The winning entry for the environment category in this year’s Media that Matters Film Festival was a short animated film about the dangers of electronic waste. And what consumers can do to help the problem. I’m not sure if I find it effective or annoying. You decide.
Tag Archives: threat
Home Invasion as Art
For the past four years, Critical Art Ensemble’s Steve Kurtz has been a martyr in the world of activist art, the victim of overzealous FBI investigatory impropriety. The case against him was utterly absurd, Kafka-esque even. Thankfully,though, the judge saw reason this month and his case was finally dismissed. Now, he has an exhibit entitled Seized that displays what FBI agents confiscated from his home, and what they left behind. From the piles of debris Kurtz came home to, it seems the agents spent as much time snacking as they did searching. I think what ‘s interesting about this exhibit is that it humanizes the police state. We (I) tend to think of the government as a great monolith, stomping down on the People. Law Enforcement agencies always feel like giant killer robots breathing Guantanamo fire and plucking hapless citizens from their homes. But really, these institutions are made up of Gatorade swilling, pizza eating former frat boys and sorority girls. That’s comforting. That gives me hope.
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Posted in How To Win
Tagged activism, activist example, art, art example, perceptions, threat
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John Pilger – Freedom Next Time
This is great speech by journalist John Pilger on the powers and dangers of corporate media. I think what’s most interesting about it is that he breaks from the Left/Right dialectic that plagues social change movements and takes liberalism to task for some of its crimes. The liberal Clinton administration increased the size of the prison-industrial complex and justified the Iraq sanctions and bombing campaign as a humane method of dealing with a dictator. The parents of the 500,000 children who died as a result of those sanctions (according to the UN) would disagree, I think.
Pilger’s point here is not simply to criticise the dominant ideology of the intelligentsia, but to stress that no action is inherently just or good by nature of the beliefs that support it. Again and again the liberal media has supported wars of empire, and liberal Democrats like Truman, Johnson, Carter, and Clinton have instigated and supported violent oppression around the world. The responsibility to prevent tyranny then falls to the public, and if I have any criticism for Pilger’s speech it’s that his conclusion suggests few solutions beyond vigilance and a citizen fifth estate to watch the watchers. Valid, sure, but the real issue is how do we inspire people to want to be the fifth estate?. Still, it’s an educational, sobering, thought provoking speech that’s definitely worth watching.
Posted in How To Win
Tagged activist example, corporate, failure, media, nytimes, perceptions, politics, psychology, research, threat
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Loss Aversion, Greenpeace, and Health
Here’s a pattern of tactics I realized have something in common. They all work by presenting a threat. Loss aversion, as it can be called, can be more motivating – using the stick instead of the carrot.
## Example 1 From Greenpeace:##
The ranking criteria reflect the demands of the Toxic Tech campaign to the electronics companies. Our two demands are that companies should:
1) clean up their products by eliminating hazardous substances;
2) takeback and recycle their products responsibly once they become obsolete.
I talked to someone at Greenpeace about this (we could get in touch with him again for an interview) and he said the strategy here was to always be targeting the company in last place. All the companies will improve because they fear being outed as “the worst” by Greenpeace.
##Example 2: Loss Aversion for Weight Loss from NPR (excerpt):
Would you stick to your diet if your savings were at stake? Two professors are betting the answer is yes. The winning formula may include signing a contract to enforce the bet.
Yale professors Ian Ayres, an expert in contract law, and Dean Karlan, a behavioral economist, both entered weight loss bets. And both won. They took off the weight they pledged.
Karlan describes a recent effort in the Philippines to help smokers quit. Through a local bank, the smokers signed agreements to put their cigarette money into savings accounts and agreed to urine tests. At the end of six months, if the tests showed they had nicotine in their system, their savings were lost — given to charity.
“It was wildly successful,” says Karlan. People who took up the account were 30 percent more likely to stop smoking, at least temporarily, than the smokers who didn’t participate in a savings agreement.
The results exemplify what behavioral economists call “prospect theory,” or loss aversion.
“What we know about incentives is that people work a lot harder to avoid losing $10 than they will work to gain $10,” explains Ayres. “So something that’s framed as a loss is really effective at changing behavior.”
They have a theory and they know it works because they have stats.
##Example 3: Smoking Habit Auction##
On Monday 31 March, 2008, the highest bidder will receive a contract written by my lawyer, Chris Hoquard at Dominion Law, in which I hand over my right to smoke to them, and agree to pay them a forfeit of NZ$1000.00 per cigarette that I smoke at any time following the auction’s closure. I will donate the proceeds from the auction to the Cancer Society of New Zealand.
Again, success and failure here are clearly defined.
Posted in How To Win
Tagged activist example, corporate, evaluation, health, smoking, threat
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