latenightnoir

I think entertainment is one of the poorest means of distribution, because, as it is now and in my opinion, entertainment exists in a state somewhere between not being taken seriously, and being taken seriously enough to pacify the subconscious.

On the other hand, populist means of distribution would be far more effective for this. Appeal to the average citizenry, make the message clear and simple, easily digestible in terms of complexity not wording, but frame it still within the context of reality.

As a concrete example, I'd offer stuff like House Of Cards, The Fall of The House of Usher, The Boys, and many, many other shows with a "calling out truths through metaphors" theme. All of these shows are on point as far as having the metaphors parallel life, but even so they are heavily misinterpreted at worst (see people being downright surprised that Homelander is supposed to be the bad guy), or consumed then forgotten at best.

We need to go beyond metaphors and tackle the Concrete, the what-is, as-is. Show the numbers, show concrete examples of how life is made worse by actual people, and call it out directly - as opposed to the luke-warm and abstract wording of news, that dilution of the truth to make it inoffensive enough as to be easily swallowed then excreted by readers, as the truth isn't the point of news anymore, it's getting more and more eyes on your webpage.

Edit: and it needs to be short. We don't want to keep people entertained on the couch, we want to deliver the blow, then let them fester alone and in silence, sitting with the truth in their lap.

Edit 2: maybe this'd offer a clearer example of what I mean. We (Romania) recently had our Presidentials and narrowly avoided electing a Fascist (George Simion). The reason why his campaign was that successful (and the reason why Trump's was as well, for that matter) was that he kept it simple. They had billboards posted across all major cities with his party name, his face, and a message saying "apartments for €30.000" (in the context of a one bedroom, ~50m² apartment now costing upwards of €100k in many larger cities). It was utter bullshit, as anyone who knows how basic economy works has said from the start and as Simion himself admitted on live television, but the message was clear and impactful enough to settle into people's minds.

Duck Duck Go look it up yourself.

Blessing and a curse, yeah... fewer new experiences and the world becomes less immediately "Wow!", but the increase in depth stemming from all of that accumulated context makes old experiences even better in many cases.

I'm thinking here primarily of books, movies, games, music, relationships of all sorts, even of our own persons. One can start to see the multiple layers beneath the surface which were difficult to see due to a lack of life contexts.

cough check their pockets cough

Just sayin', pretty much everyone around here knows...

"Thing set to die soon now worth less than the only other option remaining."

Let's make it even more interesting, then!

And I think Luigi would have done nothing had he stayed submerged in escapism, is my point.

That's, indeed, my point. And, no, an industry in the sense in which the post and article mean it, in the sense in which it is understood in contemporary economics, is not needed.

What is needed is focused effort. It's very easy to forget that things don't actually cost money, things cost resources and energy. Those don't have an intrinsic monetary value, the price tag is 100% arbitrary and made up. Otherwise, existing in the Universe would require paying taxes in money, and last time I checked, we're the only biological doofuses who do that. And we do it to ourselves, no less.

Things can be done without money, and we need to remember that. Humanity has been doing stuff without money for almost literally aeons before someone thought it would be a good idea to dream that up.

As for getting things rolling, let's not forget that muskets still work just fine with a bit of maintenance, and they're hundreds of years old at this point. Guns last a long, long time, it's just that the military industrial complex can't function if people realise that and don't treat them as perishables. And I doubt we've dismantled all guns pre-2000, for instance. And there are plenty of easy-to-make, DIY-type stuff which have been unfortunately demonstrated to be very effective several times over.

Where there's a will, there's a way. And, yes, it's tough to shift the system, nobody said it'd be all rainbows and roses. But it sure as hell would be a lot easier if everyone started pushing.

I honestly wouldn't. Not because I disagree with the concept, but because more on-point escapist media would just ensure that people will get their revolutionary fix without ever leaving the couch. We don't need that. We need people to be angry, to be fed up, to have no other escape than to fight for it.

Capitalism has done wonders at keeping us sedated by selling us our fantasies of change and better days. It's time we stopped taking those meds.

Not saying we shouldn't make our own, just saying that making an entire industry out of it while the system still functions essentially as it has is a very, very bad idea.

We need a paradigm shift if we're ever to see a different society for ourselves. Repeating the same things over and over again ensures that we'll burn ourselves to the ground. And we shouldn't give into war paranoia, either. Being reasonably prepared is one thing, dumping everything we have into it is entirely different.

Just as the Church should be separated from the State, I believe the Military and everything else related to it should be separated from the economy.

I repeat, we seriously need to think differently from now on. The old ways have brought us this mess.

Oh, no doubt! This mess is perfect for somebody's business! Money has been and will continue to be more powerful and more important than politics in this, our Capitalist hellscape. Hiding in plain sight.