On the Politics of Smoking Bans
Why the hostility towards public smoking when cars abound?
Posted Sat Jun 28, 12:40 AM in environment, law, politics
Many cities are jumping on board legislated smoking bans, and it would appear that this trend is gaining a base, and communities all over the country are pushing to adopt such regulations. Aside from the political issues involved, there is something deeply ironic about places like L.A. and New York having instituted smoking bans. These are cities, after all, that have ranked #1 and #8 respectively on the American Lung Association’s list of the cities in the US with the worst air pollution.1
Anti-smoking activists will argue that it is the right of people to be in environments where they are not forced into prolonged exposure to airborne toxins. I agree with this. But the fact that people in L.A. and New York are making such arguments seems somewhat irrational given their choice of residence. If the worst exposure that people are getting to airborne pollution in L.A. is from cigarette smoke in bars, I’d say they’re doing pretty well. But the truth is, L.A. is a cesspool of air pollution— so much so that residents are often given warnings about not going outside because of the level of particulate matter in the atmosphere. How, then, can someone make this argument with any conviction? Everyone in LA is constantly being bombarded with carcinogenic smoke; frankly, cigarette smoke is the least of their worries.
I can think of about a hundred different industries that cause more mayhem than the cigarette industry. But it’s the automobile industry that I would probably put at the very top of a list that environmentalists and health care professionals should target. Breathing cigarette smoke for an hour in a bar seems like a walk in the park compared to living in an environment where cars are spewing out smoke all day long— you know, like they do in every major city in the world.
Anyone concerned about cigarette smoke should be triply concerned about smoke from vehicular transport. We look down on cigarette smokers for their inconsiderate behavior, what with the way they blow their foul smoke all over and ruin our precious air, but we rarely hold motorists to the same standard. Alas, our society has invested much more energy and political leverage into the war on drugs (yes, tobacco does count as a drug) than into the war on pollution, and we have this to thank for the fact that the intensity of our anger has been misplaced on cigarettes and not other, more common and more substantial forms of air pollution.
Few people are up in arms about getting cars off the roads despite the fact that they are like massive cigarettes billowing out megatons of nasty, toxic smoke, and blanketing not just those in the direct vicinity of them— like cigarettes do— but entire towns and regions (just ask the good people of Fresno, California, who are in the unenviable position of being the downwind recipients of the Bay Area’s smog). Why is there no cry for cars to be ostracized from our cities, or at least their presence minimized somehow, like London did by charging exorbitant rates for cars to enter certain parts of the city?
Perhaps it is because as Americans, we have accepted, embraced, and even encouraged motor vehicles as a way of life. Our cities have been designed to not only accommodate cars, but to necessitate them. There is little evidence to suggest that the planners of most American cities and towns have ever considered the idea that building their communities to revolve around automobiles might not be such a great idea. And now, decades later, when planners are starting to question the wisdom of that decision, we are pretty much stuck with those results and are paying the price at the pump, in our physical health, and in our environment.
Yet, despite this, we tend to view vehicles as immutable parts of American life, and have never given pause to consider whether either full or partial bans of vehicles, or “congestion charges” are possible in our cities. It’s not nearly as radical as it sounds— there is a huge environmental price we have to pay for having those cars there. They are loud, they discourage public transit, and they pump out a hell of a lot of smoke— much more than a few cigarettes ever could. Getting them out would confer benefits on many more people and in a much more pronounced way than smoking bans. So again, why do so many city residents want to implement smoking bans but nary a peep is heard about instituting some form of vehicular regulation?
Despite what I consider its misguidedness, in a way, cigarette bans are a step in the right direction if we are looking strictly at environmental concerns and not those regarding personal liberties. We all need air to breathe, and currently, very few private citizens give our air quality much thought outside of those people who are directly affected by it; focusing air quality efforts into food service establishments might just be the most realistic way to plant the seed, and get the public thinking about air quality issues.
But then there are the pesky political issues that arise. A very heated debate rages on about how such bans relate to Constitutional rights, personal liberties, and the rights of businesses to operate the way they want. Many pro-smoking advocates argue: Why should the government be allowed to tell someone how to run their business? Shouldn’t business owners have the decision as to whether they should allow smoking or not, since smoking is not illegal? If customers do not like dealing with smoke in establishments that allow it, won’t they just avoid that establishment? And shouldn’t consumers decide what businesses they frequent?
I find these counterarguments rational and compelling; at least in the context of the complex modern world. Don’t get me wrong, I love having clean air, despise the smell of cigarette smoke, and I would rather not have to deal with smoke anywhere on the planet— especially considering that it’s my air (and the world’s collective air) that is being degraded by someone else without my or our input or just benefit. But we suffer from such tragedies of the commons all the time, and on the totem pole of environmental offenses, cigarettes are charting somewhere towards the bottom; we let companies like Monsanto get away with so much more socially damaging acts than a little air pollution that it seems ludicrous that we should hold cigarette smokers’ feet to the fire instead of going after the big dogs of environmentally and socially damaging behavior.
Yet we go on, content living in our large polluted cities, accepting vehicular air pollution as a way of life, and cursing cigarette smokers for destroying our precious air. All the while, we watch idly as massive diesel trucks and cars of every variety permeate our cities and contaminate every whiff of our air.
Sources:
1) American Lung Association, State of the Air, 2008.
http://www.stateoftheair.org/2008/most-polluted/
2) Wikipedia, “Times Beach, Missouri”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_Beach,_Missouri
The Food Supply Chain
a pictorial representation to ponder
Posted Thu Jun 26, 01:14 PM in biology, business, business models, consumerism, economics, environment, marketing, operations management, pictures, politics, semiotics, sustainability
(click for a more detailed view)
Bicycles are in Desperate Need of (R)evolution
and why companies should make it easy for people to adopt their products
Posted Tue Jun 24, 11:55 PM in business, business models, economics, environment, improvements, marketing, sustainability
Here’s the problem, as I’ve elucidated on a previous post: bicycle companies have not given the non-user a strong incentive to switch from cars to bicycles. Bikes, as they are currently sold, lack all the subtle (and not-so-subtle) features that new users who are wanting to instantly make their bike their primary mode of transportation will want; features like easy locking, built-in LED lighting, stylish and lightweight baskets, and chains that don’t eat your pants. These are all features that are immediately obvious to people who don’t bike regularly, or who have just started biking on a more frequent basis.
I’m certain that bicycle manufacturers will find any number of reasons to throw up resistance for these ideas, and deny that making such features standard is a good idea. This will make the bike heavy, they will say. It will make the bike less customizable. It will make the bike most costly.
Yes, these are all fine old-school reasons to not do something, argued from the standpoint of people who are so integrated into the semi-elitist, extreme-sports culture of hardcore biking that they fail to see the need for this evolution for the mainstream. To them, it’s an “it-ain’t-broke-so-don’t-fix-it” sort of argument; if someone wants a light, why not let them choose what kind to get— if they want one at all— instead of installing a standard one in the bike?
Here’s why.
Think about it from another vantage point; take the computer industry: What kind of computer do people who do not know anything about computers buy? They buy Macs. Why should they buy Macs? They are more expensive, have less software, are less prominent in computing society, and they pretty much force you to buy all your hardware from a single manufacturer whose products cost significantly more than comparable PC products. These facts, on paper, do not sound like things that are going in Apple’s favor at all.
But what Apple does offer is instant usability, assurance that everything is going to work, standardized components, integrated hardware that is compatible with the other pieces of hardware within it, and a single sleek and aesthetically-pleasing package that doesn’t need much modification or adjustment before you can use it.
Windows users are plagued with problems, often having to spend ages with their IT guys getting their network up and running, fooling with network adapter drivers, Windows networking software, and hardware conflicts— while Mac users simply input their IP numbers, and are smooth sailing. Meanwhile, the Windows user is pulling his hair out.
This is an instructive analogy. Think about it. Make it easy for someone to adopt your product. Isn’t that obvious?
People just getting on the bicycle bandwagon don’t want to deal with taking their LEDs on and off every time they get on a bike. They don’t want to deal with their clothes getting ruined by a chain that apparently can’t be made to not destroy clothing. They don’t want to be condemned to carrying everything they brought with them everywhere they go just because the bike has no close-able, lockable basket. They don’t want to deal with their bikes being space hogs in their homes because the handlebars don’t fold. They don’t want to buy dozens of aftermarket components and install them all on a machine they don’t understand, hoping that they got the right ones and that they fit with their type of bicycle and frame size. They don’t want to have a Frankensteined bicycle bearing so many different companies’ products that their bikes look like they were cobbled together from scrap.
They want all that stuff taken care of beforehand because they don’t want to think about that! They just want to be able to ride with confidence, have all the accessories they may want right there (and have them easy to put on because they were designed specifically for the bike they bought), and they want to get on with their lives. They don’t want to tinker with a machine whose secrets are only privy to the technicians who sold them the bike. They just want to ride!
A smart bicycle manufacturer would recognize this immediately and build a modular, Mac-inspired bike that includes everything that someone who instantly wants the bicycle to be their main form of transport would want, and fixes all the dumb oversights that discourage them from adopting this technology right now. Yes, it will likely raise the price of the bike, but for many people, not wanting to deal with frustrations and being nickeled and dimed on accessories is more valuable than having a cheaper bike.
A bike like this could easy generate a great deal of brand cachet, high sales, and could earn a company an army of lifelong customers and bicycle enthusiasts. Seems like a great investment to me. So what’s the problem?
Hey, You're a Lot Like Me! (Except Nothing Like Me!)
the connections between us
Posted Mon Jun 23, 11:46 AM in business, business models, consumerism, experiences, marketing, postmodernism, social networking
Recently, a friend of mine told me that he had been able to score a job interview with a company on the basis of having gone to the same alma mater as the interviewer. Judging from the context of this interaction, it is likely that there was at least a few of decades removal between their respective graduations, but that’s no matter. It’s easy to see the logic here: anyone who graduated from University of ABC, where you graduated from, must be a decent fellow. After all, that’s where you went, right? What else do you need to know?
The Granfalloon
In his 1963 book Cat’s Cradle, author Kurt Vonnegut coined a rather interesting term that might be applicable here: “granfalloon.” This odd expression describes a proud but meaningless connection between people.
An example: let’s say that you are thrust into a room full of strangers, and you know nothing about anyone except their birthdays— and amazingly, there’s a guy there who has the same birthday as you! Chances are, you will be able to form a more instantaneous bond with this individual than anyone else in the room on this basis alone. Surprising?
Based on my own observations, I don’t find it so surprising. When I think about this concept the first image that comes to my mind are Mac users.
Mac users make up a rather small percentage of computer users (between 5% and 8%). Perhaps it’s for this reason that I’ve noticed that Mac users tend to trust each other and form weird, superficial bonds based on their choice of computer brand. It’s really strange to observe, there’s a sense of ease that seems to develop when one Mac user meets another.
Finally. Another Mac user. You’re like me, a member of the elite coterie of beings who are devoted to high quality and aesthetics. An evolved individual who is light-years beyond those Windows-using plebians. Someone I can relate to!
I apologize if I came off as too mocking there; as a current Windows user, I have my own granfalloons to maintain.
You might have witnessed this same attitude when owners of the same car wave to each other on the street. Hey look, it’s another Blue 2007 BMW 5 Series. I’m going to wave now.
Often other bicyclists wave to me for no apparent reason. I return the wave out of courtesy. Interestingly, I’ve found that people wearing the spandex biking outfits wave at others who are wearing the outfits much more often than they do to cyclists who aren’t. I would wager that if the other individual’s colors were similar, there would be even more of a positive attitude.
The Minimum Group Paradigm
This is all due to to what social scientists call the minimum group paradigm, a manner in which people instinctively find ways to divide themselves into “us and thems” in social settings. This was initially noted by British psychologist Henri Tajfel. In a pretty stunning experiment, Tajfel ostensibly assigned subjects tags of whether they preferred paintings by Wassily Kandinsky or Paul Klee based on their supposed picture preferences beforehand. The subjects, incidentally, had never heard of these painters before. What followed was a bizarre situation in which the “Klee-lovers” treated other “Klee-lovers” like close friends, and “Kandinsky-lovers” treated “Kandinsky-lovers” like close friends. They even suggested that other people who shared their meaningless label were more likely to have a pleasant personality and be better workers. But here’s the kicker:
They also doled out rewards to fellow group members in a more generous and competitive manner. They preferred to give people who shared their labels $2 and give members of the “competing” group $1, instead of giving their own members $3 and members of the other group $4. Note that the latter of these two would have favored their group monetarily over the former, but also implicitly suggested that the “competing” group was somehow superior.
The meaningless label clouded judgment, and allowed people with nothing in common but an empty label to suddenly trust each other and connect.
The So-What Moment
Think about how marketers are constantly using this to get you to buy things. It happens much more than you realize.
Remember the Be Like Mike campaign, which suggested that you too could be the world’s greatest basketball player if only you drank Gatorade? Technically it’s true that if you drink Gatorade, you’re more like Michael Jordan than if you don’t (assuming he actually drinks it), but seriously— how obscure a connection are you willing to accept to be like Mike? If I really wanted to be like Mike, I’d think about working on my jump shot.
Interestingly, this particular marketing execution might not have worked in the somewhat distant past, if we are to believe what David Foster Wallace has to say about our fixation on images vs. belief systems. More on that here.
Sources:
(1) Age of Propaganda, by Anthony Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson. 2000.
(2) A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, by David Foster Wallace. 1997.
(3) Names That Match Forge a Bond on the Internet, New York Times.
What the World is Waiting For
Make their lives interesting. Please.
Posted Sun Jun 22, 08:35 PM in business, business models, consumerism, marketing
The world is a boring place. Don’t get me wrong, there is a bottomless reservoir of very interesting things to learn about, countless unmade inventions to make, and fascinating people to know, but to 95% of the planet, the world is something they deal with. They’re bored with their lives, they’re bored with their options, and their only outlet is fixating on something like television or celebrity gossip.
Maybe in the grand scene, this attitude is not a very reassuring one. But it’s one that is beneficial for you, the entrepreneurial businessman.
Why?
Because it means that people are waiting. Just waiting for something amazing to come along and earn their attention. And frankly, it doesn’t need to be something mindblowing or something that forever changes the world. It just has to be better than a rerun of Seinfeld. They’re waiting for something to make their lives interesting. They are looking for suspense. Excitement. Mystery. Something to divert their attention to. But they won’t turn their attention towards something run-of-the-mill. It has to be extraordinary. Something that warrants their attention. Something that engages them, something that stimulates a passion, something that gives them a reason to wake up in the morning.
Think about the things that got your attention— nay, obsession— over the past few years (there probably aren’t many, as few things in this world actually live up to their promises). They may have come to your attention in the form of media ‘hype’, from the recommendation of a friend, or maybe something you discovered on your own.
What separated this thing from the other things on your radar? Chances are, it wasn’t like anything else around it. It wasn’t empty hype. It resonated. It was honest. It had authenticity. It showed you something other than what was in the mainstream. It was different. There was little else to compare it to. In a class of its own.
But, you might argue, there’s so much noise out there that how can I get people’s attention? A truly remarkable product or event generates its own attention with very little effort on the part of its maker or sponsor. Yet, it is tempting to create an artificial hype when your product can’t generate one on its own. This is a dangerous move that can leave people feeling annoyed, betrayed, or suckered if they realize that your product isn’t everything you claimed. You really do not want that, as it puts you in a position that is very possibly worse than where you started (remember how you’ve been warned by marketers that people supposedly tell 17 friends about a bad experience, but only 5 friends about a good one?).
However, surprisingly, phony publicity can be effective, but there’s a catch. You’ve got to make sure that whatever you are promoting actually lives up to attention that you’re demanding. People will forgive you for ‘suckering’ them, if you make it worth their while; just make sure that in the end, they feel better about being suckered into something than if they hadn’t. And for that matter, make that journey of being suckered a unique and interesting one.
Remember that when you’re working on your next big idea.
