Ryan Seacrest Makes $15 Million A Year

RoyFairbank wrote: Prog Idol.

There is no doubt it would work to some extent - in the UK we've had a Opera Idol ('Popstar to Opera Star') - it hasn't made opera stars out of the winners or contestants in the competition, but (ironically) it did result in increased sales of CDs of two of the judges (Ronaldo Villazón and Katherine Jenkins) - though both of them were (relatively) big sellers in the classical market before, it made them classical-crossover pop stars.

I think to do a prog idol, you'd have to have people doing long songs (not always but a fair bit of the time) like at least 9 minutes long, maybe more. And that all by itself would sink this as a marketable idea.

I hate being poor.

The T wrote: Dean wrote: RoyFairbank wrote: Prog Idol. There is no doubt it would work to some extent - in the UK we've had a Opera Idol ('Popstar to Opera Star') - it hasn't made opera stars out of the winners or contestants in the competition, but (ironically) it did result in increased sales of CDs of two of the judges (Ronaldo Villazón and Katherine Jenkins) - though both of them were (relatively) big sellers in the classical market before, it made them classical-crossover pop stars. As a classical music snobbish elitist pricklish afficionado, there's all kind of things I don't like in the information you just provided. Even reading BBB Music or Gramophone I never heard of such a travesty.

Looking around the supermarket and cafes and so on, I wonder how much of the food available there is never sold at all. It must be quite a lot. So we have a whole lot of producers/suppliers knowingly wasting food because they'd rather have the possibility of personal profit than the actual good of diverting these surplus foodstuff to the needy.

The point in general about Ryan Seacrest is valid but its roots are pretty deep and at least a century old, if not more.  By and by, the ruling class have discovered the power of money and learnt to exploit it better and better.  And the more they do so, the more they use their position irresponsibly and take predatory, heartless decisions.  In this way, a lot many educated people have become disillusioned with religion or at any rate, leaders use religion as a weapon to perpetrate evil acts of cruelty.   And without religion, it is very difficult to support a value system.  Why should I give you the respect that I would like to be given by other people?  Why should I exhibit courtesy, why should I show empathy or compassion?  Why indeed if there is no God that might punish me for not doing so?  

I am not saying it is impossible to have a value system without religion but it is certainly difficult to get a large number of people to embrace values without God faith to sort of coerce them into it.  Human civilization remains in equilibrium through a delicate social adjustment which we are and have been for several years now in the process of breaking down.  Because there is no God. The God that priestly folk talk about is just on paper.  The only God is the thing that buys you food and makes you rich enough that you can show off and sneer at people who are less fortunate than you.  So may God help the world.          

Edited by rogerthat - April 29 2012 at 07:41

it's really funny because I assume as usual, Textbook did this just for sh*ts

I really think he's compiling a book about human nature and is gunna use all this crap he's compiled on PA for it

Through the Courts of the bureau of The Feeble District Clerk who awfully jinxed over why we still haven't split tries to close up.
Hailey stops that.

  We're here to get circled.
      Don't let me ask twice.
          O. Hey. You. But.




One jar for two. Halfandhalf.
Ladling lumpy spoons. Liponlip, tonguetotongue doubling an amber moustache.

Textbook wrote: Rogerthat: Except look at societies where religion rules or ruled. They're awful as well. Sure, they give you a values system, but it's like communism, only works on paper. In reality, the leaders feel they're above that values system.   And there's nothing moral about values that come from religion anyway. People follow them in pursuit of a higher quality afterlife, heaven and hell is just carrot and stick.

I think the carrot and stick is quite important when it comes to a large section of people.   What exact higher quality of life you or I pursue is hard to judge and we cannot have a value system based on these things.  Societies which were religious BECAME awful because the religious leaders eventually turned corrupt.  I don't see that dispensing with religion alone will solve the problem; we need something else to fill the breach.  Right now, it is absolutely ok to pay a politician's way to power and make him pass laws that are detrimental to national interest just because it suits your own.  And what's new is it is even justified as being nothing more than human nature.  If that indeed be human nature, then humanity has set itself on the long, painful path to decay and deterioration.  Unfortunately, people are just too preoccupied with their lifestyle to either realize this or care about it or both.    

Rogerthat: But it's a carrot and stick that isn't rooted in reality. While it's possible that heaven and hell exist, it's quite easy to come to the conclusion that they don't. One also encounters the problem of "forgiveness", where sins become A-OK as long as you accept X as your saviour or say a certain prayer after sinning. This is where the church sold out and stressed membership of the club over following its rules.Our moral incentives should be as centred in the real world because they will be that much more convincing.