Date:   1/7/2008 11:47:35 AM ( 17 y ago)
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URL:   https://www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=1079602

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Interesting perspective you have there.

For a 12 year period ending in 2005, I worked as a tech support employee hired to have a telphone headset strapped around my noggin upwards to 12 hours a day, 6 days a week....during the really "good times" READ: the run-up hype to Y2K. The hallmark of the company I worked for had always been their effort to provide customer service technical assistance, forever, to the customer who purchased any product from the company. Compare this especially in view of more recent trends that have in large part distilled the world's hi-tech telephone based customer service down to half-baked computerized & automated telephone systems that intentionally herd people towards beign stuck in a maze of "press this number for this, press that number for that" as their idea of providing genuine customer service & technical support. Our customer base regularly would tell us that they didn't like the fact our company sold their products at excessively marked up prices BUT they were willing to pay that premium because of the level of support offered AFTER the sale. Many customers would admit outright that they really like the idea that this company paid employees, like me, to hold the hands of callin customers in need of help.

The range of help literally could involve just about everything imaginable, especially since I was involved with providing both pre-sale AND post-sale support. On both the pre-sale side, and post-sale, the main problem facing a lot of the callin customers I spoke to over the years was not that their new box/widget was defective or inferior, it was that they did not have the technical knowhow to really understand HOW they should go about putting said widget into use.... in other words, they were in need of a little bit of technical training on this technial topic, that, the other. Starting in the mid-90's, the "______ for Dummies" books first began to be popular as simple, to-the-point explanations of technical topics that the big tech companies had invented so as to be as unnecessarily complicated as possible. As needed, I would often suggest the customer consider buying a given _______for Dummies book. In the beginning, I was a bit hesitant to recommend this because of the fear that the customer would instinctively become insulted rather than taking the time to consider this genuinely given advice. To my surprise, for all the dozens and dozens of times I suggested these books, I never had a customer take this advice the wrong way. There were a few who were sort of thinking about going that way, but after a little more coaching, they soon saw that the advice was given sincerely. Back in the day, the books were limited to things like Novell Netware for Dummies... and Windows for Workgroups for Dummies. Over a few years the success of these quickly lead to other modern technical topics, but also branched out into other mostly non-technical topics, like Dating for Dummies.

Not to argue your opinion, but have you ever wondered why, for instance, a Trudeau has been lavished with ample access to broadcast mainstream television as a forum to get his particular message out, while a Schulze is not? Very little if anything at all in 21st century TV land happens by accident. For one reason, modern TV is made up of very little live content anymore, and this no doubt has gone a long way towards reducing inconvenient truths leaking out by accident. Even the nightly news broadcasts are filtered through various types of delays to further ensure that there is always a bit of time filter being applied to nearly everything being broadcast. When a nightly news channel shows you the pretty face of an anchor, that might be a live look. When they cut to a Pete Williams, et. al., said to be reporting his news live from the steps of the Justice Department (echoes of election 00' melodrama), for instance, that might be a live look at Pete...it might be a live look a the cutesy dolls and guys anchoring this partcular business, or it might be a massaged, slightly delayed look. Outside of these examples, though, most of what TV broadcasts is canned content, recorded information, heavily produced & choreographed, archived material.

You are absolutely right. None of us have enough time to learn all that we need to learn only by our own devices. It's always been this way. Since looooooong before the advent of information beamed by satellites to global printing press houses, loooong before the advent of broadcast media, it's been this way. One of the primary, albeit well-concealed purposes of modern media is to keep the common people so well stocked with information overload that they eventually reach the saturation point of being content to just sink into their couch and push buttons on the remote as their primrary "focusing efforts". Not only are people well advised to focus their efforts of availing themselves to theo occasional smarter person consolidating information for them, people are also well advised to focuse their efforts on WHO they allow themselves to accept as "smarter people".

To repeat, it is seldom an accident or random quirk that anybody is given access to broadcast media (mainlyl print, tv, and radio, but also connected are movies, entertainment, music, etc) to speak whatever their message might be. The average information-swamped person is also advised to consider - what makes a given person smarter in the first place? I don't know all the potential answers to this, but there is every good reason to believe that many of these kinds of smarter people are smarter merely because they've arranged their lives in ways that has allowed them to be granted privilege to use broadcast media as their pulpit.

 

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