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You don't see a difference in meaning between advertising and SpaceX? One is moving humanity forward potentially into a spacefaring species in our lifetimes. T

by inimino 10y ago

You don't see a difference in meaning between advertising and SpaceX? One is moving humanity forward potentially into a spacefaring species in our lifetimes. The other is playing zero-sum games to help Pepsi avoid being outcompeted by Coke.

tsunamifury 10y ago
Do you know where most of SpaceX's funding comes from? Companies who make money by selling ads. Besides listen to it from Musks own mouth, "Meaning is about the delta between impact and scale. Whether you help millions of people share a photo more easily or send one person to mars."
- inimino 10y ago
  Non sequitur. If you work for a company selling ads, do you derive meaning from how the company invests its profits? Or from the direct effects your actions have on the world? The rationalizations some people will accept to avoid taking responsibility for how they spend their own lives... Edit: clarity
  - manigandham 10y ago
    So you think it's an invalid argument because of where that person works? Seriously, who are you to judge how others spend their lives? Do you go around telling construction workers that their life is meaningless and they should instead be building rockets to carry you to another planet?
    - inimino 10y ago
      No. Edited for clarity.
      - manigandham 10y ago
        You're still saying their comment is a non-sequitur... because why? they work for Google? because you don't like it?
        inimino 10y ago
        Because it is a non sequitur. It fails to engage the point of the argument. The point is that SpaceX is a making a potential contribution to humanity's future, which makes it a more meaningful way to spend your working years than an advertising company. The fact that an advertising company thought that SpaceX was a good investment has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with this argument. It completely misses the point.
manigandham 10y ago
No, there is no difference. You cannot judge what is meaningful to someone else. Also you're comparing a single company to an entire industry. Advertising is one of the reasons why SpaceX is successful in the first place, along with thousands of other cutting edge companies. SpaceX is exciting, but advertising has far greater impact collectively than you might think.
- TheOneTrueKyle 10y ago
  Want to go more into detail about how advertising has helped spacex?
- inimino 10y ago
  If you think meaning is arbitrary and cannot be judged by anyone else, I am not going to persuade you otherwise. However, most of us in society find shared meaning in those areas that we hope will benefit us all. In aggregate, we do judge what is meaningful and what is not.
- MaxfordAndSons 10y ago
  I think there's a definitional mismatch problem in this debate. You're talking about meaningfulness at the individual level, and I completely agree, nobody should be judged for how they find meaning and edification in their work, as long as they're not a hitman or something involving a similar level of individual amorality. But I also agree with gp and others that there is a difference between doing ad tech and rocket science. It's not that ad tech should be demonized, but I can't deny that there's something more meaningful about space exploration, and here I mean "potentially meaningful to much/all of humanity". And for some, this broader sense of meaningfulness overlaps significantly with their individual sense of meaningfulness, in which case they probably would have a hard time finding ad tech work meaningful.
  - manigandham 10y ago
    > but I can't deny that there's something more meaningful about space exploration Exactly, that's you - but others are completely different. There is no absolute ranking. Individual meaningfulness is all that exists. You might be in a group of people that all believe the same but that's about the extent of it. I personally see space travel as just another step in the growth of technology. It's definitely exciting but not some grand journey towards meaning. It's just science and tech and progress. And there are billions more who couldn't care less for space. Many say we should cure cancer first before spending money on space because it's more "meaningful", yet it's clear that both are important pursuits to the people involved in them and that there is no right or better thing for an individual or society to do. So why is advertising somehow beneath that? Is allowing efficient commerce and communications to build the economy and wealth somehow not up to the same standards? This letter from 1970 by Dr. Stuhlinger of Nasa is an incredibly reply in defense of space vs feeding the hungry, switch out space travel with anything else and it still holds: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-space.html http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-space.html
Veelox 10y ago
I would agree with you that SpaceX is more meaningful than advertising but advertising is not always a zero-sum game. In the Pepsi vs Coke case or Ford vs Toyota then yes it is a zero-sum game (unless you consider the increased competition a benefit). But in different cases online advertising allows some services to exist that would otherwise be impossible. One example is that you can be a self-employed bookbinder in a remote town by advertising your services online. This allows you to find customers who want your services that you would not otherwise be able to find. Those customers are able to find more bookbinders than would be possible without online advertising which drives down price.* So, online advertising is not always zero-sum, it allows some business that would not be able exist without it. The existence of more businesses reduces price for customers. * I got this idea from an article I read previously and am not able to find.
- inimino 10y ago
  Yes. I agree, and in a better society there would still be some room for advertising. If a product or service benefits consumers, then it benefits them to know that it exists. However, I would also say that we have several orders of magnitude more advertising than we need, and that the majority if it is zero-sum, or if you consider products like Pepsi and Coke (high margin addictive death syrup that would scarcely have a market if not advertised to the saturation point) decidedly negative-sum.

by inimino 10y ago

tsunamifury 10y ago

Do you know where most of SpaceX's funding comes from? Companies who make money by selling ads. Besides listen to it from Musks own mouth, "Meaning is about the delta between impact and scale. Whether you help millions of people share a photo more easily or send one person to mars."

inimino 10y ago
Non sequitur. If you work for a company selling ads, do you derive meaning from how the company invests its profits? Or from the direct effects your actions have on the world? The rationalizations some people will accept to avoid taking responsibility for how they spend their own lives... Edit: clarity
- manigandham 10y ago
  So you think it's an invalid argument because of where that person works? Seriously, who are you to judge how others spend their lives? Do you go around telling construction workers that their life is meaningless and they should instead be building rockets to carry you to another planet?
  - inimino 10y ago
    No. Edited for clarity.
    - manigandham 10y ago
      You're still saying their comment is a non-sequitur... because why? they work for Google? because you don't like it?
      - inimino 10y ago
        Because it is a non sequitur. It fails to engage the point of the argument. The point is that SpaceX is a making a potential contribution to humanity's future, which makes it a more meaningful way to spend your working years than an advertising company. The fact that an advertising company thought that SpaceX was a good investment has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with this argument. It completely misses the point.

manigandham 10y ago

No, there is no difference. You cannot judge what is meaningful to someone else. Also you're comparing a single company to an entire industry. Advertising is one of the reasons why SpaceX is successful in the first place, along with thousands of other cutting edge companies. SpaceX is exciting, but advertising has far greater impact collectively than you might think.

TheOneTrueKyle 10y ago
Want to go more into detail about how advertising has helped spacex?
inimino 10y ago
If you think meaning is arbitrary and cannot be judged by anyone else, I am not going to persuade you otherwise. However, most of us in society find shared meaning in those areas that we hope will benefit us all. In aggregate, we do judge what is meaningful and what is not.
MaxfordAndSons 10y ago
I think there's a definitional mismatch problem in this debate. You're talking about meaningfulness at the individual level, and I completely agree, nobody should be judged for how they find meaning and edification in their work, as long as they're not a hitman or something involving a similar level of individual amorality. But I also agree with gp and others that there is a difference between doing ad tech and rocket science. It's not that ad tech should be demonized, but I can't deny that there's something more meaningful about space exploration, and here I mean "potentially meaningful to much/all of humanity". And for some, this broader sense of meaningfulness overlaps significantly with their individual sense of meaningfulness, in which case they probably would have a hard time finding ad tech work meaningful.
- manigandham 10y ago
  > but I can't deny that there's something more meaningful about space exploration Exactly, that's you - but others are completely different. There is no absolute ranking. Individual meaningfulness is all that exists. You might be in a group of people that all believe the same but that's about the extent of it. I personally see space travel as just another step in the growth of technology. It's definitely exciting but not some grand journey towards meaning. It's just science and tech and progress. And there are billions more who couldn't care less for space. Many say we should cure cancer first before spending money on space because it's more "meaningful", yet it's clear that both are important pursuits to the people involved in them and that there is no right or better thing for an individual or society to do. So why is advertising somehow beneath that? Is allowing efficient commerce and communications to build the economy and wealth somehow not up to the same standards? This letter from 1970 by Dr. Stuhlinger of Nasa is an incredibly reply in defense of space vs feeding the hungry, switch out space travel with anything else and it still holds: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-space.html http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-space.html

Veelox 10y ago

I would agree with you that SpaceX is more meaningful than advertising but advertising is not always a zero-sum game. In the Pepsi vs Coke case or Ford vs Toyota then yes it is a zero-sum game (unless you consider the increased competition a benefit). But in different cases online advertising allows some services to exist that would otherwise be impossible. One example is that you can be a self-employed bookbinder in a remote town by advertising your services online. This allows you to find customers who want your services that you would not otherwise be able to find. Those customers are able to find more bookbinders than would be possible without online advertising which drives down price.* So, online advertising is not always zero-sum, it allows some business that would not be able exist without it. The existence of more businesses reduces price for customers. * I got this idea from an article I read previously and am not able to find.

inimino 10y ago
Yes. I agree, and in a better society there would still be some room for advertising. If a product or service benefits consumers, then it benefits them to know that it exists. However, I would also say that we have several orders of magnitude more advertising than we need, and that the majority if it is zero-sum, or if you consider products like Pepsi and Coke (high margin addictive death syrup that would scarcely have a market if not advertised to the saturation point) decidedly negative-sum.