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To me, it is worrying how much human effort we're investing into advertising as a whole. The top minds of our generations, backed by billions of dollars in fund

• locknumber110 7y ago
  As a wise philosopher once said regarding advertising, "Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little."
• maerF0x0 7y ago
  Here's the reason they keep doing-- It works. Stop rewarding it and they'll stop. I actually think a large number of societal issues today are stemming from people's inability to think rationally for themselves. Things like fake news, being vulnerable to advertising, taking bad deals like minimum wage etc. If someone were able to think rationally and into the future to figure out, "4 years from now if I choose this [politician, car, job]" I'll be as bad or worse off, then those things would die out for want of funding...
  • worble 7y ago
    You realise the reason why it's so effective is that it's psychological manipulation right? Telling people to just "stop rewarding" it is almost the same as telling abused partners to "just leave the relationship"; it's not that simple, and trying to reduce it as such is at best unhelpful, and at worst actively harmful.
  • xg15 7y ago
    But this is the whole point - they are unable to think rationally because went invested billions of dollars in trying to find out how to undercut people's rationality. This is the whole idea of advertising and evidently, it works. You might as well complain that water does not flow upwards.
  • silversconfused 7y ago
    Preying on the weak is dishonorable.
  • Nasrudith 7y ago
    Given the vaugeness involved with advertising and attribuitation being something humans aren't too good at I wonder hypothetically how long it would take companies to realize that consumer advertisement effectiveness dropped to zero vs other economic causes.
  • JohnFen 7y ago
    > Stop rewarding it and they'll stop. Here's the thing... I'd taken quite a lot of advertising courses during my education, and among the many truly scary things that I learned in them, one stood out above all others: Knowing how advertising manipulates you, and even noticing it in the moment that it's happening, in no way makes it less effective. People who claim that they aren't affected by advertising are incorrect. Nobody can just decide not to reward advertising, short of keeping a list of all the advertising you're exposed to (and are you sure you can spot it all?) and refusing to buy any product or service that appears on that list.
    • Mirioron 7y ago
      >Knowing how advertising manipulates you, and even noticing it in the moment that it's happening, in no way makes it less effective. People who claim that they aren't affected by advertising are incorrect. Is there any evidence for such a claim? I've heard people say this again and again, but I can't see how this is true based on myself. Sure, I've been guided to a product based on advertisement once in my life, but everything else I've ignored obvious advertisements. I can't say that I haven't been swayed by an advertisement that's masked as a review, but that's divorced from this I think. >Nobody can just decide not to reward advertising, short of keeping a list of all the advertising you're exposed to (and are you sure you can spot it all?) and refusing to buy any product or service that appears on that list. But buying something that's advertised doesn't mean you're rewarding the advertisement. If you would buy that product regardless, then even if the advertisement stopped (or never existed) you'd still buy it.
      • wastedhours 7y ago
        There's research on nudging behaviours, and that being told you're being nudged doesn't negatively impact your decision vs not being told you're being nudged, which could be considered synonymous with advertising transparency [0] (although there are caveats at play that might make that unsound). [0] https://www.coglode.com/gem/transparency-effect https://www.coglode.com/gem/transparency-effect
        • 7y ago
  • anigbrowl 7y ago
    I actually think a large number of societal issues today are stemming from people's inability to think rationally for themselves. I'm sure this has nothing to do with being bombarded with advertising from cradle to grave.
  • bobbygoodlatte 7y ago
    This is good advice for an individual and relatively useless advice when given to society as a whole. Yes, people should think for themselves. If you have kids you might even be able to teach them how to think for themselves. But at scale, at the level of a population, an expectation of individual rationality loses out to the realities of these manipulative techniques. On an individual level they might not work, but on a population level they tend to work. If a population is being manipulated by political propaganda, then yes it's good advice to an individual to think critically / rationally. But that only affects change on the tiniest margin. The propagandists will still win overall.
    • robertfw 7y ago
      I think on top of your points, the effect of decades of underfunding education - and on focusing on "marketable" skills over "soft" skills such as critical analysis - must be taken into account.
      • Mirioron 7y ago
        Why would education matter here at all? People are much more highly educated nowadays than they used to be. They even score much higher on IQ tests compared to people in the past. People understand the world better today than before.
  • geofft 7y ago
    This is the "capitalism doesn't work because of human nature" argument (which I agree with). It is impossible to train people to pursue profit and to value consumption without these horrendous side effects. Meanwhile, it is quite clearly possible to train people to do worthwhile things with their lives without requiring them to chase a profit motive. (Examples include the free software movement, academic research, etc.)
  • jodrellblank 7y ago
    I actually think a large number of societal issues today are stemming from people's inability to think rationally for themselves. Is this any different from the free market arguments about how regulation is bad, and the customer must inform themselves about literally everything and every consequence, with convenient disregard for the fact that it's impossible for a person to learn everything, and that it turns into a way to assign blame rather than to make the world a better place to live? Why should "you must think for yourself" become a justification for you to be allowed to show advertising to me continually? taking bad deals like minimum wage etc. The only reason there are minimum wages, is because people fought for them, and refused to take even worse deals.
  • User23 7y ago
    > Here's the reason they keep doing-- It works. Stop rewarding it and they'll stop. That's like saying stopping rape is easy, just don't reward it. It completely ignores the non-consensual nature of the interaction. Except advertising is even worse, because at least rape victims are aware they have been victimized, people that are manipulated by advertising don't even know it. In fact, if you ask, almost everyone will say "advertising doesn't work on me." If that were true, then why do companies spend billions on it?
  • rkagerer 7y ago
    I've never clicked a Google link and bought something. I've never watched a Youtube ad and bought something. I don't think they're making much money off me. They still keep advertising at me.
    • learc83 7y ago
      You don't know that a purchase decision wasn't subtly influenced by seeing a Youtube ad though. Many ads aren't designed to get you to buy a product right now, they are designed to make you feel a certain way about the product or even just make you aware, so that when you are in the market, you are directed toward that product.
    • crummy 7y ago
      Have you ever bought a soft drink or purchased food from a fast food restaurant? Why did you choose it?
      • Mirioron 7y ago
        Because I like the taste of that drink or wanted to try something new.
      • ionised 7y ago
        I always order Tango at places like that because I like the taste. I can't remember the last time I saw a Tango advert, but Coke which I avoid like the plague because it tastes like ass, has ads absolutely everywhere.
  • buck4roo 7y ago
    > Stop rewarding it and they'll stop. Stop categorizing it as a tax-deductible business "expense". It's not a requirement for doing business, and it should not be treated as such.
  • ardy42 7y ago
    > If someone were able to think rationally and into the future to figure out, "4 years from now if I choose this [politician, car, job]" I'll be as bad or worse off, then those things would die out for want of funding... Literally no one can do that for everything. The world is too complicated and, depending on the area, there are either too many or too few choices available.
• borkt 7y ago
  I don't care how much education they have, the minds who are focused on developing ways to capture people's increasingly fractured attention are disqualified from being considered the top minds of our generation.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • ACow_Adonis 7y ago
    honestly, its just a thinly veiled repetition of the American/boomer dad stereotype that money flow is the key arbiter of intelligence (even though I think at the higher end of intelligence its actually the opposite/ non correlated)
  • nothal 7y ago
    I think that's a nearsighted appraisal of people in these industries. Advertising is effective and so is the myth that money gives you actualization, to me it makes perfect sense that smart kids are going into a high paying industry while missing it's harmful effect.
    • TelmoMenezes 7y ago
      If they were really smart they would see the bigger picture.
      • loco5niner 7y ago
        Very smart people are often smart only within a somewhat narrow field. I imagine they are often lacking in general experience and wisdom.
      • chillwaves 7y ago
        You are assuming their values. Smart people can be selfish. Smart people can have no concern for a legacy or the bigger picture of humanity.
• ngold 7y ago
  And then the math geniuses that could be the next Einstein are slaving away in cubicles writing algorithms for the stock market. So much potential lost in the pursuit of increasing someone else's wallet.
  • solitus 7y ago
    And their own. These people are writing algorithms for the stock market because it pays incredibly well. Same for the engineers at FAANG selling ads online. Our society values money/material above all else and it's making us miserable. Money is your score at the game of life.
    • onion2k 7y ago
      Money is your score at the game of life. Maybe the answer is to stop treating life as a game..
      • reshie 7y ago
        i think he was just giving a saying. that said it is a game when there are points and competitive at that. as far as life not a game indeed but it is still a game where the stakes are just higher.
      • solitus 7y ago
        Yes, perhaps what I should have said is that somehow money gamifies life and that is pervert. That being said, I cannot really think of a better system than money at our current scale.
    • QuadmasterXLII 7y ago
      Money is an alternative to violence, given that in a large population instrumental convergence converges to something
    • ionised 7y ago
      > Money is your score at the game of life. In the saddest and emptiest of lives, sure. Living only to increase the number on your bank balance seems like a terrible waste of life to me.
• gesman 7y ago
  "backed by billions of dollars in funding" is the key to direct "much human effort" to pretty much any cause. Only government [regulations] can change that - but above resources are certainly partially directed to make sure this won't happen.
• Chathamization 7y ago
  It seems like a larger and larger percentage of our economy is being taken up by parasitic sectors that have a net negative value for society. Advertising, soda, highly processed food, credit cards, car dealerships, (most) sales people, etc. We'd probably be better of as a society paying these people to do nothing than to do what they do now; we'd be even better off if we paid them to do something actually productive. There's a lot of talk about what impact mass automation will have on our society, and what kind of work people will have once they're replaced by machines. This is always framed in such a way as if it's a problem we're about to face, but it looks like it's actually a trend that's been going on for decades (at least). And the answer is that, unless there is an effort to direct these people towards productive ends, many will continue to flow to these parasitic sectors.
  • foldingmoney 7y ago
    It's not like there's some central planning committee that sits down and decides what to pay everyone. Citizens decide where to spend their money -- at least the part that the government doesn't tax and spend for them -- and all of these industries you name exist and pay well because people value them and choose to spend their money on them.
    • flukus 7y ago
      > Citizens decide where to spend their money That's the problem, to a large extent we don't because of the pervasive manipulation the advertising industry does to us, the industries reason for existence is literally undermine our free will.
      • kortilla 7y ago
        suggesting that you come over for dinner because my desserts are tasty is not “literally undermining your free will”.
    • r00fus 7y ago
      Almost correct. Governments have a strong say in what is incentivized and what is not through taxation and monetary policy. The people running government are (in most places) elected by the people but that is affected by political manipulation, gerrymandering and politicians often represent the moneyed interests that got them into power.
• trevyn 7y ago
  A good way to immunize yourself against something is to have weaponized it yourself in the past. Then you can recognize it when it appears, and you know its strengths and weaknesses. The human vulnerabilities that advertising leverages are coded deep in the genome; building antibodies instead of avoiding the virus entirely could be wise indeed.
• foobarqwertz 7y ago
  dreams ads. see futurama.
• InternetUser 7y ago
  Lol, we're already incredibly far down that path. Have you been using the same smartphone since 2008? I ask seriously: how many have you owned since then?
  • butteroverflow 7y ago
    Well, if you want to use a smartphone, you pretty much have to buy a new one every few years. They don't exactly have great upgrade-ability, do they? If course, it doesn't excuse all the Apple fanatics (among others) who go through one every single year. I am still using a cheapo Asus from 2012. It was relatively powerful when it was released, but its performance drives me nuts nowadays. Thankfully, my smartphone needs are pretty modest, but I can see why a more "advanced" user wouldn't want to use such old hardware.
• beecat 7y ago
  I can't second this strongly enough. Why are we utilizing such vast amounts of our limited resources to persuade people to make certain decisions? In my humble opinion it's usually because the decisions the people who employ advertising tactics want the people they are advertising to, to make, are suboptimal, if not downright bad, and people wouldn't make those decisions, but as a by-product of having been advertised to. Quite frankly, advertising is psychic violence, and you can't escape it. Exploiting people's psychology to consolidate their resources for yourself is tantamount to theft. When men do it to women to push them to sell sex, we call it "pimping", and judge it as a completely reprehensible, unredeemable act. Of course your general well-being is diminished by a barrage of messaging encouraging you in every conceivable way, that the only road to satiety is to act against your own self-interest. How could that not totally fuck with you? Spending your time coming up with more devious mechanisms, and ways to decrease the escapablity of said mechanisms is a fucking unseemly way to behave, as an individual. As a species, it's absolutely tragic that all those brilliant people doing it, can't break from the comfort of those fat paychecks and find something better to do with their time on Earth... Myself included.
  • titzer 7y ago
    Absolutely agree with the above and upvoted. We all have to stop focusing on the short term quarterly profits and growth and zoom out and see the big picture. Not only is software eating the world, but it's appropriating it for a low kind of social programming--turning us all into zombies. Software wants to mediate all of our experiences as humans, and advertising is right there with it, trying to interpose to do, as you wrote, "psychic violence" in little drips throughout our daily lives. It's amazing that we let our minds be run by the shit in computers. (including all of this! haha!)
  • challenger22 7y ago
    Exploiting people's psychology to consolidate their resources for yourself is not tantamount to theft.
    • beecat 7y ago
      Okay, for the sake of semantic digression, let's call it 'fraud' then. It's tantamount to fraud... ... Which is tantamount to theft.