relations with any other country until 1961. Still, after those innovations, it remained a peaceful place with strong traditions, where people didn't even hurt insects. But then it all changed, in 1999, when the government decided, as the last country on earth, to give the population TELEVISION. See the interesting article in the Guardian. Now there are 46 channels on cable, and kids spend their time thinking about Eminem and the Simpsons and The Rock. And suddenly Bhutan has crime waves, murders and drug problems. Is that really all just from TV? I don't know, but this certainly seems like the perfect laboratory for testing it. Rather depressing really, whether we're talking about crime or not. Depressing that remote villages in the Himalayas are aiming at being copies of the San Fernando Valley. Loss of cultural diversity.


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2 comments

28 Jul 2003 @ 12:41 by hakker : Please!
This is like saying that the world as it was, being inhabited by nothing, was the fixation moment of excellence! It seems that progress in linearity (time) provokes changes in 3D environment as well. So, this is growth, and with growth comes death. This may come across as fatalistic and it's like it seems to be to me. When I would have remained to being with the bulch of cells I started off to be with, I would never grow old and growing old is the thing that enables us to teach.  


28 Jul 2003 @ 15:52 by ming : Change
Things change. Whether it is good or bad, or simply *change*, is often hard to say. Old things need to die out for new things to grow. Nothing is going to stay the same. But there might be questions on whether it works well to feed the same fertilizer to everybody everywhere, no matter what their previous culture was. There might be questions on where we might have a choice on how we help changes along.  


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