great ideas and enthusiasm, and great topic, but i find
myself discomfited by this thread. it has "caution" written
all over it.
===
fear is already the go-to motivator for political actors.
the market is saturated in many places.
imo, while we can use fear appropriately in specific cases,
we also have better options in many cases.
i will make a proposal at the end of this post.
===
as others have eloquently mentioned, /if/ you want people to
fear, you do not want them to fear a population. you want
them to fear a disease itself.
there is too fine a line between the two fears. this
concerns me in an age of outgroups. subtlety is /not/ the
order of this age.
the bad guys have demonstrated that many audiences are not
good with subtlety, by glossing over critical details that
nobody cares about. we have had enough of being
deliberately cast as an outgroup by them.
===
also, i think while slogans are needed, they will usually
have to be backed up by a prepared story. a coherent
package that everybody can grasp and believe.
we are still refining our story. this has taken many years.
learning m.e. is drinking from a firehose, but it need not
be. we just have to polish the story (or stories) a bit more.
slogans and hashtags have their uses.
but to create a movement (instead of a community +
twitter slacktivists + early adopters), i think we need that story.
===
finally, before i get to my proposal, i want to say that for
example stimulation overload is every bit as much a
crash-causer as exertion or activity. everybody associates
the latter with physical or cognitive only. and they define
it as the opposite of laziness. "what could go wrong?"
but i think it might be useful to focus, not so much on the
facts of the disease, but on what will be compelling.
here's my proposal:
===
our war for enlightenment -- fighting back and making
science possible, for example -- is compelling!
there are people who will want to join that fight, if we
invite them correctly.
my guess is that part of inviting them correctly is [1] distilling the facts (no firehose), [2] forming a meaningful story, and perhaps [3] giving it an
ethos appeal that fits both the times and the audience.
===
to that end, i think we need to keep in mind bill moyer's
point here:
> Movement activists will be successful only to the extent
that they can convince the great majority of people that the
movement, and not the powerholders, truly represent
society's values and sensibilities. -- [bill moyer the activist and theoretician of stages of movements, not bill moyers the journalist]
(warning: i might repeat that quote in blog posts, because i
think it's worth it.)
===
it can be useful to consider
george lakoff's theory about framing:
>You need ... (2) to communicate the general ... value
system, (3) repeat the truths that reveal what is right
about those values, (4) act with courage to promote the
sense of courage, confidence and hope that allows the truth
to be meaningful and powerful. Within such a context, one
can honestly and openly discuss the facts that undermine
such fears, so that the illegitimate fears don’t get
established in the first place. --
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-lakoff/disaster-messaging_b_639040.html [ignore the politics]
===
here's a rough example of a possible story:
===
we were ordinary people minding our own business.
and just because we got sick, we got hit by a hitherto
unrecognized sociopolitical force [for copious citations
cilck here, or keep reading the story]. [note: don't be afraid to
teach misopathy.]
btw anybody can get the disease but never mind that for now.
btw anybody can be mild today and severe tomorrow but never
mind that for now. we fought steep odds and profound creepy
evil and are starting to win. [here are is a challenge we faced and overcame.] we fight for science, human rights, and more enlightened times.
come, make the kind of world you want to live in. show the
powerholders that they do not own everything, least of all
your conscience. we're meeting in the chemistry building
atrium on west campus at 7pm tuesday. we're well-organized
and friendly. naturally, /you/ get to choose your level of
engagement, from zero to BADASS.
===
or so.
===
ETA: i view this as 100% compatible with the op's "There needs to be a focus of advocacy on the stories of the most severely affected, and how the person receiving the message knows ... they could be next...." we must mention those points every time. but the /story/ that surrounds them need not necessarily focus on fear. people will draw the correct conclusions from the facts if presented correctly. [they might even be /more/ impacted by them, because they noticed them themselves.]