Re: Early information
@Florida1920
The mechanism of voting is temporarily broken in America, as it is in much of the rest of the world.
The problem is that the other half of the voting equation is marketing - most people can’t be bothered to investigate the issues for themselves so they will either default to tribal partisanship or go along with whichever campaign is glossiest and triggers a rush of endorphins.
The NRA is very good at marketing - so of course people buy guns and sign up. It doesn’t, however, follow that the less sexy option of not owning a gun can’t become sexy (the marketing just has to be done right). For example, seat belts and airbags aren’t sexy - but would you buy a car without them (before they were well marketed you probably wouldn’t have wasted your money on a car with them…). Similarly, in the 1970s and even the 1980s most people didn’t have (or want) a computer - but now the damn things are everywhere, and are even seen as being fashion statements by some people…
…which is a problem because all these computers have enabled social media which allows, for the first time in a century, unscrutinised marketing. In the traditional media, if you lie then you get your wrists slapped and you have to publish a retraction. In this brave new world if you lie then you get Trump and Brexit. Marketing, done right, can help rid us of the scourge of guns and knives. But we do need effective scrutiny.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
