I like Seth Godin. He succinctly delivers good ideas, in my opinion, that make me think in a new way or remind me of some truth I may have forgotten about.
In his blog titled "In Search of Amusement", Seth packs a great deal into a small number of words. A business model is a roadmap for a business to follow and hopefully to grow. A business, idea or service either relieves a pain point or gives a benefit to anyone willing to pay for it. A business model won't work if either of these two things is not true. There are always exceptions, but business will then scale models that work and they grow. Roads get paved, protein becomes more accessible to an everyday diet, and cars pop up in driveways across the globe as Seth Godin describes.
Yet, as Seth points out, we spend hundreds of millions on products that will entertain us for 2 hours of our entire lives. We enjoy our entertainment and that is OK. When it gets unhealthy I think, is when we start using escape from reality to not just take a break to re-charge and re-group, but to ignore.
It has become very, very easy to ignore problems if they don't directly affect us. That is human nature to a great extent. The age old "It ain't my job" syndrome or "someone else" will take care of it. (Here is a great advertisement describing "someone else" syndrome as I like to call it. For a blood drive in Rhode Island).
The collective effect of ignoring problems and seeking escape is also scaling however. It makes sense for Disney to spend 400 Million dollars on a movie, it also makes sense for all the socials sites like Facebook, Twitter etc to scale their models the more our collective screentime increases. If you have not seen it watch the "Social Dilemma" on Netflix.
Real problems don't go away and usually get larger when ignored. Is it is up to us as individuals, if we are capable, to re-think how we should check our ourselves? I personally lean in this direction. Nothing new here either.
Yep. I know. "But what about.......?". This opens up a huge can of worms which I have not gone into by design, but it would be interesting to ask for comments on ALL the caveats that certainly exist here. So, pass this on see what kind of input you and your friends, colleagues and associates have. Quick off the top of my head list below. Conversations starters, I am sure you can add many more.
For example:
1) But who is responsible for policing the problem? Disney, because they make millions more by spending millions when they could save the rainforest instead? Or the consumer who signs up for Disney+ on their Verizon bill? They are the ones watching after-all and spending a little bit each month to continue watching.
2) If we can't see that we have a problem do we have one? We can argue the metaphysics of ignorance. This also branches out into education. Pandoras box here folks. Have at it:-)
3) The spiritual side of it all. Dogma. Religion. 7 Deadly Sins. 10 Commandments. Morality. You could go way down a rabbit hole here. Wheres Alice?
3) We can look at power and the idea of futility. Another example of the "my vote won't matter" syndrome. Little guy vs big guy. David and Goliath.
Hope this drives some decent idea exchange and feel free to jump over to my blog and continue the conversation.
Comments