Huge traffic jam in the city center tonight. Mostly buses and some cars in a long line, from the feet of the medieval main church in the city center to the ring road. The reason? Traffic restrictions for Saint-Shoppingcart also known as Black Friday and the fair that goes with it.
This made me phantasise about setting up an ERE market stall with a few local eremites during the Black Friday fair. This or other places. Maybe a booth at the yearly federation of investment clubs fair?
I used to organise free and open source software stands at computer hardware fairs in the early 2000's. Great fun, and I learned a lot about how to spread our message.
Has anyone ever organised any fair stand like this? This seems like an obvious thing to try in a university city. I'm guesing an unusually high population share here might be receptive to the ERE story...
ERE at Saint-Shoppingcart fair?
Re: ERE at Saint-Shoppingcart fair?
Black Friday should be cast into the pit of hell where it belongs.
Re: ERE at Saint-Shoppingcart fair?
I fully agree. I'm just trying to be slightly more devious. To figuratively speaking go stand at the gate of hell like a Jehovah's witness with a large sign saying "ERE loves you!".
The question remains really. Has there ever been an attempt at spreading the ERE message the fair booth way? Sounds like an excellent way to both get to know other eremites and reach out.
Re: ERE at Saint-Shoppingcart fair?
I don't know but @Jacob probably will. I do like the idea of paying for a you tube advert or billboard saying something like 'consumerism will rot your soul'.
Actually only this afternoon I was thinking whether leafleting cars with messages saying something like 'This machine drowns Bangladeshi children' would be at all a productive strategy. Kinda like pictures of cancerous lungs on cigarette packaging although smokers have probably become desensitised by now.
Actually only this afternoon I was thinking whether leafleting cars with messages saying something like 'This machine drowns Bangladeshi children' would be at all a productive strategy. Kinda like pictures of cancerous lungs on cigarette packaging although smokers have probably become desensitised by now.
Re: ERE at Saint-Shoppingcart fair?
No, no, you have it all wrong
Jehovah saves! It's a message of hope we'd be bringing. The cynic in me says the reason the tobacco industry did not oppose this harder probably is exactly that: desensitisation.Actually only this afternoon I was thinking whether leafleting cars with messages saying something like 'This machine drowns Bangladeshi children' [..] although smokers have probably become desensitised by now.
Re: ERE at Saint-Shoppingcart fair?
I used to do retail arbitrage on Black Friday. Made a small killing on Nerf guns one year.
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jacob
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Re: ERE at Saint-Shoppingcart fair?
Not that I'm aware of. The closest thing I've done to this kind of presentation has been poster sessions at physics conferences. This worked in direct proportion to the amount of traffic at the assigned spot.
My concern with this is Wheaton Levels. Most of the foot traffic will be WL0-1. I don't know how to talk to these people.
On a related note, has anyone here ever been to FinCon?
Re: ERE at Saint-Shoppingcart fair?
Very good point. Gaining some experience could be easier in conversation with a higher Wheaton level audience. Maybe something near the ecological cooperative cafe's fair booth.
Learning to communicate with a lower Wheaton level audience sounds like an interesting long-term project though. Something to contemplate on long cold winter evenings...
Re: ERE at Saint-Shoppingcart fair?
Back when we were selling our book, we would set up the van at various street fairs, and we would do a crude form of A/B testing. One of us would stand facing the van, pretending to be a "customer" and the other would blurt various statements as if we were having a conversation, loud enough that passers-by could hear. We learned very quickly that one concept in particular drew people in.
Our overwhelming frugality allowed us to buy ourselves our freedom. We always presented it in that way. Buying freedom.
We told stories about the crazy things we did to save money, but made sure to always bring the conversation back to the idea that we were able to quit our corporate gigs and become free.
For the most part, the people we were encountering used money to solve their problems. While their wealth bought them many solutions, it came at the expense of their freedom. The mere suggestion that it was possible to 'buy freedom' caused people to buy $20 books faster than we imagined possible. If we sold less than a case of twenty books at an event, we considered it a failure. That was twenty years ago.
It was like shooting fish in a barrel. While it was a lot of fun, I could never quite get over the fact that we were being incredibly manipulative... for a profit.
Figure out a way to set the hook by making people feel like "buying freedom" is possible, and then reeling them toward the ERE boat, could be a fun post-retirement hobby.
Our overwhelming frugality allowed us to buy ourselves our freedom. We always presented it in that way. Buying freedom.
We told stories about the crazy things we did to save money, but made sure to always bring the conversation back to the idea that we were able to quit our corporate gigs and become free.
For the most part, the people we were encountering used money to solve their problems. While their wealth bought them many solutions, it came at the expense of their freedom. The mere suggestion that it was possible to 'buy freedom' caused people to buy $20 books faster than we imagined possible. If we sold less than a case of twenty books at an event, we considered it a failure. That was twenty years ago.
It was like shooting fish in a barrel. While it was a lot of fun, I could never quite get over the fact that we were being incredibly manipulative... for a profit.
Figure out a way to set the hook by making people feel like "buying freedom" is possible, and then reeling them toward the ERE boat, could be a fun post-retirement hobby.
Last edited by Ego on Sat Nov 25, 2023 9:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: ERE at Saint-Shoppingcart fair?
Self-promoting in this particular thread would wrong in so many ways.
Re: ERE at Saint-Shoppingcart fair?
Buying freedom. Buying liberty or liberation Buying independence. Buying autonomy. Buying emancipation. Buying self-governance. Buying license. Buying latitude, range, and/or dominion.
I think these similar/synonymous themes along with varying metaphors could be used to market to different groups/demographics more successfully. For instance, humans may be more or less comfortable with the aspects of power inherent in freedom, the politicized association with liberation/liberal/libertarian, or the edge behavior associated with license.
I think these similar/synonymous themes along with varying metaphors could be used to market to different groups/demographics more successfully. For instance, humans may be more or less comfortable with the aspects of power inherent in freedom, the politicized association with liberation/liberal/libertarian, or the edge behavior associated with license.
Re: ERE at Saint-Shoppingcart fair?
There was a parody video of someone lamenting that there are no longer videos of Black Friday riots. I miss them as well as I spend much of my discretionary time enjoying videos of public fights whether precipitated by infidelity, getting cut off in traffic or large screen television supply demand issues. Reading this thread, I worry there is a more sinister reason. The totalitarian forces ruling the consumer universe are blocking their publication to filter out the negative outworking of their propaganda machine. A good melee in a Walmart electronics department was French Revolution level. Now news accounts are like watching hockey highlights without the fights.
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jacob
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Re: ERE at Saint-Shoppingcart fair?
I think Cards Against Humanity should spend more money to dig more pointless holes. This was the funniest thing to happen during the 2010s: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way ... the-ground
Re: ERE at Saint-Shoppingcart fair?
i bought a cpu