Make Kony famous

Quote from: Calach Pfeffer on March 14, 2012, 12:35:28 AM

I'm puzzled by the criticisms.

A charity gives support to two armies that are known for serious human rights violations (including rape) and you're...puzzled? Everything about the way they've gone about it feels completely calculated, from the video to the action packs. These college kids think they have bought into a solution. Spend 30bucks, throw some stickers up around the place, change the world. It's how it's presented in the video, and the video makes it seem like they have a definite plan of action as well. If they don't then it strikes me as dishonest. And if they are really putting their faith in the ability of social media to mutate this into something else then they should've listened to the old adage "You can't mutate a shit"*. That is to say, if you wanna build something good, you darn tootin better start from good foundations.

But that approach needs a whole swathe of competent people to be good, honest, motivated, equipped and present. If there were a lot of such people about the place, how many lingering wars or disasters would there be anyway?

It's ironic, I suppose, that the naive idealism of this program comes off as corrupt--there has to be flaws. And probably there are, by the bucketload.

The other thing, though, is, they're famous now. At least with the five minutes of fame Twitter and Facebook can provide. If they turn out to be a real-world scam as well...

Quote from: NATO on March 14, 2012, 05:15:26 AM

Quote from: Calach Pfeffer on March 14, 2012, 12:35:28 AM

I'm puzzled by the criticisms.

A charity gives support to two armies that are known for serious human rights violations (including rape) and you're...puzzled? Everything about the way they've gone about it feels completely calculated, from the video to the action packs. These college kids think they have bought into a solution. Spend 30bucks, throw some stickers up around the place, change the world. It's how it's presented in the video, and the video makes it seem like they have a definite plan of action as well. If they don't then it strikes me as dishonest. And if they are really putting their faith in the ability of social media to mutate this into something else then they should've listened to the old adage "You can't mutate a shit"*. That is to say, if you wanna build something good, you darn tootin better start from good foundations.

But that approach needs a whole swathe of competent people to be good, honest, motivated, equipped and present. If there were a lot of such people about the place, how many lingering wars or disasters would there be anyway?

It's ironic, I suppose, that the naive idealism of this program comes off as corrupt--there has to be flaws. And probably there are, by the bucketload.

The other thing, though, is, they're famous now. At least with the five minutes of fame Twitter and Facebook can provide. If they turn out to be a real-world scam as well...

I think this is the problem, you are just imagining that they are well meaning people who may not be right but at least their heart is in the right place. You don't know that, you just want to think that
It's actually a very well designed advertising campaign designed to make you think exactly that, 'they are just nice people like you; this isn't about anything complicated that needs study this is a very simple good and evil thing'
But it isn't a no-brainer, it's an incredibly complicated situation and if there campaign to put pressure on western governments to become involved works it becomes even more complicated

I'm not imagining them as well-meaning. I make no claim about their character, other than that they--and particularly the main guy--are promoters. What I'm imagining is they're promoting a particular kind of activity. They positively aim to bypasses the complexity. And I think they're doing that precisely because complexity frustrates action. They wish to see action, so they make the story simple. (And they wish to promote action among people with internet access who speak English, so they make the story simple AND slick.)

Pick on them for the nature of the action they wish to promote. If they wish to cause people to hand over money, they've probably got a modest cash flow out of it. If they wish to cause people to know more about the situation, they've got entire journalistic and forum communities spreading the word about how it's so much more complex than you knew. If their whole plan is to get US soldiers deployed... well, that's alarming, isn't it? They've generated a constituency, and voices, however ignorant, will be heard.

What we really need right now is for some presidential hopeful to say "Not worth our time--active membership of the LRA is only several hundred and we've got bigger Irans in the fire."

Less than 140 characters.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/14/kony-2012-screening-anger-northern-uganda

Interesting reactions as the film is shown in Uganda..

I just want America to not attack Iran. That will be a serious war, not like Iraq out on their own, a war with Iran would ruin the world

What would Russian and China do?

I think all Americans and English should be dedicating our efforts to our governments not fighting Iran. They are trying to and they would by now if they thought they would win. Since we are from Democratic countries I think that is how we should use our power as citizens

African Warlords is all about the diamond and oil trade that is there, it isn't bad people its' bad situations. personification of things that happen is a dangerous and idiotic approach to human behaviour

Lost interest in this, until:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/16/kony-2012-campaigner-detained

haha

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/17/kony-2012-meltdown-stress-wife

Ha ha. Must've freaked the neighbours out.