Pater Familias

Theories, observations, and articles, by Philip Schaefer · All posts · Categories

WHAT THE MIMES DID.

July 16, 2015 at 9:12 PM · Economics, History, Politics

WHAT THE MIMES DID. This post on the Freakonomics site has photos of the Bogota mimes at work. They relied importantly on shaming. They handed out thumbs up and thumbs down cards (pictured) and followed jaywalkers. This post on the Harvard Gazette site describes other imaginative initiatives of Mayor Mockus. Some of these included distributing 350,000 “thumbs-up” and “thumbs-down” cards that could be used by members of the public and painting stars on spots where pedestrians had been killed. (Note that if the claim is that the mimes alone brought down the traffic death rate, these other initiatives would be have to be considered as alternative explanations in the post hoc propter hoc analysis.)