You know I was kidding right?

edwardspoonhands:

So I made my video today for two reasons. One, because I wanted to showcase and comment upon the vast amount of cute that we have in our world, because it’s fun to think about things we don’t think about (even if I’m thinking about them in idiotic ways.)

But the other reason is that I wanted to point out a few ways to make a ludicrous argument seem semi-sane. This is how people get terrified over small problems. Or, more correctly, it’s how powerful people make the people who listen to them terrified, so that they control them. A heavy topic for a video about cute, I know, but that’s how I do.

So, in this video, some devices I used:

1. Discuss a topic people know exists, but haven’t spent a lot of time analyzing, so they won’t have formed an opinion yet. This way, you get to them first, and people make up their minds. Once minds are made up, they can be very difficult to change
2. The turn-around. “I was once a sinner too! But I have realized the error of my ways.” Not only does this make people feel OK for having done the bad thing themselves, so they don’t turn off to the message, but it empowers them to become a spokesperson.
3. Compare to other frightening problems we face. I did this when I called tiny animals a “gateway” which draws the mind to drugs. Then later, when I call it a drug outright, it seems less ridiculous. 
4. Story of downfall. Explaining how one simple thing can lead to more and more severe behavior. This allows the speaker to link innocuous acts to dangerous acts, making the innocuous acts (downloading a song) seem like the same thing as being an international, for-profit distributor of bootleg movies.
5. True statements followed by opinions. “Never before has humanity been exposed to so much cute.” TRUE! “We have no idea what this is doing to our brains.” Not so much true…more like speculation. This makes the opinion sound like a fact because the fact before it was so interesting and obviously true.
6. Invoke the children. ALWAYS INVOKE THE CHILDREN
7. Incorrect use of the word “literal.” This seems to be a rule…I don’t know why.
8. Invoking the opposition’s argument before they make it. “Many people will say that cuteness is natural.” It’s probably an idea that’s forming in the listener’s minds, and you want to stamp it out before it takes hold. I did this in a particularly ludicrous way (saying that cuteness only exists to keep us from eating our children) to point out that it doesn’t matter how you counter the argument, only that you do counter the argument.
9. Confusion. Saying “I don’t know, do you know?” is a powerful force for liars. Just find a question the opposition can’t answer and keep throwing it in their face.
10. “Some people are saying.” It doesn’t matter if some people are actually saying it. I mean, some people will certainly be saying it after the powerful person says it, so you might as well say “Some people are saying” thus making it not your opinion, but the opinion of some unseen mass of people who, we automatically assume, are intelligent and have values like ours.
11. Link your issue with another hot-button issue. “The cute tax will help balance our national budget.”
12. Personal call to congress. Oh yeah.
13. Propose a solution, no matter how outlandish. Say that it will be simple and convenient, no matter how difficult, expensive, and limiting it will be.
14. Invoke a celebrity personality for your cause (I chose a fake celebrity here, for obvious reasons.)

So…yeah, those are some things to watch out for. Just because people are using those tools doesn’t mean their cause is unjust, only their tactics. And every single one of the sides in any national debate uses tactics like these. I find it extremely annoying when my side uses them, but they are very effective.

I finally understand the devices I need to use for my persuasive essays in English. Thanks Hank! :D

3 months ago  /  533 notes  /  Source: edwardspoonhands

Dear TFiOS,

Steal me away from this crippling reality into your pages of wonder.

Thanks,
Nathan 

3 months ago  /  1 note

If only I could catch a glimpse into your mind,
To find the answers to the questions I couldn’t dare ask. 

4 months ago  /  1 note

How to Run a Business That Doesn’t Suck: The Hank and John Green Rules

fishingboatproceeds:

So Hank and I run or help run several businesses at the moment: Vidcon, DFTBA Records, the juggernaut that is 2-D Glasses, ecogeek, vlogbrothers, scishow, and crashcourse, as well as administering the nonprofit Foundation to Decrease Worldsuck. These are not huge businesses or anything (and in some cases are not even profitable), but many of them have employees and revenue and function like any other business, so recently Hank and I have developed some Rules for Running a Business That Doesn’t Suck, which we thought we’d share.

Rule 1: Don’t be a dick. This is the governing law of the Internet, as created by the great Wil Wheaton, and we try to apply it to our businesses. Not being a dick mostly means treating your clients and customers respectfully, and focusing on creating value rather than creating profit, and generally being reasonably kind and personable when it comes to business relationships.

Rule 2: Increase Awesome or Decrease Suck. If an idea won’t increase world awesome or decrease worldsuck, we won’t do it. (And if we’re doing something that no longer feels like it is increasing awesome or decreasing suck, we stop doing it.)

Rule 3: Minimize lawyering. Hank and I tend to lose interest in any endeavor when a lot of lawyers become involved. Basically, if we require lawyers other than our cousin Mike or the people he works with, we don’t do it.

Rule 4: Employ more people per dollar of revenue than PepsiCo. This is very important to us. So one of the emerging metrics for a company’s “success” is revenue generated per employee. PepsiCo generates more than $196,728 in revenue per employee. (That may seem ludicrously high, but it’s much lower than many companies: Google generates $1,900,000 every year per employee.) The thinking goes that successful companies generate a lot of money per employee. Our thinking is that it is both good business and good citizenship to invest revenue in new employees.

Rule 5: Keep promises. We try to keep promises even when they are very inconvenient and expensive to keep, such as when Amazon Germany ships out a thousand unsigned preorders of your new book even though you signed more than enough copies for them to ship to their customers. 

Rule 6: Pay tops out at 10x average worker pay. Pretty simple, really: The highest paid employees of a company shouldn’t make more than 10 times the average employee’s pay. (Current estimates in the US indicate CEOs make between 185 and 310 times more than the average worker.) Capping this at a multiple of ten means everyone is invested in seeing the company grow and succeed.

Rule 7: Have awesome customers. If you don’t like the people who watch and read and wear the stuff you make, then you will not have any fun. Speaking of which…

Rule 8: Have fun. Our grandfather wrote thousands of lists in his life—grocery lists, lists of business ideas, pros and cons of taking different jobs. Almost all of his lists ended “Have fun!” We think this is good advice.

4 months ago  /  2,767 notes  /  Source: fishingboatproceeds