On 10/18/2016 11:28 AM, Aaron Wolf wrote: > On 10/18/2016 07:55 AM, Michael Siepmann wrote: >> >>> The problem I have with the story is that anything a little too >>> far-fetched is hard to accept. People don't have the experience of >>> living in a town that has no tax-funded public services. Perhaps if the >>> story were described as a rural road out of town where there's no mayor >>> or such, then it's just the individuals in the houses in the >>> neighborhood dealing with the challenge of cooperation without an >>> existing government structure for support. >> True, but doesn't the same apply to the whole snowdrift / tolls & ads >> idea in our cartoon illustrations? >> > No, I've even heard from real people who are like "yeah, I have that > exact snowdrift dilemma in my neighborhood with people clearing the > sidewalks" and such. > > Everyone has experienced toll-roads and billboards. > > These are not far-fetched ideas at all. The whole "some town off > somewhere" etc. gives an othering feeling of a story happening to > someone else. > > Psychologically, the more concrete details you give, the more the > observer feels they are watching someone else and the more vague and > general it is, the more they can readily see it as their situation and > fill in the details with those that they know from their own experience. > > >> I'm leaning toward the view that Bryan brought up in the meeting >> yesterday (before you joined, Aaron) that we may be better off not >> trying to use any reference to snowdrifts and instead changing our name >> to crowdmatch.coop. I think trying to start with a snowdrift makes it >> much harder than it otherwise would be to create a clear quick and >> engaging introductory explanation. >> > While I understand the impetus to consider a name-change, I don't think > it makes sense, and I don't think we'll be more successful by dropping > the core principle explaining the challenge of public goods. > > For the video, we can omit the whole toll-road aspect as long as we > frame it correctly. If the point is to just skip the meaningful context > and get down to what we do (which has some merit), we can skip the large > story and just say "With a snowdrift we all need cleared, everyone gets > the results whether or not they helped do the work! That's the dilemma > facing public goods. Other public include music, software…"
That seems like an effective concise way to refer to the snowdrift. I
think it also needs to point out the problem of whether the work will
get done at all, though. Also, a problem I see with saying "Other public
goods include music, software..." is that in our current world these
things are typically /not /public goods because of how they're
licensed. I'm wondering if, for the sake of clarity, albeit at the
expense of simplicity, we should specify "free and open music,
software..." or something like that? For example:
"With a snowdrift we all need cleared, everyone gets the results
whether or not they helped do the work!
But who will step up to do the work, when nobody knows how many
others will join them?
That's the dilemma facing public goods. Other public goods include
free and open music, software, movies, news, and research.
The Snowdrift.coop crowdmatching system creates a viable way to
provide sustainable crowdfunding for projects that create free and
open public goods.
You just make a pledge that says, "Each month, l'll chip in a little
for each person who joins me!"
Working together, we can clear the path to a free and open future
for everyone!
> In that script, the reason to reference the snowdrift is (A) to just
> have a clear simply thing to visualize briefly and (B) to tie into the
> name and the whole concept that we *will* discuss in many contexts
> later, just not in this first version of a video.
>
> I'm not saying that I prefer the video to gloss over the snowdrift idea
> so quickly, but I'm willing to accept that approach in order to just get
> a quick first functional-enough video.
>
> A longer video explaining the ideas well, ideally both accurate-enough
> to impart the gist of the academic ideas but also feel story-like
> enough, would be a great thing to have eventually.
>
> I hope today to find time to write out the concerns I see and the
> communication policy that is to be followed for communicating these ideas.
>
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