Wednesday, September 7, 2016

The Cause Minefield

There are a lot of causes I support.  They are political, religious, social, economic, etc.  But I don't talk about them that much because if you just say, "I like the color green" on the internet, you'll be bashed by all the red and blue lovers as a "colorist." They'll say that you must love money, will be voting for Jill Stein, and love playing golf because saying you "like green" must mean you support and approve of everything remotely related to green.  If you said you liked green and six months later ISIS came out with a new green flag, these people would retroactively label you an ISIS supporter.

Of course, what can be worse are the other people who like green.  You can't just like a color, you have to be in a faction.  Are you Jade, Mint, Olive?  Instead of just enjoying green with other like-minded people, more time is spent arguing over which faction people are in and if the Aquas are green enough.

So while I support many things, I rarely talk about them.  Of course, I also believe that somebody standing at a podium or street corner yelling about how they believe X is a poor way to convince people to also believe X.  A better way, in my opinion, is to be subtle.  Subtlety introduce the concept of X and hopefully over time the idea will take root and they will - on "their own" - come to the conclusion that X is best.  Ideas with roots are sturdier than ones painted on.

This is all a great idea.  It's just so hard trying to find subtle ways to push your ideas and causes.  How do you try to get people excited for space colonization, or to support advancing technologies, or to stop hunting for the "hidden meaning" behind every tweet or Facebook post and to just get on with their lives?

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