It could be argued that the reason we haven’t advanced further as a race is because so much of our energy and resources are directed toward developing better ways to kill the enemy. I’m not the first to have thought the only way we’ll ever come together as a species, setting aside differences, is if we’re monstered by a threat external to our planet, uniting us as a species against another species. Preferably a common mortal threat with a rapid agenda.
A while back people worked out that human productivity can be enhanced by taking work and turning it into a game. Gamification of mundane and repetitive tasks makes for happier people and greater productivity. So, with that in mind, it may be that the only way we break the back of global conflict, global warming and the like is to somehow convincingly anthropomorphise the problem. Make global warming an enemy, for example. Give it a face. Not in a propaganda sense, but in a ‘face that I can smash’ sense. An ‘enemy we can rally against’ sense. Just as if we were being invaded.
Sodded if I know how we’d do that. But it seems to me that if we replace ‘aliens’ with ‘global heat death’, or ‘foreigners’ with ‘man’s inhumanity to man’, maybe we’d get somewhere.
And then I look at Kony2012, (which I think in a very real sense is duplicitous and risks replacing a problem people have already made good progress on… with a brand new problem), and realise they may have actually done that. They’ve given a problem a face, and the world’s woken up a little (or so it seems at this early stage). I realise we can’t do the same thing for global warming. Unless, one by one, we target the world’s biggest polluters and give each of them a face. Every story needs a hero, stakes, and a villain. The hero is you. The villain is them. The stakes are something you care about. With Kony it’s the boy Joseph.
Give their crimes a face, and a personality, and a history. Anthropomorphise the companies, and their victims. People need to see an effect from their actions, and quickly. With Kony it’s Joseph’s face, or updates, or another video. It’s the age we live in. Seems to me a tight chain of reward is key. Anyone who’s ever played through a game on an XBox 360 just for the Achievements (Gamerscore) probably knows what I mean.
It’s one thing to join a global pile-on against one shitheel in a jungle, and another to take down a phalanx of the world’s most powerful institutions, but there is definitely SOMETHING there.
FYI
Since the start of the year I’ve been busier than I’ve been in ten years (books, films, video games). Will post something here as soon as I can.
Also, the site has to migrate to a new host by the 25th. I’m hoping for a minimum of disruption when that happens.
As a thank-you, here’s one of the best animated shorts I’ve seen in a long while, and relevant to the post. Enjoy.
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Seriously powerful idea — gaining power over an enemy/demon by knowing its true name has its roots in ancient mythology.
The “War on Terror” failed from the outset because it’s a vague concept with no enemy you can point at in the real world (despite their efforts to anthropomorphise it and make OBL the mastermind), no tangible artefact, no nation-state you can pin it on, no one criminal you can arrest or sue or lock-up that will neatly solve the problem, and no politician you can vote-out or put on trial.
Ditto the “War on Drugs”, which does far more harm on a social and medical level than the good it can have ever do on a statutory level.
Kony2012 may look like Hipsters With Guns, white person’s guilt, and a meme gone wild (I’m surprised slick viral marketing hasn’t latched on like a parasite). At the very least, it appears misdirected, and too late to help many.
But it also demonstrates the collective power of people, and how the internet can get ideas into people’s hearts and minds at an unprecedented speed and scale.
Goodness knows, in this day and age, we need something to twinge an altruistic nerve. Real altruism, not a one-off feelgood opiate that does nothing sustained to tackle the root cause of the problem. There’s no silver bullet, and it takes more to solve an issue like climate change than clicking a button for an online petition, or “Like” on Facebook.
How do you bridge that gap?
Here’s an example:
It’s entrenched in our corporate laws now that “companies are people”, so why not put a face to them? The companies owned and run by Gina Rinehart and Rupert Murdoch, for example, do untold damage, though there’s little power, will, or urgency to stop them in a legal or political sense…but they can still be held to account in a social sense.
Personalising the issues may raise awareness, change spending-habits of consumers, and hit the bastards where it hurts.
Off the top of my head, here’s some tactics to give busy, modern people the gamification they crave: immediate recognition to fuel the gratification feedback loop; simple grind if necessary, rather than trying to accomplish a seemingly monumental task in one shot; quantifiable change / incrementing stats, such as the number of votes, a ticker displaying how many people have signed-up, or an estimate of how many spending dollars have gone from a crooked corporate to an ethical alternative; and an indication of how each individual’s meagre contribution is helping, such as links to relevant news.
I think the key thing, really, is to boil a complex issue down to one scapegoat – and I don’t mean that to sound as cynical as it does. We’re geared to respond to individuals, not masses. We react to Joseph, not to Uganda. We react to Kony, not child soldiers. If we’re offered a choice of three types of jam we’re fine, if we’re offered 24 we’re much more likely to decide we don’t want jam.
I think this is where Kony2012 succeeded. It’s pandering, make no mistake, but when dealing with hundreds of thousands, nay millions, of people you can’t be complex. Politicians have known this for millennia.
The trick is managing to truthfully boil a problem down to one fixable, arrestable or killable problem. It’s also hugely manipulative, which is a whole other facet of this thing that hasn’t really been touched on.
Listen, fellow carefag…
There is a world of difference between what is ‘right’ in the natural world, and ‘right’ as it is defined by most modern civilizations. In nature, might is right. It has nothing to do with fairness, nor equality. Because fairness, justice, and equality do not exist anywhere in the natural world. And in the long view, none of those things matter to the natural world. Are all men created equal? All animals, plants, insects, microorganisms…. is there anything created equal?
Bizarro world.
In the natural world, conservatism and liberalism are absurdities. All religions are absurdities. In nature, the bottom line is this: If you are weak, or old, or peaceful, or tolerant, or make a habit of leaving your guard down, or leave your guard down just once [while the planets, and Harry Potter are aligned against you, astrologically speaking]… you are going to die, and in a horrific, painful way. If you are strong, battle ready, never leave your guard down, and never develop weaknesses…. you are going to die, by starvation, old age, or fall prey to another organism of superior might.
The best police force, laws, TSA, Clint Eastwood, Rambo, and even Al Gore himself, could not prevent someone who has a desire, and the ability, to kill you, from doing so. What happens afterward will hardly be of any concern to you when you are fertilizer. All are susceptible to microorganisms, which are literally everywhere, and always around to take up the slack when the grim reaper has been negligent in his duties. Health care reform… welfare, finding the fucks to give for folks who ridicule you for it. Bizarro world.
In the natural world, where might is right, evolution eventually produced the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Become too mighty, and nature will take you out; all the way out. There is a balance that exists in the natural world, and in everything in the known universe. At the subatomic level: protons and electrons…. at the human level, ‘good’ and ‘bad’; love and hate; smart and stupid; greed and generosity; beauty and ugliness; bravery and cowardice; heroism, and…. lawyers.
Albert Einstein, Genghis Kahn, Moses, David, Adolph Hitler, Gautama Siddhartha, and Jesus Christ are all dead now.
Evolution is the inherent ability in all things living to occasionally withstand, and adapt to deadly environmental trauma. There is only one alternative to evolution, and that is death. Utopia = death. Nothing in nature will sustain Utopia. All the world civilizations, religions, political parties, genders, Los Angeles street gangs, and even The Legion, working in unison, will still not be sufficient to permit Utopia… because with utopia, evolution ceases to be a necessity. Utopia = death.
Harmony, equality, tolerance, world peace, and tranquility, by mankind’s definition, are paradoxes. Absurdities. Nature’s laws will not support any of those conditions, in the sense most of us perceive them. The powers behind creation have only mandated one known imperative in the physical universe, and that is: balance. The powers behind life have mandated only one known imperative for it’s continued existence: evolution.
Every time a liberal attempts to save the world, there is going to be a suicide bomber somewhere who is laughing at you. Every time a conservative attempts to own the world, there is going to be a liberal lawyer somewhere who is laughing at you. Every time a mortal man assumes control, there is going to be a revolutionary somewhere who is laughing at you. Every time a revolutionary attempts to change the world, there is going to be a man in control somewhere who is laughing at you. Every time I attempt to define the world, there is going to be an asshole somewhere who is laughing at me.
And I say: feel free to laugh. We will be together someday, working in unison to fertilize the soil, push up some daisies, and mix together to become fossil fuel. Eventually we will OCCUPY the heavens together as particulates and other pollutants. My word of honor that I will not be harboring any grudges then. Let the ridicule begin.