I don’t think it’s a big deal for people to not be interested in science or facts larger than their own lives

This is probably the most depressing thing I’ve ever heard. The world beyond daily life is amazing, and beautiful and terrifying and infinitely complex and infinitely huge. The joy of knowing things, and of learning and exploring, is the most important part of being human. The wonder of reality, and the wonder of figuring out how reality works, is what it’s all about.

When I hear someone say that it’s okay to never look up from that pile of food in front of you, to never think about the world beyond your mortgage and your car payments and zombie-ing through another day at your demeaning job, I die a little inside.

The real question we all want to know Hemant, is why you are watching The View in the first place?

The View? What’s that? Never heard of it. (Shh! You’ll give away my secret!)

That’s a shame. I liked Elisabeth when she was in Survivor. Haha

Me too! (I’m watching Survivor: China right now. Yay!)

The marketers seem to operate on the formula, “When the ratings go down, dumb it down.” Life imitates art. If we broadcast thousands of hours of junk entertainment that occasionally climbs to a third grade level of comprehension, that’s the kind of general level of public mentality we’re going to get. From there the process is self-perpetuating; the broadcasters never take the risk of appealing to a higher level.

Here I totally agree with you, which is the reason my decision not to turn on the TV while I’m working at home wasn’t much of a sacrifice. On the other hand, there are many fine science programs on cable and public television if one takes the time to look for them. I suppose even those not “looking” probably stumble across them and get interested.

Just last night I was watched a show about amateur astronomers that was inspiring and interesting. Surely it won’t get the ratings of The View, but someone must be watching and learning from that kind of thing. If only there were more of it!

Ahem!! Richard, I know you are not disrespecting women and men who raise their children full-time or (like me) work from home offices, not to mention people whose workplaces have TVs on “in the background.”

Karen you’re right, I’m not. Until my daughter came of age, I was the stay-at-home parent and since she moved out I’ve continued to work from my home.

What is disrespectful to such people is the idea that the general level of tripe offered on such shows should be characterized as education or as promoting role models for personal intellectual improvement. I assume the owners of such an idea are the networks and their market research people, who apparently harbor great contempt for their daytime audience. They play to the lowest intellectual common denominator and hardly ever take the chance to challenge people. They assume their audience is so infantile that they’ll get bored. The marketers seem to operate on the formula, “When the ratings go down, dumb it down.” Life imitates art. If we broadcast thousands of hours of junk entertainment that occasionally climbs to a third grade level of comprehension, that’s the kind of general level of public mentality we’re going to get. From there the process is self-perpetuating; the broadcasters never take the risk of appealing to a higher level.

Think about it: no disrespect to them, but we’re actually excited about Whoopi Goldberg and Barbara Walters being the icons of intellectual excellence on daytime TV? That’s the best we can expect?

But if someone just isn’t interested in that, what am I going to do? Force them to care? How?

Shunning and ridicule are two good tools.

But Bad, shouldn’t there be a base-level of understanding of certain things?

You need to clarify what you mean by “should.” I certainly would like it if people, all people, looked into science and learned as much as possible about the world around them. But if someone just isn’t interested in that, what am I going to do? Force them to care? How?

Other people have different priorities than myself.