[p2p-research] devastating story on cradle to cradle founder

[Paul D. Fernhout]

Paul D. Fernhout wrote:
> One failure mode is outlined here for William McDonough and relates to 
> the celebrity worshiping winner-take-all economic culture we have 
> constructed for ourselves. ...
> But there is an opposite failure mode (one I'm more enmeshed in myself. 
> :-) That is the one that leads to cynicism and inaction and pessimism 
> and focusing more on some minor aspect of infrastructure (or even 
> wishful thinking) than getting out a message in an effective way. ...

Just to add another aspect of these failure modes. Sometimes you, as an 
activist, are genuinely wrong. Both the rock star and shocked dog failure 
modes fail differently in that case.

In the rock star mode, everyone around you can become "yes people", in part 
because narcissism needs that, so, when you propose something stupid, 
they'll all say "great idea". So, Alice Cooper threw a chicken in the air at 
one concert to bad results:
http://music.aol.com/photo-galleries/shocking-concert-moments/alice-cooper-throws-live-chicken
"""
Not all things with wings can fly -- a fact that Alice Cooper learned during 
his performance at the 1969 Toronto Rock & Roll Festival. During the show, a 
fan threw a live chicken onto the stage. Cooper responded by throwing the 
fowl into the air, expecting it to soar above the crowd. Instead, the 
chicken landed in the audience and was immediately ripped to shreds by the 
rabid crowd. The incident became front-page news nationwide, with tabloids 
incorrectly reporting that the "shock rocker" had ripped the chicken's head 
off and drank its blood.
"""

But, for the electrically-shocked starving dog failure mode, you get so used 
to people disagreeing and them being wrong or ignorant about this one area 
you are passionate and somewhat knowledgeable about, that when you are wrong 
about something else, it can get hard to hear it. So, when someone says, 
"chicken's don't fly, you fool", you assume they don't know what they are 
talking about, and try throwing one into an audience anyway, just to show 
them, to tragic results.

Since we all believe in some dumb things, either failure mode can produce 
some spectacular failures going against conventional wisdom, which 
unfortunately then may undermine the other things the activist gets right 
against conventional wisdom. Thus we see activist after activist picked off 
for some mistake in belief or personal conduct, as if that invalidates the 
larger message.

Incidentally, domesticated chickens can fly for very short distances, and 
the wild ancestors can fly,
   http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_can%27t_chickens_fly
so it is not completely wrong to think chickens can fly. Most really bad 
ideas do have elements of truth to them, or apply in some contexts, but not 
in others; propertarian-libertarianism or compulsory schooling come to mind 
as examples that have aspects of truth in them in various settings. :-)

--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/