Sunday, November 02 2008: Petitions
What is the energy that fuels this kind of hysterical 'activism'?
As I see it these are reasons the petition should be dismissed out of hand. First, according to snopes it is undetermined what the dog's actual fate was - so we're already on the verge of "Forwarded Email" territory before we've even started. Second, the outrage proves the artist point that people care more about the dog because it is in an art exhibit than they would if it were starving on the street. Third, clicking a button on a website does nothing materially to help out the dead dog (i.e., it is a form of prayer).
And yet, people eat this shit up - 219,084 members on Facebook have "signed" the "petition".
As I see it these are reasons the petition should be dismissed out of hand. First, according to snopes it is undetermined what the dog's actual fate was - so we're already on the verge of "Forwarded Email" territory before we've even started. Second, the outrage proves the artist point that people care more about the dog because it is in an art exhibit than they would if it were starving on the street. Third, clicking a button on a website does nothing materially to help out the dead dog (i.e., it is a form of prayer).
And yet, people eat this shit up - 219,084 members on Facebook have "signed" the "petition".
