For expediency sake, we’ll use Loving as an example, and environmental Armageddon. Stick with this essay. There is must-see information on Crossing the Chasm – why the fatal mistake of the last 40 years activists must end – the notion that we can go right from idea to masses, without the cannot avoid steps of pioneers and early adapters. Unless a few individuals, stand, and are willing to stand alone, for a long time, blazing the trail, oh, we will raise millions, sell lots of books, and kill every second that is left to save the next 2000 generations.
[GWD.F.]
You know that objectively all is lost, right? Objectively, there is no chance we are going
to avert environmental Armageddon - zero.
That's the only conclusion that anyone watching the history of the last
5, 10, 15, 30... years of dire warnings going back actually to1960 at the UN by
the indigenous nations, about our destruction of Mother Earth - the number one
threat they announced to the world - the brutal destruction of mother
Earth. Nothing but ever-increasing, ever
more skillful denial has resulted from these warnings. We're done.
Down by three and there are is one second left on the clock.
This is objectively a
1 in a million campaign. Loving, is a 1
in a million messenger. I didn't just say
good, I could be a bad 1 in million, but it's a 1 in a million messenger. It seems there's no one has the start-up, and
turn-around, general leadership and real world management experience, the
constantly running toward emergencies that others are running from, that I do,
the situation analysis / diagnosis experience, the failure is not an option
attitude - in the entire so called environmental movement. A lifetime of turning and facing dire,
emergency situations, and turning them around.
That's been what I've done for my entire adulthood.
And all this happening in the sickest America, the sickest
culture, the most Affloholic addicted culture that's ever been, I'm not being
derogatory. I'm being clinical, and if
you want this disagree, you can disagree on that basis.
You want to bet that if a crisis with the apparent moral
clarity of Pearl Harbor happened today, you want to bet that America would
respond the same way that it did so many decades ago? I don't.
We'd happily send poor people's kids in uniform, but would we stand up
as a country? Not as fast, not as well,
and maybe not all. Our sick, deathly
cowardly populace is not my fault, or yours, but that's what the situation is
that needs to be dealt with.
In my library on my blogs is a book called Crossing the
Chasm. It became the bible in silicon valley that averted what was an ongoing
bloodbath of promising startups. And the
fatal mistake they were making was trying to go from any new, promising concept,
right to a message and a product that would appeal to the mass market. It's impossible. It doesn't work that way. And the fundamental reason it doesn't work
that way is that the intermediate group, which is only about 2% of the
population, ‘early adapters’ they're called, as I recall, the pioneers being
the .01% of the of the Bell curve, the next group being the early adapters
- these are not normal people. They're very un-normal people. They're people of enormous courage, enormous
vision. When shown an extremely
important emerging opportunity or situation, their first question isn't, 'how
are we going to do this?,' their first responses is 'we are going to do
this. I am going to buy that, I am going
to be part of making this work.' They're
problem solvers of profound initiative; doers.
They have profound energy, extremely high risk curves. This is nothing I made up - Crossing the Chasm. If you Google that, the authors name is
Geoffrey Moore, you'll find some pretty good graphics and synopses of the same
concept.
This is how everything starts if it is going to succeed, and
in this sick, mass media, meaningless-impotent-activism society that has been
based on the idiocy of trying to pass that step - not bothering to inspire,
attract and harness the early adapters, not even any pioneers taking arrows
(sorry for the incorrect pc) - the 200 women in prison in 1918 prior to getting
Suffrage, for example.
Fatally, it has been these last 40 years - Let's see the
population we want help, let's go right to the fund-raising, let's go right to
the messages that attract everyone, that appeal to everyone, and off we
go. And, you know what? In years we
didn't save anyone in Darfur with that approach, but we raised tons of money,
hobnobbed with movie stars, and killed years of time. We haven't eliminated poverty with that
approach, or made really a dent. It’s idiocy. It's murder.
The approach we use, religiously bypassing the immensely courageous,
creative, high initiative early adapters, it raises lots of funds, it makes
people feel really good, and it accomplishes nothing, except killing time. That's not what I'm about.
That's not what the effective activists in history have been about.
This is an extremely high-stakes, extremely high risk,
extremely low probability venture, these Death Fasts. But you know what? The option is certain Armageddon. Death Fasts ARE the weapon. The question is if folks will rise to use
it. So for those of you, my beloved
sisters and brothers all, that conclude that
messages are too cryptic, messages are too narrow, too long,
rambling, they don't appeal to a wide
audience - I agree that they don't appeal to a wide audience.
There are few people on earth that have taken the time to
study the original texts of Gandhi, of the great psychologists, etc, and that's
fine, but that's what I do, and that's what I'm presenting; and that’s what
pioneers and early adapters always insist on doing – getting to the root -
radical. And the one in a million, the
early adapters, or the early pioneers, they actually will flee from anything
other than what I'm doing.
The early adapters don't want ready answers. They want someone that sees the problem and
is living and dying (giving all they
are) in the attempt to solve it and that's actually what they're looking
for. This is exactly the opposite of
what the early majority is looking for - clarity, simplicity, other people
doing it, easily digested, clear, safe.
That wasn't the established women's suffrage movement; the established
women suffragists fled from Alice Paul and her group, far too radical, far too
narrow. But Alice and her team, they
were the indispensible, missing spark plugs.
I'm looking for the spark plugs. How do you come up with messaging that attracts
the Navy SEAL? I don't think you do. The Navy SEALs sees other Navy SEALs and says,
'that's what I'm gunna do,' or they don't, and there's no amount of messaging
that can get the normal population ever to want to be a Navy SEAL. And there is
probably little bad messaging that can discourage the potential recruit.
That's what this is about; that's what I'm about - being a
Navy SEAL is the only way to attract and join with other Navy SEALS. The rest is pretty much details.
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