During the war the story was put out that eating carrots helped you see in the dark – it was a cover story to try to explain the effects of radar. Interesting that the saying still goes round even though it was fake news. But that is nothing to do with what I am writing about.
I saw an advert for underwear on TV where the actor talked about how he would get it from his dentist for eating so much sugar. Lots of people dislike going to the dentist (at least they did before the pandemic). And it got me thinking – so much of the work of the dentist is correcting what we do wrong. They are always pointing out our failures, what we do wrong – as if brushing our teeth 10 times a day would stop all problems.
Some people object to the behaviour of some of the big multinational coffee companies so they campaign for us all to drink coffee elsewhere. I always think there might be a better approach. Companies like Starbucks have enormous power – and finding a way to encourage them to use the power for good would do more than trying to get 1000 small companies to take over their market share. Carrot and stick, where is our carrot? We know positive reinforcement works.
Why is it we always protest against?