Maverick's World

The relationship between ideology, politics, and money

Every inventor faces the same problem. If I have an idea, how do I get others to buy into it? Regardless of whether the invention is a piece of technology, a novel material, or simply a way of thinking about something - this problem keeps popping up.

The usual answer is "Marketing" - i.e. make it look good to people who don't know about the idea. This is what they mean by "sell the idea".

Communicating the idea or marketing the idea to a large group of people inevitably runs you up against a vast number egos (individual and collective) and that is where "politics" comes into play. Playing politics is always a dissipative process, you always lose out in the end. So one might think of politics as a kind of drag or frictional loss that counteracts the propagation of your idea.

Also to overcome the frictional loss that transmitting your idea over large distances (and numbers of people) creates - you need money.

Sourcing the idea is difficult enough, but overcoming the political drag and keeping the idea supplied with enough funds to ensure propagation is a millions of times more difficult.

I can speak to this in the context of novel technology or material science but that would probably bore most of my readers and likely violate non-disclosure agreements that govern my existence. So I will talk about it in the context of ideology as most people can relate to that.

If you look at various ideological movements - you typically see a pattern. The ideas seem to lurk below the surface of public consciousness and then one day there is an emergence. After the emergence, there is a viral growth. After the viral spread, the idea seems to lose its prominence and there is a gradual decay of its visibility in the public consciousness. This cycle applies to you regardless of whether you are preaching a new-age religion like Sri Sri Sri Sri Sri Sri whatever or running an international terrorist group like Al Qaeda (Yes Ayman, sure I am still listening to what you have to say... we all know how important you are.). You get your "15 Min of fame" and that's it - you are done. (if you are asking "Hoodahell is Ayman?" - I rest my case).

One can attribute the decline to a genuine lack of product performance (as in... "hey this Nazism thing huh? not what was promised on the box....") or a failed marketing strategy (for example..."I think I want to be environmentally conscious because that girl in Greenpeace is hot") or running out of money (such as ... oh why bother?... you all know what I am going to say - you and I are not the ones afraid of losing in Gujarat).

Sorry snowflakes, I am at a complete loss to explain why else you would be so triggered at the prospect of losing Gujarat. It has to be that "the Gujarat Mythos" is at the core of the Bhaktflake havan kund (Holy Fire) .

Could it be that the Bhaktflakes actually believed He was eternal? exempt from the laws of political mortality that govern all things? that the myth of the Man would never age? never die?

Is that why Gujarat Election is trotted out as a response to concerns about the Loya murder? Because an electoral success in Gujarat can be spun as some kind of acquittal in for this heinous act in the court of public opinion? If that is so - then I really doubt that is what will happen.

A victory in Gujarat will not translate into a pause in the natural decline of the myth.

posted by maverick @ 5:52 AM