Tychoxi: While I think toddlers are actually far from being idiots, I shall abide by your premise.
michaelleung: I didn't say toddlers are idiots. I said they are just not very smart. It's not their fault or anything.
I have met quite a number of adults without a preexisting opinion on a given subject that were significantly less smart than toddlers.
Anyway - turns out writing a verbose version is too much work (and the explanation should be interactive anyway), so here are points to cover:
Copyright law - Scarcity (if you eat a cookie, it's gone, no one can eat it; mom and dad need to go to work to pay for food etc)
- Careers in entertainment (if you write an awesome story and a lot of people will like it and you ask them to give you some money so you don't have to go to work and they do...)
- Historical constraints on physical media distribution (sharing a book with 30 friends is a looooooong wait; an even higher entry barrier for movies/music etc, equipment is expensive)
- Lack of constraints in digital distribution
- Capitalism and the "initial" purpose of copyright (to ensure awesome people would tell more awesome stories - however, e.g. Walt Disney died before I was born, but we still need to pay for his movies - to whom the money goes? NOT Walt Disney, he's dead, he can't make more movies).
European sovereign debt crisis and the measures undertaken to save the Euro - blah blah money buying stuff to survive, work/pay
- a country is made of families, but it's not like a family at all: it is very big and there are many people who do not know each other
- for example, you can't print your own money (though it would be absolutely awesome of you could!) - no one would want it anyway and you might even go to jail for that; but countries can!
- but years ago, a bunch of countries decided to forbid themselves from printing money - stupid, right?
- and now that they need the money, they can't print it and can't pay for basic things they need
- what should they do? start printing money again - but that means admitting that they were wrong and stupid, and they are too proud for that (also wrong and stupid)
- instead, politicians try to run countries like families, being totally oblivious that they are not one and the same
- and they fail even in that: a family would cancel a vacation to buy food, but the countries cut down on basic necessities
- everyone is unhappy and countries turn to sh... er, poop.
ME3 ending - It's a videogame that's like a movie, only you can decide how the hero looks (even whether the hero is a boy or a girl!) and what he or she says and does (up to a point).
- There are a lot of things happening and a lot of choices, but it turns out only the final one really matters.
- It's like you took part in a (highly interesting) competition and then were told, "Well, there's 1st place, 2nd place, 3rd place, which one do you want?" no matter how well you performed.
BONUS: the controversy
- Some players say the ending is very bad and should be changed
- Others think, "but what if I was an author and someone demanded that I change something in my story", get offended and say the first group are bad
Reality shows - Spying on good people is bad
- Spying on good people is also uninteresting, because everyone does the same boring things (and if I were to do something interesting like fly to the moon or ride a tiger or ride a tiger to the moon, I'd tell you!)
- Some people agreed to have the TV spy on them for money (or a chance to win money)
- Other people watch this legal spying on TV, because they (1) like the supposed thrill of spying without the associated risks,(2) like to imagine they, themselves, are interesting enough for TV too, and (3) have no friends and pretend the people in the TV are their friends.
BONUS: What sane people watch:
* the news - not very exciting but important
* real awesome people doing awesome things
* fiction
