Thanks OP for the insight into real life in Latvia. Part of the benefit of piracy is that hackers have to learn how to do it and solve technical problems to do it. It's probably the start of quite a few engineering careers. But it is getting both easier and harder. Easier because of prebuilt software that even a moron can use, harder because the penalties are becoming extreme.
Consider the USA people glued to 3 or 4 channels on the "boob tube" (TV) back when I was a kid. The opportunity for programming our minds was definitely there, and exploited. We were told the official story of JFK's murder, we got feminism, all sorts of social engineering was supported by our few TV stations. Now we have the internet and some choices; the programming is less effective. We can debunk things.
If you Latvians love the free movies so much you ignore the internet, that's pretty sad. But it could hardly be worse than what I grew up with, and we've survived, til now at least.
Quoting: Anonymous Coward 30670070 Peoples minds are getting manipulated with a more potent version of programming than before. This is because humans gradually build up tolerance for these kind of things and become immune. Now, this would result in a subtle change to a society that has been heavily under this kind of influence for 30 or so years and built up tolerance.
But Latvia and many other developing countries have been under this much influence only for the last 10-12 years.
Now Latvia has worlds 3rd fastes internet connection. We download massive HD movies in a matter of minutes not having to pay anything for it. We love it, we cannot live without it. And we devour insane amounts of western media. Many have this ''Latvian complex''. We don't like to be Latvians as it is not UK or US. We want to live big, we want the American dream. So we buy all the stuff you do - Iphones, cars, fancy cameras etc.- even though it is 25% more expensive. And nobody can actually afford it as 67% of population earns 600$ a month or less. But we do anyway - because we have been programmed so hard by the media we absorb that we just must get this stuff.
The powers that be realize that we do not have the purchasing power to have the stuff and the brainwashing, so they give a 50% discount to us and hand us the brainwashing for free - isn't this generous?
A human should experience emotions based on situations he is in, based on his or others actions. Like laughter, joy, surprise, love, fear, accomplishment, pride, SENSE OF POWER and CONFIDENCE. But we just choose the easy way, and get all this from movies, songs.
It is like replacing all the fruits and vegetables in your diet with synthetic vitamins. We just lock our self in our private mental mastrubatorium and have all of this. This leads to a serious emotional malnutrition. The youth is unsatisfied with life, they cannot get a sense of happiness if money is not involved, they do not believe in themselves yet they are egocentric.
I know a lot of this is happening in America as well and I care for Americans, British and any other nation as much as for Latvians. I am using my country only as an example of where the world is heading and to warn you. You have to learn from what I have said or accept the change. I do not see this as a health way for a society to develop, so I protest in hope that there will be more realizing the poisonous nature of media.
What I have described here, what I am living in is just a rushed process that all the western world is going through.
