The point of this article is that it _does work_, no matter how skeptical you are. I think that's putting it too strongly. It's more like an epidemiology probl

The point of this article is that it _does work_, no matter how skeptical you are. I think that's putting it too strongly. It's more like an epidemiology problem, where we know that it is not possible for everyone to be maximally skeptical, so change from the status quo will not be achieved at the individual consumer level. A few habitual cigarette smokers quit abruptly, with no apparent difficulty or later relapses. A few smokers never quit yet outlive their non-smoking peers. Some people try cigarettes once or twice and never develop the habit. However, despite the existence of individuals who can overcome, endure, or resist the common effects of cigarettes, epidemiological evidence shows that it takes regulation to reduce smoking and its ill effects at an aggregate population level. It's similar with advertising. Advertising targets populations. It works on populations. It is neither necessary nor proven that it is possible to craft an advertisement so powerful that anyone who sees it will eventually buy the advertised product. Analogizing human brains to unpatched computers, rife with exploitable buffer overflows, confuses more than it clarifies. (As an example, I saw my first Coors beer ad more than 30 years ago. I have yet to buy Coors beer. I don't drink beer. Nor do I drink sodas, so no Coke or Pepsi in my house either.)