No n00bie is not an affection term, anywhere. Anything pointing to the recentness of a person’s account date is an insult. I’ll accept that you didn’t mean it that way, but really it’s an insult.
I didn’t say the box doesn’t shape opinion. I’m simply pointing out the difference in standard human reaction to a faced person (in this case fictional) and many faceless people (in this case real). The box can’t change this simple human reaction, our brain is geared towards being part of familial units and dealing with the kinds of problem familial units have. Subsequently it handles small numbers and personal connections very well, and it doesn’t handle large numbers and impersonal connections well if at all.
For most people any number that’s over 100 (for some it’s as low as 50, others can push it as high as 1000) is basically imaginary. We can’t internalize it, we deal with 1, a couple, a handful, and a couple of handfuls, and everything past that is basically outside our brain. So when you start talking about millions of aborted babies it’s a fog number, most people can’t understand it, and in one of those wierd tricks of the brain most treat it the same as they would hundreds. It’s over 100 and therefore not internalized. TV can’t change this. Millions of aborted babies, no matter how it gets handled on TV will remain a faceless incomprehensible number to the vast majority of people.
TV can change a lot, unfortunately basic limitations of the human mind doesn’t seem to be on the list.
From #20: "I simply pointed out why people are more able to identify with TV characters they see than real people they don’t. ... I don’t think the TV venue could change any of that. You still have the basic that abortion kids are “faceless” to the masses and won’t generate empathy. They are real human being but they don’t FEEL real to most people, and ni this case it’s the feeling that matter."
From #22: "I didn’t say the box doesn’t shape opinion. I’m simply pointing out the difference in standard human reaction to a faced person (in this case fictional) and many faceless people (in this case real). The box can’t change this simple human reaction, our brain is geared towards being part of familial units and dealing with the kinds of problem familial units have."