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To assign blame to diffuse 'consumers' as well as the Hollywood/politicians/FAANG/manufacturers/international megacorporations that are the other side of whatev

To assign blame to diffuse 'consumers' as well as the Hollywood/politicians/FAANG/manufacturers/international megacorporations that are the other side of whatever 'it takes two to tango' issue, the consumers need to have the capability to effectively communicate their demands back to their partner in the trap. Not only do they need the capability, they also need the expectation that the communication will be heard, else there is no reason to do it. But that line of communication is lost at large scales. Maybe a few purists will make a principled stand for nuanced, poignant, artistic, deep films, against the degeneration of the film industry towards bland, repetitive, shallow superhero rehashes, and will refuse to buy a ticket. But capturing those ticket sales would likely mean that more casual viewers didn't bother with the more difficult films. The only number that matters to Hollywood in the end is the box office gross sales; artistic purity is either counterproductive or immeasurable in that context and therefore irrelevant. I want to make responsible choices, and want to reject bland movies, or disposable packaging, or privacy-invading ad trackers, or greenhouse gassy lifestyle choices, or any number of similar issues. And I do make personal sacrifices that reflect these preferences. But I fully expect that Hollywood will continue to churn out uninspired movies, that the 'local' Walmart and, shortly thereafter, the landfill will contain almost as much plastic as product, that websites will increasingly pack their pages with ever-more-invasive trackers, that people will still live in single-family housing with multiple internal-combustion vehicles and long commutes. To be clear, I believe the blame actually lies with neither of the dancers, but with the system in which they operate. You can't expect the biggest studios like Universal/Paramount/Warner Bros/Disney/Columbia to make any decisions other than those which they're incentivized to make. They have no reason to do so, and if they did, they'd soon be replaced by a competitor who didn't. A corporation is not a moral entity, it's essentially an AI that attempts to maximize quarterly financial numbers, you can only expect it to act in the narrow context of incentives and consequences on which it operates. That cultural/social/political/economic context is the enemy, not any individual consumer and not any individual corporation.

wpietri 5y ago
You're simultaneously claiming that movie viewers have no way to communicate and that Hollywood listens very hard to ticket sales. I think you'll have to pick one. I agree these are systemic problems, but I think it's a giant mistake to absolve a corporation's execs and employees for moral responsibility for their actions. The social context is also part of the system, and it's one of the easiest parts to change.
- LeifCarrotson 5y ago
  It's simultaneously true that a single individual cannot communicate and that the actions of a diffuse, uncoordinated population are heard. That population can always be expected to contain a lot of uninformed, irrational consumers. "But what if everyone simultaneously thought very carefully about they want to consume" is not a thing that will ever happen and therefore not a valid solution. I don't absolve executives of moral guilt, they're clearly doing something wrong. I distinguish between this condition of being in the wrong with the condition of being to blame or responsible for the result. They are guilty, but if they didn't make the call, there will always be another greedy, narcisistic, power-hungry sociopath ready to take their place in the boardroom. "But what if all executives in the entire competitive industry rejected the cash grab and instead made the moral choice" is also not a thing that will ever happen and therefore not a valid solution. Without a mechanism for coordination, neither consumers nor producers can effect change; the system is all that's left to blame. Therefore, instead of moralizing or advocating individual action, we should build mechanisms to help people coordinate, work to shift the Overton window, and change the system to incentivize the behaviors you want, building very carefully to make sure that your changes are self-reinforcing.
  - wpietri 5y ago
    Movies aren't made for single individuals, so I'm not sure why you think explicit communication from a single individual is the important kind of communication here. Who gets to decide that the consumers are uninformed and irrational? I presume that's you judging people for their tastes? In my view people are in fact pretty good at picking the kind of entertainment they want. A lot of critics complaining about mass tastes seem to have not thought through what is economically viable in mass media. The complaint is effectively, "I, a discerning person who had studied this medium, want different things out of it than casual consumers." Which is almost tautological. What restaurant critic goes to McDonald's and complains that the food's not amazing? Its job isn't to amaze the kind of person who becomes a restaurant critic. But there is a mechanism for coordination. You're using it. Fans use it all the time to push entertainment industries in directions the like. In my view, that this isn't happening with film is not because of lack of communication. It's that the number of movie tickets sold peaked in 2007: https://www.the-numbers.com/market/ https://www.the-numbers.com/market/ Innovation has moved away from the dying medium because the economic incentives for film have shifted.
kryogen1c 5y ago
> That cultural/social/political/economic context is the enemy quite right! what to do? i usually dead-end with some question like "how to reverse incentives" or "forcibly generated counter-incentives" or "inherently diversified incentive portfolios". i wonder if we need some kind of knights-errant (justicars from mass effect), agents small in number but large in power to correct wrongs. in daniel suarez's freedom, there is a meter/gauge that measures the concentration of power. the desired state is not diffuse OR centralized, but in the middle. you need both. the public needs power to be involved and feel involved, but there is not always time for a decision by committee and there is a time for prompt, decisive action.

wpietri 5y ago

You're simultaneously claiming that movie viewers have no way to communicate and that Hollywood listens very hard to ticket sales. I think you'll have to pick one. I agree these are systemic problems, but I think it's a giant mistake to absolve a corporation's execs and employees for moral responsibility for their actions. The social context is also part of the system, and it's one of the easiest parts to change.

LeifCarrotson 5y ago
It's simultaneously true that a single individual cannot communicate and that the actions of a diffuse, uncoordinated population are heard. That population can always be expected to contain a lot of uninformed, irrational consumers. "But what if everyone simultaneously thought very carefully about they want to consume" is not a thing that will ever happen and therefore not a valid solution. I don't absolve executives of moral guilt, they're clearly doing something wrong. I distinguish between this condition of being in the wrong with the condition of being to blame or responsible for the result. They are guilty, but if they didn't make the call, there will always be another greedy, narcisistic, power-hungry sociopath ready to take their place in the boardroom. "But what if all executives in the entire competitive industry rejected the cash grab and instead made the moral choice" is also not a thing that will ever happen and therefore not a valid solution. Without a mechanism for coordination, neither consumers nor producers can effect change; the system is all that's left to blame. Therefore, instead of moralizing or advocating individual action, we should build mechanisms to help people coordinate, work to shift the Overton window, and change the system to incentivize the behaviors you want, building very carefully to make sure that your changes are self-reinforcing.
- wpietri 5y ago
  Movies aren't made for single individuals, so I'm not sure why you think explicit communication from a single individual is the important kind of communication here. Who gets to decide that the consumers are uninformed and irrational? I presume that's you judging people for their tastes? In my view people are in fact pretty good at picking the kind of entertainment they want. A lot of critics complaining about mass tastes seem to have not thought through what is economically viable in mass media. The complaint is effectively, "I, a discerning person who had studied this medium, want different things out of it than casual consumers." Which is almost tautological. What restaurant critic goes to McDonald's and complains that the food's not amazing? Its job isn't to amaze the kind of person who becomes a restaurant critic. But there is a mechanism for coordination. You're using it. Fans use it all the time to push entertainment industries in directions the like. In my view, that this isn't happening with film is not because of lack of communication. It's that the number of movie tickets sold peaked in 2007: https://www.the-numbers.com/market/ https://www.the-numbers.com/market/ Innovation has moved away from the dying medium because the economic incentives for film have shifted.

kryogen1c 5y ago

> That cultural/social/political/economic context is the enemy quite right! what to do? i usually dead-end with some question like "how to reverse incentives" or "forcibly generated counter-incentives" or "inherently diversified incentive portfolios". i wonder if we need some kind of knights-errant (justicars from mass effect), agents small in number but large in power to correct wrongs. in daniel suarez's freedom, there is a meter/gauge that measures the concentration of power. the desired state is not diffuse OR centralized, but in the middle. you need both. the public needs power to be involved and feel involved, but there is not always time for a decision by committee and there is a time for prompt, decisive action.