my inner geek wrote:
>
> I was thinking of televisions as tools to help primitive third world
> societies become more socialized and tolerant of Western values.
>
> For all the *damage* that TV has done, it's really COMMERCIAL
> BROADCAST television that has done the damage, *not* the technology
> of television itself.
>
in the one clear case of successful memetic warfare, it was commercial
broadcast TV that won. By all reports, the fall of eastern germany was
driven to a large estent by the desire of the populace to have the
things being advertized on the western german TV they could see.