Mankind 2.0: Raising awareness of the impact of technology on our society

[aschrijver]

This issue proposes a campaign theme, named 'Mankind 2.0'.

The idea was first posed by Georges in Producing short dramatic videos to raise awareness on the Humane Tech community forum.

As part of this theme a first campaign will be launched, called 'Reality Shock'

The definition of a Reality Shock is:

"Unsettling or jarring experience resulting from wide disparity between what was expected and what the real situation turns out to be." (source: businessdictionary)

This issue is exclusively for discussing the theme. See the 'campaign'-labeled issues with 'Reality Shock' in the title for elaboration on individual campaign ideas.

[ghost]

Patricia summarized my thinking as to the primary objectives of short dramatic videos (2-3 mins each):

Your overall goal is to raise awareness. Your method is to create dramatic videos that will:

• shock the audience
• lead to introspection and questioning
• make the audience think and reach their own conclusions
• provoke, rather than convince

[ghost]

For brainstorming: Reality Shock Campaign Theme

Among other subjects to brainstorm is the campaign theme. As Borja pointed out, we need to have a consistent theme covering all videos to be produced under this campaign.

In my draft script for the first video, I proposed:

The overarching theme of the campaign is to provoke and make people ponder the question: "Are you really comfortable with this?"

The rationale is:

• The aim of the campaign is not to "push" a certain agenda, or impose on the audience a cinematic "lecture". This would not be effective. If a viewer feels his views, thinking and beliefs are directly contradicted or challenged, his fist gut reaction will be to reject the video in its entirety, then consciously attack all its content. This marks a contrast between 1. Education and 2. Inspiration. My view is we need to get inspired before we are ready to commit to challenging our strong convictions.
• Instead, the videos aim at provoking viewers into introspection and reaching their own conclusions. They will be given facts or observations while watching the videos, but the conclusions are left to them.
• As to the question we are asking, the purpose in essence is to ask "We are all doing all these things without giving them second thoughts. Perhaps we need to take a few minutes, or much more than that, to wonder whether these are the right things to do?"

[ghost]

As to the Campaign Name, I am generally fine with "Reality Shock", save that perhaps it is quite explicit as to our intended purpose, so it would be less surprising for the audience who will anticipate the whole thing. I was thinking of "Mankind 2.0" as the name of the first video, but that could also be an idea for the whole campaign. Any other idea?

[ghost]

An attempt at the README file.

Field	Description
Name	Reality Shock
Summary	Raising awareness of the impact of technology on our society by producing unsettling or jarring experiences resulting from a wide disparity between what was expected and what the real situation turns out to be.
Topics	Smartphone addiction Social media addiction Privacy Social credits Etc
Objectives	Shock the audience Lead to introspection and questioning Make the audience think and reach their own conclusions Provoke, rather than convince
Description	This theme is based on the following principles: Not to push a certain agenda, or lecture the target audience Instead, provoke introspection and lead the audience to reach their own conclusions as to whether they are comfortable with the impact of such and such aspect of technology on their lives Acknowledge that we have become a very different society in a very short time and ask the question: "Should we consider this more carefully?"
Strategy	(optional) If there is a common strategy, outline it here
Campaigns	Hyperlinked ToC to past, ongoing and future campaigns
Resources	(optional) Links to relevant subfolders, files and external information

[aschrijver]

Damn, I am making a mess of this thread :slightly_smiling_face: Should create new issue.

Let me address part of my feedback on Mankind 2.0 here, then @georgeshk :

• 'Mankind 2.0' is a much broader concept than 'Reality Shock'
• I think Theme and Campaign names should be swapped
  • The theme should be 'Mankind 2.0'
  • The campaign then is 'Reality Shock'
• Makes more sense to me as the deliverables are video's that (gently) shock people into awareness

What do you think?

[ghost]

I am outside now but I guess should not be a problem to swap the names. So, Phone Zombies would also fall under Mankind 2.0? If confirmed, I can take care of swapping the names in relevant issues and readme files.

Edit: On second thoughts, a bit worried that just swapping names will not work as is. For instance, I used your definition of "Reality shock" in the theme description, i.e. unsettling or jarring experience, etc. Also your intro to this thread mentioned that Phone Zombie would fall under Reality Shock.

So yeah, a bit worried about swapping. At the end of the day, these are working names, most important is the description of what they mean.

I guess the whole issue stems from the fact we decided to have "overarching" themes covering several campaigns. It is a useful concept when several campaigns share important characteristics, but also makes it a bit more complicated.

[aschrijver]

I am editing right now, so I better do the swapping. Have some checkins to make soon.

The Phone Zombies is part of a different theme 'Speak Easy', because the overall objective here is to change pubic consciousness by introducing new language terminology (in popular language / slang).

[ghost]

In that case, then ok with swapping the names, now that Phone Zombies is under a different theme, no more concerns.

[ghost]

@aschrijver: noticed you have left things as they were (ok, it's only been an hour or so :-)). Is it intentional? If not, and you're too busy, I will be more than happy to help you reflect the proposed changes.

Edit: I also need to change the format of proposed readme files for campaign, theme and video no.1. Thought we had to use tables...

[aschrijver]

I have been editing all over the place, to make things interconnect. But all folders, subfolders and README's are now there, the swapping is done. I am now cleaning the issues a bit (just changing titles)

Though it may be better if I create new ones (copies), once I have created proper issue templates. Then we'll have clean slate and I will give feedback to your great drafts (if I have any).

Agree?

[ghost]

Ok. Near 7pm here so will look at it tomorrow. Right now, I am more concerned about the forum... As you know, I strongly suggest labeling all campaigns under "Awareness". Advocacy is not our concern here. We are very far from being able to go there.

[ghost]

Good morning @aschrijver

Woke up to see all the great work you did here. The whole place now seems to have found its natural order.

Note to all contributors: there has been a lot of structuring work going on here for the sake of making our collaboration super efffective (all thanks to Arnold). No need to focus on this, please go and provide your insights on the themes, campaigns and deliverables that are dear to your heart. Please also feel free to create new issues in the Issues tab to discuss any related topic, be it a new campaign or video idea, or a strategic aspect (production, financing and distribution).

[aschrijver]

Thank you @georgeshk . I will use your template text to create a new issue (as soon as I get to it), and close this one, so we have a clean slate to work from.