And now for something completely different...

[Jester]

Media would be involved in my plan. And, I wouldn't limit the "propaganda" to rumors or songs. A well designed propaganda campaign targets all levels of society, with a consistently themed message. You could recruit and hire some very popular public figures to be a spokesperson for the cause, you can do billboards, and public service ads, etc.

Good luck reaching people who live on $300 US a year with billboards and public service ads. By and large, they don't live in cities, and when they do, they live in dirt poor areas. I think Pete is right to reject those methods, although I think his alternatives are unrealistic.

Getting popular entertainers to support your message probably does help, although there are limits. As I'm sure you're well aware, people can be quite cynical about being manipulated by celebrities. You also can easily lose the message in the medium. How much good did Live 8 do? I think the best thing to come out of it was still the Pink Floyd reunion. Its effect on third world poverty, or even public perceptions of poverty, has been pretty piddly. We aren't the world, whatever Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson may claim.

Tie it to the Green movement, take it to Africa and Asia with the peace corps. Introduce a population plan through the UN or the WHO, get some treaty going and get every nation to sign on to attempting to reach population growth goals. It needs a long term psychological strategy, and not a short term ad campaign.

They've been trying. It's had some success. I'm not overall pessimistic about the chances of global population peaking at 12 billion or so, and declining from there. Most of the success seems to come where they accomplish what I've been advocating: start with the women, get them an elementary education, and in that context, teach them about contraception and family planning. Establish places where women can go to get advice and talk with each other, outside their families but inside their villages. To me, this seems like by far the easiest and most effective way to 'propagate' the message. But at this point, we're just flogging the dead horse.

When I joked about Obama, I was semi-serious. Was he the "Change" that everybody was looking for? Or, was it a very masterfully crafted propaganda campaign where everyone believed that *he* would do exactly what you thought needed to be done. I think the later.

I think neither. Obviously, there was a well-run campaign behind Obama, but most of that came after he became popular, not before.

He was the right person, in the right place at the right time. He is charismatic, thoughtful, and a very stark contrast to Bush. People were tired of Bush, tired of the Iraq war, tired of the persistent fearmongering, and wanted someone inspiring and positive. People projected their desire for change onto him, partly because he was promising change, and partly because he was an effective candidate, but mostly because they *wanted* change.

But what if people hadn't been sick of Bush? What if "change" wasn't what people were after? Many candidates promise "change", in a vague way, but not all of them succeed. Maybe they're not the right candidate, maybe the people aren't interested in what they're selling. But I firmly believe that there is no magic. Nobody can simply create a successful media campaign, be it high media (TV, newspapers, billboards) or low (folk songs, jokes, rumours) out of thin air. These things succeed and fail for reasons that are very poorly understood, but they almost certainly have more to do with the receiving culture than the concept being sold.

-Jester