The Danger of Simplicity

[davidswanson]

I sat down during a lengthy protest occupation to play a game of chess, but my friend was better than I am. So, halfway through the match, I said to him, "What's your one move?"

He didn't know what I meant. "What's your one winning move," I said, "and which piece are you going to use? Get all the other pieces off the board. If you can't win with one piece in one move, you'll never win!"
My voice was getting louder as I said this.

He was looking at me like I was a little bit nuts. "Sure I will," he said very slowly as if I were an idiot, "and you won't even see it coming."

I tried to reason with him. It was for his own good. "What's your one simple move? What's your one simple move? What's your one simple move?" I was practically screaming, but he still didn't understand, so I did the only thing I could. I jumped on the chess board with both feet. If he couldn't be simple, I could at least stop him from being complicated!

Ahem.

The problem in this story, of course, is that chess isn't simple. But compared to fixing the mess our nation and our world are in, it's child's play. Yet, we are constantly bombarded with demands for the "one simple move" to fix everything in our politics. How insane is that? And the "news" media tell us what's happening in a manner that could not possibly report coherently the complexity of a single chess game yet attempts to inform us about the entire world.

Now, I have no quarrel with short pithy posters and sound bytes. I'm not proposing that we mumble doctoral theses into television cameras. But we need to bear in mind that the medium is the moron. The people on the receiving end of television chatter are not as stupid as television itself. There is such a thing as diminishing returns in the arms race of dumbness through which we dumb everything down until we reach the ultimate perfection of pure political messaging and grunt a single syllable.

We've taken the reasonable idea of a simple unifying cause that requires little explanation. We've combined it with the self-flagellation of progressive framers and messagers who imagine they aren't getting on the tee-vee because evolution deniers are wittier and pithier, rather than because of who owns the networks. We've stirred in a dash of Egypt envy: "Mubarak Out" said it all in two words; where are our two words? Boo hoo hoo hoo hoo.

https://occupywallst.org came up with this response to the "What is your one simple demand" demand:

On September 21st, 2011, Troy Davis, an innocent man, was murdered by the state of Georgia. Troy Davis was one of the 99 percent.
Ending capital punishment is our one demand.
On September 21st, 2011, the richest 400 Americans owned more wealth than half of the country's population.
Ending wealth inequality is our one demand.
On September 21st, 2011, four of our members were arrested on baseless charges.
Ending police intimidation is our one demand.
On September 21st, 2011, we determined that Yahoo lied about occupywallst.org being in spam filters.
Ending corporate censorship is our one demand.
On September 21st, 2011, roughly eighty percent of Americans thought the country was on the wrong track.
Ending the modern gilded age is our one demand.
On September 21st, 2011, roughly 15% of Americans approved of the job Congress was doing.
Ending political corruption is our one demand.
On September 21st, 2011, roughly one sixth of Americans did not have work.
Ending joblessness is our one demand.
On September 21st, 2011, roughly one sixth of America lived in poverty.
Ending poverty is our one demand.
On September 21st, 2011, roughly fifty million Americans were without health insurance.
Ending health-profiteering is our one demand.
On September 21st, 2011, America had military bases in around one hundred and thirty out of one hundred and sixty-five countries.
Ending American imperialism is our one demand.
On September 21st, 2011, America was at war with the world.
Ending war is our one demand.

http://occupytogether.org is spreading occupations across the country, sans the One Simple Demand. How can this be? What is motivating these people? Are they all part of some cult of complexity and obscurantism? How can the imbeciles I imagine everyone but myself to be ever hope to catch on?

http://october2011.org is taking the movement to Washington, D.C., beginning on October 6th, and this crowd apparently wants seven things! and probably more! This is on the website:

Tax the rich and corporations.
End the wars, bring the troops home, cut military spending.
Protect the social safety net, strengthen Social Security and improved Medicare for all
End corporate welfare for oil companies and other big business interests.
Transition to a clean energy economy, reverse environmental degradation.
Protect worker rights including collective bargaining, create jobs and raise wages.
Get money out of politics.

Whoa! Way. Too. Many. Words. The ideal sentence is a single word. And you cannot build a political campaign around more than a single sentence. This is getting completely out of hand.

http://rebuildthedream.com has pretty much the same agenda, but they put it into Ten (10) points, if you can believe it:

I. Invest in America's Infrastructure
II. Create 21st Century Energy Jobs
III. Invest in Public Education
IV. Offer Medicare for All
V. Make Work Pay
VI. Secure Social Security
VII. Return to Fairer Tax Rates
VIII. End the Wars and Invest at Home
IX. Tax Wall Street Speculation
X. Strengthen Democracy

What do they want us to do, stop and think about it, for godsake? Who has the time? I mean, I do, of course. It's way shorter and simpler than the directions for my blueray player. But, what about everybody else? What about all the knuckle-dragging mouth-breathing cretins we all know everybody except ourselves to be? How will we ever get power into their hands, where it belongs, unless we can persuade them to want it in under four seconds, the dumbasses?

Plus, there's just a lot more entertaining bickering when the people who swear election funding is the root of all evil have to go up against the global-warming-is-more-important-than-anything-else gang, especially if a few members of the only-fixing-the-media-matters tribe butt in. If these people all get together and group their causes under a broader heading like "People Power" or "End Empire" or "Human Needs Over Corporate Greed," or just plain "Occupy," well there just might be too many of them working together at that point, if you know what I mean. A few of them in a park is OK. They take off their clothes and sing songs. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. But when they start talking about being 99 percent of the country, and when they start including just about everybody who stops by, well that just doesn't seem like responsible behavior. I don't see how this can end well.

[midnight]

1. Great messages each and every one of these demands. Sorry it seems to be so complicated for some.

[Warpy]

3. It's what we all want.

Washington, of course, will continue to slap bandaids on the gushing artery that our financial system has become, assured by all the Golden Sacks plants that it's the only way to act.

[tcaudilllg]

28. I concur Midnight. The lapdogs are out in force today.

[tcaudilllg]

29. David wants to take over the movement and remake it into what he wants it to be.

That way he can be in position to be the deal maker, and receive a handsome reward for trading us in.

[Beartracks]

2. Two words: Spot. On.

Okay, here's a few more: I hope the mouth-breathing knuckle-draggers know you're aping the Culture of Simplicity and that you don't REALLY think ill of them that way. Well, not ALL of them anyway. The protesters-who-want-way-too-many-things are, of course, battling for the rights and dignity of the cretins, too.

Well writ post.

============================

[The Wizard]

4. Wall Street lobbyists write our laws

Things will get worse until Wall Street money is removed from politics. Then again, they do have secret off shore accounts in tax havens that will gladly accept Wall Street bribes.

[tcaudilllg]

32. We're gonna have to think in new terms of systemic continuity.

And the Libyans have shown us how.

[stevenleser]

5. You can argue about this as much as you want. If you cannot condense the protests into simple

soundbites, nothing is going to happen as a result.

1 sentence of 10 words or less explaining what you are protesting.

1 sentence of 10 words or less explaining what changes you want.

You can preach about why you think that doesn't make sense, but it will not matter. What makes sense to you and I does not matter. What makes sense is what you can get the rest of the country to wrap their minds around.

[closeupready]

8. Yes, this is the flip (down)side of the fact that the left is smarter than the right -

we get caught up in esoteric concepts and the average American doesn't connect with what we are talking about.

[stevenleser]

9. That's exactly it. The reason why the stupid teabaggers managed to go somewhere, aside from

their astroturfed funding, is that their issue and goal was simple.

Issue: Government is spending too much and taxes are too high

Goal(s): Cut taxes, cut spending, oppose Obama & Democrats and their policies.

I disagree with them on basically everything, but you cannot argue the fact that their message was read loud and clear by anyone even remotely paying attention and their goals were pretty clear.

I cannot stress this enough to people, IT IS NOT ENOUGH TO BE ANGRY AND FRUSTRATED. One and two year olds are frequently angry and frustrated. You have to articulate that into coherent messages and goals.

[Scuba]

12. Did you hear W? "We're good, they're evil. That's all you need to know."...

...simple message resonates with simple people.

[stevenleser]

13. That's exactly right, and W managed to push his agenda through as a result. n/t

[tcaudilllg]

27. Forget it... no one can get through to you.

I'm sending you to political oblivion.

[stevenleser]

36. Why dont you spend your time working on things you have some knowledge about. nt

[saras]

18. What you're saying is that the radical right-wing necessarily wins - always.

All human progress depends on our collective ability to build and manage ideas more complex than any one single person can manage. The process of giving up the notion of authority and starting to build a collective body of knowledge is part of that. If you're not willing to string consecutive thoughts together into something that still makes sense, you have no choice but to follow an authoritarian leader who can do so, or else you'll die in poverty.

None of this fits into soundbites, because the whole POINT of it is that to be human, we HAVE to move beyond soundbites. And we CAN. By choosing to.

So, I've successfully contradicted myself, and the OP. There is a single item that at least starts the process of fixing things. That is, we HAVE TO GET BEYOND SOUND BITES. IT DOESN'T WORK TO THINK IN SOUNDBITES.

Once we're past that one (involving media, propaganda, childraising, schools, and more), I completely trust in our ability to find solutions to all the other listed problems.

[stevenleser]

19. Aside from the straw man you have created, you are mixing dissimilar concepts

I never said the radical right always wins, that is a straw man. Aside from that, you are mixing up the Scientific disciplines with that of Communications.

If I want to create a fusion reactor, I am going to have to learn a lot of science (physics in particular) and applied mathematics and pull together a lot of information in order to accomplish that.

But to give you the gist of what I will need to do, all I needed was the above sentence to communicate that. If instead, I wrote a 500 page dissertation to try to explain that above sentence with all of the formulas and such, I would probably lose you.

[tcaudilllg]

22. We don't have to appeal to the mass media.

We need to appeal to the people in the NYSE and Obama. That's it. The moment things get simple, things get divided up. You can't have simplicity and freedom -- it DOESN'T WORK.

[stevenleser]

24. I am not saying you need to appeal to the mass media.I am saying you need to communicate effectively

If your two messages (why we are doing this, what we want) cannot be condensed into single sentences, you will fail.

[tcaudilllg]

31. You don't get it. n/t

[tcaudilllg]

33. We cannot possibly fail because this will not end until we succeed.

[stevenleser]

35. You have no idea how to succeed. nt

[tcaudilllg]

38. Given our enemies are ENTJs, I know exactly how to succeed.

Because I know how to beat ENTJs. And what Anonymous is doing is working. When they can't work anymore, they will give in, because work is all that matters to ENTJs. Learn psychology.

[stevenleser]

39. That's the big revelation you think you have?

Wow

[Bluenorthwest]

6. I am pretty used to protesting and hearing those who do not

share my goals ask things such as 'should WE be helping THEM' and often that is coupled with long screeds which announce what a poster thinks we should be asking for, how we should be asking, and yes, even that we rearrange our priorities to suit their point of view. Straights feel really free to ask 'should WE be helping THEM' and they ponder if our goals are too much too soon, or if they are too little compared to their goals. "Shouldn't they be asking for what WE want first, because it is more important than what they want?"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8609003

I am also used to the fact that those who say such things generally lack respect for others and thus, never respond to questions about their line of thinking. They are verbally imperialistic.

[bertman]

7. While I agree with David's post, I also agree with Stephen Lesser's comments.

Why would Rebuild The Dream schedule their events for the three days preceding the Occupation? Or, conversely, why would October 6th schedule their event for immediately after the RTD gathering? Why could these two groups with very similar agendas not agree to coalesce, thus producing a more unified and effective effort.

It's this inability to cooperate and coordinate that is the hallmark of progressive organizations. Seems to be more about turf than about getting the changes implemented.

Just my $.02 worth from down here in the trenches.

[davidswanson]

10. come to my panel

at RTD and hear me talk about October2011.

Re this thread, it is rather telling, that it took only a few hours and a few posts before people began baselessly announcing exactly what I had asked to have reconsidered.

[stevenleser]

14. Here is my first pass at sentences explaining why we are there and what we want

Why we are protesting:
Wealthy dont pay fair share of taxes and Government coddles Wall Street

What we want:
End Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and enact strong oversight of Wall Street.

-----------------------

Obviously, people would have to agree to this, and it doesnt get everything accomplished but it is a strong first step. If we get what we want there, we will be well on our way.

You are definitely not going to achieve an agenda of more than three points and very likely not more than one simple one.

[Scuba]

16. That's the crux of it. Thanks. n/t

[stevenleser]

17. Thank you for the affirmation!

:-)

[drokhole]

11. "Nothing short of everything will really do."

This quote comes by way of Aldous Huxley's Island. See, we don't live in a world where issues or actions exist in a vacuum, things are a bit more complicated and interconnected than that. Everything has to do with everything, and it is here where our spotlight attention, and narrowed focus, prevents us from seeing (and understanding) things in a broader spectrum (the term "horse blinders" comes to mind). We do not think in terms of total transformation, we think only in terms of superficial change. And, if you look into it you will find that superficial change is no change at all. At times we may find temporary relief, but what of it?

Maybe, if we start with true transformation - like a deep psychological revolt of intelligence, where a more holistic mindset is developed - we'll move beyond superficial reform and temporary relief (which, if people haven't noticed, is responsible for the prevailing economic and social crisis), and enact some change actually worthwhile. The Occupy Wall Street movement seems to be on to something (I'm not sure if it truly fosters that deeper understanding or even goes far enough, though I'm in no rush to judgement), but one thing for sure is that this demand that they adhere to some set structure is nonsense (“Initiative is destroyed when you are merely copying, when you are bound by tradition, following a political leader or religious figure.” - J. Krishnamurti). So what if this new kind of protest is unrecognizable? Don't people generally bitch that protests hardly accomplish anything, anyway? It really seems like a bitch of a double bind.

“We are not bringing about a vital change, uprooting the old ways of thought, freeing the mind from traditions and habits.
...
We want to do patchwork reform, which only leads to problems of still further reform. We do not want to strip away all our false values and begin anew. But the building is crumbling, the walls are giving away, and fire is destroying it. We must leave the building and start on new ground, with different foundations, different values." - Jiddu Krishnamurti

[stevenleser]

15. Sounds nice in a DU message. Won't work. And it isn't a dumb/smart thing really, it's a time thing

For the average person, you have about 10-20 seconds that they are willing to spend listening to you to get your message in before they start tuning you out. They have to take care of their kids, spend time with their significant other, watch their favorite show, email their parents, work on the work they have taken home, apply for that job, etc.

Most of us here have made the commitment and decided that politics is important to us so we will read or watch lengthy explanations and take on 10 different causes at once.

There is a reason why talking heads on tv work in an average of 5 minute segments and cut their guests off if they start to talk for more than 20-30 seconds at a time EVEN WHEN THEY AGREE WITH THEM (i.e. Republican/Conservative on Fox or Democrat/Liberal/Progressive on MSNBC or RT or Current). When talking heads like Rachel Maddow or Keith O. or various others talk longer than 20-30 seconds, what do they usually do? They break it up with graphs and charts, or video, or they let their guests talk a bit, or they have a commercial break. They know that their audience is going to lose interest if a person drones on for more than that. You have to get your point in, it has to be crystal clear and it has to be short. Then you have a chance of getting your message out. Then you have a chance of being effective and reaching people.

If you cannot do that, you are not going to succeed. Not on TV, and not in moving an issue or set of issues forward. I wish it weren't true. I like talking and writing long winded explanations as you can see here. Things would be much easier for me if that worked.

[gratuitous]

20. Fixing problems is hard!

Hulk Smash is a simple, direct message that's served so well for 30 years. Why mess with a winning formula?

Jesus covered it early on in the gospels. When he asked people why they went out to the desert to see John the Baptist, what were they hoping to see? Some people, while attracted to the message of reordering society, complained that John's personal habits were too strict. Eating wild locusts and honey, wearing a hair shirt! The man was too extreme, so his message was bunk. Jesus, who also wanted to reorder society came with a far more relaxed personal ethic, eating and drinking, and he was dismissed as a glutton and a drunkard, so his message was bunk for the fault-finders.

Do the right thing and let go of the result. There always have been and always will be folks who resist because you're not wearing the right clothes, or somebody said something hurtful, or for some other made-up reason. These nit-pickers can be ignored because their perfection is the mortal enemy of anything good.

[tcaudilllg]

21. It's quite simple really.

It's the concept of a "people bomb". Make a message that appeals to everyone, by trying to be all things to all people. In this case, everybody wants to see the money out of politics... that's the one demand unifying them all. The entire group can be painted as representing that. Actually the real demand is jobs, and that cartel in there is determined to technologically unemploy as many people as they can afford to while meeting incoming demand. Capital is so sparse that competition is in many cases impossible to create. We really do face an existential struggle in this. And most people are aware of that. They know that greed, and nothing else, is the reason they can't find work.

But they are afraid of each other, because beyond this common threat they don't understand each other. That's what the all things to all people message is about. In 2008 the election was about McCain's insanity and the Obama campaign played it well. He was everything to everyone, and this helped the people who supported him deep down inside feel comfortable around each other. "I'm not working for your vision, I'm working for mine. And that's what he's really about... me!"

There is a simple plan. And it is working. It's working brilliantly. The enemy is better than outnumbered... it doesn't want to be the enemy.

[tcaudilllg]

23. Additionally...

I am certain Anonymous thinks the author is a uh intellectual lightweight who "doesn't get it". He can talk all he want... 4chan is not listening, I don't think.

First thing this author needs to realize is that he is an ESTP type and that carries certain weaknesses.

And BTW, the only thing the protestors have to do is make it impossible for the stock market to function. For that they need numbers and that's what the coalition building is about.

[stevenleser]

25. Stopping the NYSE from operating should not be the goal or the implied threat.

That is not the point, nor will that threat get you anywhere. Even accomplishing that goal, which I think is unrealistic, would not cause what you think it would cause. The mobilization of a lot of people by itself will get what we want if it occurs and if we have a coherent message and goal.

[tcaudilllg]

26. You're not in it.

I tried to tell you that. I think you want to kill the movement. I can see exactly where we end up if we go your route: politics as usual. And this time... I'm warning you: stop. Stop it now. There is too much at stake. We cannot revert back to what we were... the threat is existential this time. The inmates are running the asylum in there, and the only way to make them stop is to convince them that the costs of continuing are greater than the cost of quitting.

And I -- and most -- people understand the precipice to which we are headed. It can't be avoided. We are at that point. But when it comes, I know how to win. We could win very quickly and easily. And for a generation at that.

[stevenleser]

34. You really have no idea what you are talking about, do you

I didnt realize that until now. Any attempt to talk to you is a waste of time.

[tcaudilllg]

40. I know that you are trying to make everyone who disagrees with you look weak and incompetent

because your truth is that you are a bully. Maybe you should join the GOP? Or, maybe you already have?

[tcaudilllg]

41. Hey, I need some help to shut this guy down.

He aims to intimidate a lot of people. Please help.

[trof]

30. Holy smokes, David? Yer a freakin' ORACLE. K&R

:yourock:

[Starry Messenger]

37. k&r

[sabrina 1]

42. Too late to rec ~

It's only too many words for the MSM and political operatives. For ordinary people, they don't seem to be having any problem understanding, in fact they are rushing to join in all over the country and even in other countries.

:kick:

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

43. I don't know about the ending, but we might be watching

the start of something.