If being certain you don’t have a potentially life-threatening illness that you could pass on to the person or people who are the very closest to you isn’t enough to get you to the clinic, then maybe this will tip the balance!

Well, whatever works. The smallpox vaccine wasn’t going anywhere until the National Health Service started giving out Mrs. Beasley dolls to people who got the shot. If people are willing to shell out hundreds of dollars for a pet murloc, maybe the GYT badge will be the thing that eliminates STDs forever, or at least until the next one mutates into existence.

Come to think of it, all sorts of societal ills could stand to be eliminated, or at least mitigated, or at least addressed in a way that makes people feel like they’re doing something while incidentally being subjected to advertising by a major basic cable corporation.

Let’s see if we can figure out how else to improve the world.

‘Cure That Disease!’ From Kaiser Permanente and Valve

Getting tested for diseases is important, but curing them is even more important. Clearly, we need to start convincing researchers and pharmaceutical companies to start churning out the cures, pronto. If a Starfleet doctor can cure some deadly mutagenic alien virus in time to warp away from the singularity before the Borg emerge from it, why are people still getting diabetes?

Let’s help them out here. Cure a previously incurable disease — and I’m talking total cure here, not just slowing down the symptoms for a few years — and you get an exclusive golden medi-gun in Team Fortress 2.

‘Let Them Live!’ From Pabst Blue Ribbon and Microsoft

It’s time we stood up and said, “Gunning people down in surging, bloody waves of cold-blooded murder is for videogames only.” Go a month without killing anyone and your Xbox Live avatar gets a gold belt buckle that says, “Peace.” But the rules are stringent: Kill even one person in real life and say goodbye to your virtual tchotchke!

‘Get Yourself Paid!’ From McDonald’s and Blizzard

You know what sucks? Poverty. And yet, billions of people still seem to lack the motivation to stop being poor. What if they’re just waiting for the right incentive?

Well, now they have it: If you manage to creep above the poverty line you’ll be awarded a fancy hat for all your World of Warcraft characters. As an added incentive, if you make more than $250,000 a year you get an exclusive epic flying mount in the shape of a private charter jet! You can bet people will be leveling up their paychecks in no time.

‘Be Nice!’ From Zynga and Coca-Cola

But we’re not really getting to the root of the problem, are we? In the end, the most important thing is that people stop being selfish and petty and start actually caring about the people around them. So let’s pull out the big guns, so to speak. If you love your neighbor, devote yourself to helping those worse off than you, and freely forgive those who have done you wrong, you get a fluffy vicuña for your virtual FarmVille homestead. That should do it!

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Born helpless, nude and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjöberg eventually overcame these handicaps to be kind of extra cranky this week.

See Also:

• Alt Text: Offline Social Network Sites Don't Live Up to Hype
• Alt Text: Porn Deserves Special Handling in Entirely New Domains
• Alt Text: It's a Fee-for-All as Credit Card Companies Innovate

Authors: Lore Sjöberg

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