Eyes Wide Open

Thanks everyone for the positive feedback. I'm hoping the music will appeal to the younger generation and create a little more exposure to Dr.M's message in that demographic group. 

Unfortunately, my wife watched it and now thinks I'm "certifiable".  Oh well.

Thanks again....Jeff

Thanks everyone for the positive feedback. I totally agree that the "flicker effect" is irritating and difficult to watch. I think I blew a frontal lobe putting the video together....LOL

Land passed this along to me in a PM, and I would like to share it here (with permission, of course):

Ok, I showed the video to a little over 70 people today. I am not clear about the numbers because in the one lecture hall I had it cranked a little too high and students wandered in. (I let them stay for the video but not the discussion) Bad news first: the first clear request was that the very first picture not be Bernanke. They agreed that they were hard to rope in, and told me that if they went to a site and saw him as the start of a video they would probably think it was another "boring economy lecture" and never bother to click on it.

Then I got some discussion on disliking the sensation that their emotions were being manipulated with intent to sell them something. But, this led to a decent discussion on how anyone can get their attention anyway. Some said they didn't like the relentlessness of the unhappy words at the end. One student said, "I grew up with this I know how bad it is". But, this was countered with "yeah, but sometimes when it feels awful it is nice to have some one recognizes how you feel." That went on in that vein for a while.One complained that he saw the same pictures too many times, but I think he is an exception.

The rest of the discussion was positive. Several said they thought it was powerful and it would pique their interest in going to the site. They said they were curious what all of the graphs were and thought maybe the site would show them the graph and explain them. I am not sure they could recognize any of the graphs again, but I wouldn't put it past them. They liked the music and the pace was fine with them. They felt that it was subliminal, but several said it connected to how they already viewed the world.

This led to a discussion about the site in general that could prove valuable to Chris if he is interested. A decent number of them had already been to the site. (I have a link to it on my class web page.) They said it was . "Boring" "Overly academic" "Lousy graphics." "the videos are interesting, but there doesn't seem to be any real solutions offered to those of us who already see the problems and have for years."

"Nothing to encourage us to join the conversation as the forum topics were boring and didn't seem inviting." "The people didn't seem inviting or welcoming." "The registration process was overly cumbersome and needs tweaking." "I never saw the forums at all." "I didn't see a place that seemed aimed at younger people."

Then they began some back and forth on some of what they had found in the forums they had "skimmed". One said the forum was "a bitch fest by keyboard cowboys who were all talk and no action." They complained that there were some who were so into the stockpiling that they got the message that the posters were saying, "The world is going to hell, but I got mine so F*ck You Buddy."

That last one led us back to material covered in class about John Nash's game and game theory and how it had indeed permeated American society. The point was made that this type of thinking was what go us into this mess and was not going to be the thinking that would produce solutions.

One student said, "Some of them seem so terrified of socialism that they refuse to even consider that none of these issues can be addressed without cooperation; which will require coordination." I did not encourage that as I have not made mention of my thoughts on this in class.

A couple agreed that they were disillusioned by political activism as they had gotten involved in Obama's campaign looking for change and just got the same stuff over again. That seemed a fairly widely held belief.

They said the video needs to be posted on facebook and Chris, or others who are willing to work for/with him, needs to get on facebook, too. A couple said they would link the video on their facebook pages. They thought they would be more willing to join the conversation if there was a hint that they personally as a demographic were being invited. I am not sure how they expect this to look, we ran out of time, but several said they would e-mail me their thoughts later.

Overall I think the video went over well. One student summed it up saying, "I think the video says, The world if f*cked up, a lot of people are in denial about that, and you are inheriting that, so lets see if we can't make it better by going to that site and working on solutions." As I think that was your intended message you got through to at least one.

How to handle the issues with the web site is a whole other issue that I do not feel qualified to engage as I am not even a "member" of the site. And seriously, you should get the chance to see what this looks like on a big screen with a good sound system at least once! It is good work.

Thanks for the very valuable feedback Land. I have to say that I can't disagree with any of their concerns and observations. I also find it refreshing to have another perspective on the issues discussed in this community.