Keeping With The Status Quo

I think that Sunstein brings up a good point to round out his ninth chapter, when he talks about the tyranny of the status quo. I believe that far too often people are concerned with what is wrong and pointing these things out instead of focusing on solutions to become better. In the section on the commodity of attention, the idea of bloggers including both sides of an argument in their blogrolls is an important way for us to advance in our ways of thinking. Like Sunstein says, it is unlikely to happen and it is noted that the First Amendment assures that a liberal blogger has the right to not provide a link to a topic presented by a conservative, but in all actuality this would be for the best. I think that broadening horizons for people is a good thing, and unfortunately I agree with Sunstein that this is probably a perfect Utopian idea that will never see the light of day, but if the idea is brought up enough perhaps sometime people will become fed up with the status quo and try to provide a new way of doing things, and main lining these proposals for how we might better regulate the internet to achieve our democratic goals.

The V Chip was mentioned in this chapter as well, and I found it interesting because I had not heard anything about this device for sometime. This article from 2001 shows that few parents used it back then and I would have to predict that it has dwindled considerably more since then. I suppose most televisions now have ways to block channels, I think you could when I was a kid, but my parents didn't use them but I know parents that did back in the day. I think that kids do need sheltering obviously when they are very young and beginning to learn how to use a remote, but after awhile it is important to teach kids lessons and programs on television are a valuable way to do that. Talking to kids about what they see on TV and what their feelings are is a healthy exercise in that it stimulates the mind rather just idly watching and not making a thoughtful and intelligent connection.