World Peace Has Been Declared

[Lurker101]

It must've been. I didn't get to see any declaration on the news, but I haven't seen anything about the rest of the world on the news. All I've seen is Olympic this and Olympic that. Last I checked, there were a dozen or so wars raging across the world. A load of protests and political activism was being engaged in last week. Some areas were struggling to cope with the increasing frequency and strength of extreme weather events. Flooding and hurricanes and all that good stuff hitting harder and more frequent than ever before, with temperatures and rainfall hitting records again and again and again.

 

But no. All of that has stopped. All of the wars have ended. All major conflicts have declared cease-fires and the weather has gone on strike because the London 2012 Olympics have begun. Now the only thing that classes as news is which manly looking women have managed to swim a second or two faster than the other manly looking women. We're expected to care about who can go down a hill the fastest on a push bike for their country or who can do the most asinine thing with zero relevance to the real world.

 

The BBC has set aside twenty four separate channels, dedicated to the Olympics and yet they still feel the need to bombard us with full events on the news. I knew to expect an absolute farce with the greatest joke on Earth, but this is ridiculous. Shut up about the Olympics and let me watch the news in peace.

[HeyYou]

One of the reasons I don't watch broadcast television. :D

 

Lets not forget the droughts, crop failures, and collapsing governments.... not to mention failing economies...

 

I hear ya man. And I agree with you. I don't live in UK, so, it isn't quite as bad here in the states, but, I STILL wouldn't watch broadcast TV. :D

[DaedalusMachina]

Let us not also forget that knowing about all these disasters and pockets of human filth and failure do the rest of us no damn good. So there are people in Zimbabwe killing each other, and that is dreadfully important... in Zimbabwe (and others, yes, but that not my point). I think I'd still rather watch the boxers in London. Wouldn't you?

 

Instead, why don't we celebrate the fact that in the light of the world uniting just to have a bit of friendly competition, that nobody has decided to blow it all to hell?

 

I'd like to think the media is finally looking at something positive to sell rather than shoveling detritus down our throats 24/7.

Edited July 29, 2012 by DaedalusMachina

[JimboUK]

@DaedalusMachina Some balance would be nice, the wall to wall coverage is ridiculous. Twenty Four dedicated channels and they're still filling the News Channel with it, you can bet the government will be trying to sneak out all sorts of bad news while this is on. It's not just the BBC, Sky are obsessed with it too. I've had to switch to Russia Today, CNN, Al Jazeera and other overseas broadcasters for news. Everyone has to pay the BBC TV tax, they should at least make a effort to ensure we all get something for our money.

[LMCampbell]

So true, lucky for me I get most of my news offline so I'm not to fussed. But I really don't care about the Olympics, so when it's all that's shown, it's really annoying

[XanAlderon]

I'm just really happy Australia was able to get our Olympics out of the way before this 9/11 business, and the massive security costs that come with it.

[tetradite]

Let us not also forget that knowing about all these disasters and pockets of human filth and failure do the rest of us no damn good. So there are people in Zimbabwe killing each other, and that is dreadfully important... in Zimbabwe (and others, yes, but that not my point). I think I'd still rather watch the boxers in London. Wouldn't you?

 

No. I wouldn't.

 

And knowing about all of these disasters etc does do us some good. Awareness of events outside of our current direct experience broadens our knowledge and with a broader knowledge we are better equipped as individuals, as a society, and as a species to progress. You might as well argue that studying the events of history does us no good. After all, it all happened to people in the past, so they're only important in the past, right?

[DaedalusMachina]

tetradite - You sound like the kind of person where if you wanted to find the information, you'd bloody well find it. How exactly is knowing what the media tells you about the third world country going to effect your commute to work tomorrow? Your... hell, your entire life, unless you were there?

 

Everybody else - I just came to realize that I'm not in England, and I imagine they are freaking out about the Olympics probably a tad much. It's never usually a big deal in the States, because.. hell, they could pick a dozen of our cities to host it in. When the Olympics come to Seattle (which is not where I live, but close enough), then I might understand the.. ah.. slight imbalance of the media. Then again, there are a lot of stations all over the country, and they won't be nearly as freaked about it.

[tetradite]

tetradite - You sound like the kind of person where if you wanted to find the information, you'd bloody well find it. How exactly is knowing what the media tells you about the third world country going to effect your commute to work tomorrow? Your... hell, your entire life, unless you were there?

 

Everybody else - I just came to realize that I'm not in England, and I imagine they are freaking out about the Olympics probably a tad much. It's never usually a big deal in the States, because.. hell, they could pick a dozen of our cities to host it in. When the Olympics come to Seattle (which is not where I live, but close enough), then I might understand the.. ah.. slight imbalance of the media. Then again, there are a lot of stations all over the country, and they won't be nearly as freaked about it.

 

I am, they are.

 

And your first point is an even stronger argument for not bothering to broadcast about the Olympics than it is to not show news about the "third world". The effect on my life of a war in Africa may be negligible, but the effect on my life of how fast someone managed to run around in circles is even smaller.

[brokenergy]

In Ancient Greece, it was tradition for warring factions to stop fighting with each other during the Olympics. Maybe you forgot what was what.