Fear and greed

I'm in the middle of Master & Commander, the first book of the Patrick O'Brian series of historic seafaring novels, and a passage stood out for me. It comes during a dinner-time conversation from a banker name Mr Ellis, discussing the need for man to be disciplined. "... for the two great motives in the world were greed and fear, gentlemen. Let them look at the French revolution, the disgraceful rebellion in Ireland... all greed, and to be put down by fear". The two words Ellis homes in on are ones we are are often quoting in our office, but clearly in a pretty different context.

For us the way to attract readers to a magazine or website, or to a conference or exhibition, is through fear and greed. The first usually relates to any new law/rule/legislation/change that is coming in that people are struggling to understand. Hence the Code for Sustainable Homes and Energy Performance Certificates stand out. On the greed side is the opportunity - how can we make money out of this changing landscape? They're fairly good first principles for us to stick for the moment.

Comments

[Matthew]

Reminds me of a couple of quotes...

"Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood" (Marie Curie)

"Science is facts; just as houses are made of stones, so is science made of facts; but a pile of stones is not a house and a collection of facts is not necessarily science."
(Henri Poincaré)