Bruno wrote:Losing limbs is (in chess parlance) an end game scenario. The kind of person who will ignore this kind of ultimatum is also the kind of person who eventually ends up losing limbs etc. Their damage is already as good as done.
People who can be convinced to change can usually be convinced easily. These are the sort of people who will probably never reach these end game scenarios, because they will make at least some or the necessary changes.
i agree with you partially, bruno, but i see a couple of problems here:
1) the thing regarding those who WILL ignore this type of ultimatum is that we don't know what is going on in their heads (as if we knew what was going on in ANYONE'S head =P). in other words, for those who are obstinately clinging on to their poor lifestyle habits, we don't know what the extent is that we must go to to turn them back. that is,
we don't know until we try. and for the one who does heed the graphic warnings and turn back (and i'm sure there are many more than just one), would not the advertisers and the 'saved' person himself not say that that one person's rescue from such a fate was worth it? it's not like these were made-up pictures-- this actually
happened to someone, or someone's mom, or someone's sister or son or dad. these guys didn't get these pictures from nowhere-- more than likely they might have been volunteered by families, loved ones, even the amputee or victim of such things himself. these people, if they had been able to see what would happen to them, would likely have turned to better ways-- and they likely think that the same will go for someone else as well. there's always someone out there whom this will help, and they're desperate to find that one. we have to remember that these pictures are pictures of
people.
2) regarding those whose minds are changed and the easy nature of their changing--
not necessarily. certainly not if i'm any example. people are set in their habits for inexplicable reasons, just try to shift 'em and you'll see just how defensively stuck they are. ask anyone who's converted to a different diet, religion, political party, car or cola brand, anything that involves a mixture of prefence, choice and habit, and you'll get a story of how that change was not an easy one. many people are affected by positive attractions, to be sure-- which is an argument for the positive ads-- but there are positives to everything in life, including munching twinkies on a couch. humans are as much motivated by fear of pain as they are by attraction to pleasure and must be pushed as well as pulled, and inertia is a tremendous thing to overcome. different things apply to and attract/repel different people of course.
i feel terribly for the six-year-olds and newly diagnosed who are terrified by this ad; i also feel terribly for those whose photos and plights inspired it. i'm not there, so i don't know what has been shown on your televisions, but if this is primarily an internet ad then i would keep in mind the people whom it targets. if i were the mother of someone who risked this terrible fate then i would be very happy that these ads inspired him or her to change ways; likewise, if i were one of the people that this happened to, i would probably have wished a thousand times in my first day post-op that someone had shown such ads to me. this is probably their motivation more than anything else.
it's also another reminder to ourselves that we're not as tough and insensitive as we think and maybe we should monitor the kinds of things that we/our kids look at, if we are likely to be offended by something that is targeted to a certain audience and that contains potentially offensive material. i've gone into movies more times than i care to count and come out disgusted by their content, only to be told that i am obviously not the audience that is targeted by such things-- and that's for entertainment purposes, not the public health! if you or your loved one was scared by this ad, it is a prime opportunity to go on a fact-and-info-finding mission and inform yourselves-- which was probably ANOTHER primary motivation of these ads. they care less about your guilt or your nightmares than they do that this doesn't happen to you; if you don't fall into the category that it would happen to, then you would be advised to simply ignore it.
that's the problem with the human race-- we have to do everything with "blankets." it seems a great approach until you get under the "blanket" yourself, then you suddenly remember that everyone is an individual, until you come up with another blanket solution for something else that is =). point is, there are obviously merits to both approaches. the only way to keep from going nuts is to remember that these folks are not doing it to target you personally =)
becky =)
who will probably go and get pissed off at something else in a day or two and go and contradict SOMETHING she wrote in this incredibly long tome =)
Very cool!