virus: PPI in action

Reed Konsler (konsler@ascat.harvard.edu)
Sat, 17 May 1997 19:15:29 -0400 (EDT)


Date: Fri, 16 May 1997 15:48:06 -0700
From: Richard Brodie <RBrodie@brodietech.com>

Mark Lindsay wrote:

>Yes, the intention is to create a useful set of courses or exercises
>that really helps people in a major way.

There are many such courses already. Marketing is more of a problem than
engineering here. People don't see a benefit for themselves in being
enlightened.
-------------

By definition people who are unenlightened don't recognize benifits except those
imposed by their enviroment. Here's a problem: Let's say you have an
"enlightenment
machine" which stamps self-conciousness into people like Dr Seuss' "Star
Bellied Sneech"
machines.

So, as a potential consumer, I tell you: "Show me the results, what do
your graduates
do? Let me talk to some".

So you trot out your poster children. Successful business people,
teachers, scientists...happy, effective, affluent... But then, also, there
are the "eccentrics". What about the guy who lives in Idaho on his farm
growing his own vegetables and living in a cabin? What about the guy who
saves money by eating the prefectly good food they throw out behind
supermarkets? What about the woman that insists she hears voices in her
head? Look at them...all of them happy and grateful to have been put
through the enligtenment machine, talking about how in touch with
themselves they are. All of them having that intense look and laughing
about Socrates and Apocalypse and why the price of tea in China really
isn't so interesting as the price of tea in England.

"My God", I cry, "these people are crazy"

Exactly.

Reed

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Reed Konsler konsler@ascat.harvard.edu
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