TV / television licensing MEGATHREAD

[Magilla]

If it is so good it would be able to go subscription.

 

And yet again the point of why it exists and why it's so good is simply beyond your grasp!

 

Hint: it's good for *exactly* the same reasons as most people would say the NHS is good, precisely because of the way it's funded as well the principles under which it was founded and is still run.

Edited April 2, 2015 by Magilla

[truman]

If it is so good it would be able to go subscription.

 

So you'd like it to be only for those who can afford £500 or so a year?

[Obelix]

So you'd like it to be only for those who can afford £500 or so a year?

 

Only £500 a year? I think it would probably be more than that.

[onewheeldave]

Because that's how we survive as a society...if everyone just chose to obey the laws they thought were moral and just then, as people's morals are different, it would be chaos..

 

We survive as a society by, if a person considers a law to be morally wrong, unholding that law regardless? By 'upholding' there I'm mean that the person follows that law, doesn't themselves break it, and, considers it a social duty that every person in the society should follow it (though may well campaign to have the law changed).

 

Have I understood you right on that? Before I make any further comment, I just want conformation that I've got the right understanding of what you're saying.

 

---------- Post added 02-04-2015 at 19:16 ----------

 

He won't answer it - he's choosing to be selectivly outraged at people not answering his questions on being gay.

 

Just to clarify here- I'm not gay

 

---------- Post added 02-04-2015 at 19:19 ----------

 

You've got access to google like everyone else.

 

Why don't you answer the point me and Cyclone have been making for the last several pages now - or is it too tricky for you to understand?

 

Don't know if you missed this-

 

As for the question being not 'germane' (relevant)- do you want to have a stab at how me asking cyclone whether he'd advise homosexuals to follow (or not) anti-homosexuality laws, which he (cyclone) agrees are immoral laws, is not relevant to a argument discussing whether people should follow laws they consider to be immoral?

 

or if you're refusing to answer that one as well as the other?

Edited April 2, 2015 by onewheeldave

[nightrider]

So, the BBC takes a huge wad of advertising from the other channels, how do they now make ends meet? Dumb down, go out of business, or up their costs?

 

 

 

You do pay, on every product or service you buy that is advertised on TV.

 

 

 

And then you get ITV, complete crap usually. That doesn't help anyone.

 

 

I watch a few things on the bbc which are very good, but mostly its things I don't want to watch. So for me its not good value.

 

In fact most of the good quality things I watch are imports, not publicly funded. So I don't buy the whole argument about good tv only being possible due to the bbc...

[HbroChris]

I watch a few things on the bbc which are very good, but mostly its things I don't want to watch. So for me its not good value.

 

In fact most of the good quality things I watch are imports, not publicly funded. So I don't buy the whole argument about good tv only being possible due to the bbc...

 

I think that's a fair point. I see it from the other side of that argument.

 

I think that bias is an important consideration. People will doubtless say that the BBC is editorially biased, which is worth debating separately, but they're not susceptible to commercial bias in the same way that a commercial (ie. advertisement-funded) broadcaster would be.

 

So, one of the things I think makes a broadcaster "good" is lack of bias, and in this respect I think the BBC serves a different function to the other broadcasters (some of whom I think are "good" for other reasons, like quality).

 

---------- Post added 03-04-2015 at 10:10 ----------

 

Only £500 a year? I think it would probably be more than that.

 

That's an interesting question, isn't it? Sky clearly want to make a profit, but I wonder what the cost of a break-even subscription for the BBC would actually be?

 

As I've said before on this thread, I think the actual CAPEX in making the BBC technologically capable of a subscription broadcast model (ie. encryption, set-top boxes, the machinery to manufacture, distribute and administrate them) is actually the prohibitive factor here - presumably the subscription would be higher for a while to offset this cost (which I reckon would be in the triple-digit millions), but the *actual* cost of providing the service that we get today? I wonder how much that is...

 

---------- Post added 03-04-2015 at 10:17 ----------

 

or if you're refusing to answer that one as well as the other?

 

Dave, for reference, this is the gist of the "tu quoque" logical fallacy.

 

It's a class of ad hominem attack whereby Party One incorrectly posits that Party Two's refusal to answer a question that seems to be related renders their substantive position unsound.

 

An example is suggesting that someone can be opposed to consumerism when they own a computer and that their support of anti-consumerism is therefore eroded.

 

Specifically, as has been pointed out, Cyclone's refusal to answer about homosexuals adhering to an immoral, anti-homosexual law in no way nullifies his position about people adhering to the legal requirement to possess a TV Licence (under certain circumstances) even if they think it is immoral - the two arguments are not related.

 

More information is available with some relatively perfunctory googling.

[spilldig]

And yet again the point of why it exists and why it's so good is simply beyond your grasp!

 

Hint: it's good for *exactly* the same reasons as most people would say the NHS is good, precisely because of the way it's funded as well the principles under which it was founded and is still run.

 

 

As I say, a separate thing to the NHS.

 

---------- Post added 03-04-2015 at 15:55 ----------

 

So you'd like it to be only for those who can afford £500 or so a year?

 

Hopefully it would be less than it costs now.

Edited April 3, 2015 by spilldig

[Obelix]

 

 

 

or if you're refusing to answer that one as well as the other?

 

Tu Quoque. It's not relevant to the point being made.

[onewheeldave]

 

Dave, for reference, this is the gist of the "tu quoque" logical fallacy.

 

It's a class of ad hominem attack whereby Party One incorrectly posits that Party Two's refusal to answer a question that seems to be related renders their substantive position unsound.

 

An example is suggesting that someone can be opposed to consumerism when they own a computer and that their support of anti-consumerism is therefore eroded.

 

Specifically, as has been pointed out, Cyclone's refusal to answer about homosexuals adhering to an immoral, anti-homosexual law in no way nullifies his position about people adhering to the legal requirement to possess a TV Licence (under certain circumstances) even if they think it is immoral - the two arguments are not related.

 

 

Thanks for the explanation.

 

My question, however, is not being asked in order to suggest any hypocrisy on cyclones part.

 

Rather it is to do with the general principle that cyclone is upholding, that everyone should obey every law, whether or not they consider those laws to be right/just/moral, or not.

 

That is the point being discussed. So, let's suppose that cyclone is refusing to answer the question-

 

"In your opinion, should a person back then, have followed the anti-homosexuality laws when they knew full well those laws were immoral?"

 

because cyclone, citing 'Tu Quoque', wants to only address the actual point 'that everyone should obey every law, whether or not they consider those laws to be right/just/moral, or not' rather than whether he, or, in this case, gay men during the period when gay sex was illegal, should or should not have obeyed those laws.

 

And, if cyclone doesn't want to answer or address that question, and, wants to claim that he declines due to 'Tu Quoque' (as opposed to the fact that the only answer he can give that is coherent with his general principle would be that gay men should have obeyed the law), then that is cyclones perogative.

 

And, with cyclones refusal to address that question, that part of the discussion is clearly ended.

 

However, for the record, I'll answer it, and, unlike cyclone, I'm going for 'no'. IMO, gay men who wished to have sexual relations back in the day when the state outlawed gay sexual relations, if they wished, should, IMO, have done so.

 

The reasons I think that include-

 

1. the law was wrong/immoral

2. cyclones general principle (that everyone should follow the law, even if they consider it immoral, or, if it is immoral) is itself totally wrong

3. I see the law for what it is- a bunch of rules created by an elite, and imposed on a population who were not consulted, and, 'justified' by reference to an imaginary concept called something along the lines of a 'social contract'

 

As well as giving my consent to gay men to copulate, even if the law disallows it, I'd also have encouraged Germans, pre WWII to break the law by not treating jews as sub-human and, given them permission to oppose/resist/murder the german policemen who were harrassing and imprisoning said jews. Ditto for South Africa and every other instance of regimes imposing cruelty on subsections of the population and calling it 'law'.

 

But I guess it's lucky for the world that not everyone shares my views, and, that we've got healthy numbers of cyclone-style moral worms to maintain the status quo and protect those laws from radicals saying 'no'. After all, without them, the world would descend into anarchy, wouldn't it?

 

---------- Post added 03-04-2015 at 23:30 ----------

 

Tu Quoque. It's not relevant to the point being made.

 

Futue te Ipsum

[briant33]

Why cant the BBC be funded with advertisements?