01-11-2013, 02:07 AM
|
|
|
Confirmed User
Industry Role:
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Oakland, CA
Posts: 8,067
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by vdbucks
The truly sad part is how none of you "anti gun" advocates seem to realize that the sudden increase of mass shootings is just a little too convenient... like all of a sudden the mainstream media and political figureheads start talking about banning guns and then all of a sudden, mass shootings increase tenfold...
But no.. we mustn't talk about those things less the mainstream media and their faithful followers start calling us "conspiracy theorists".
|
This phenomenon has been well documented. Where is the confusion?
Quote:
4. Why do you think the epidemic example is so relevant for other kinds of change? Is it just that it's an unusual and interesting way to think about the world?
No. I think it's much more than that, because once you start to understand this pattern you start to see it everywhere. I'm convinced that ideas and behaviors and new products move through a population very much like a disease does. This isn't just a metaphor, in other words. I'm talking about a very literal analogy. One of the things I explore in the book is that ideas can be contagious in exactly the same way that a virus is. One chapter, for example, deals with the very strange epidemic of teenage suicide in the South Pacific islands of Micronesia. In the 1970's and 1980's, Micronesia had teen suicide rates ten times higher than anywhere else in the world. Teenagers were literally being infected with the suicide bug, and one after another they were killing themselves in exactly the same way under exactly the same circumstances. We like to use words like contagiousness and infectiousness just to apply to the medical realm. But I assure you that after you read about what happened in Micronesia you'll be convinced that behavior can be transmitted from one person to another as easily as the flu or the measles can. In fact, I don't think you have to go to Micronesia to see this pattern in action. Isn't this the explanation for the current epidemic of teen smoking in this country? And what about the rash of mass shootings we're facing at the moment--from Columbine through the Atlanta stockbroker through the neo-Nazi in Los Angeles?
|
http://www.gladwell.com/tippingpoint/ |
|
|