4 ms·

Is it wrong to think of marketing akin to parasites that affect behaviour? Often they say "sex sells", isn't that something that often uses images that humans a

Is it wrong to think of marketing akin to parasites that affect behaviour? Often they say "sex sells", isn't that something that often uses images that humans are pre-programmed to desire alongside the product that marketing want to shift. I don't think this is a new concept, but perhaps I've just had an epiphany.

gumby 4y ago
> Is it wrong to think of marketing akin to parasites that affect behaviour? Often they say "sex sells"... I've long believed that the evolution of sexual reproduction is a kind of parasitic virus. Just consider the case of humans: the perfectly good string of X chromosomes are slightly modified in the parasitic version (one is stunted, and alters the development). The parasite uses a variety of ways to lure a host. The parasite then literally injects its DNA into the normal host, causing it to generate either new hosts or parasites, doing all the work without further action by the parasite, spreading the parasite's own DNA into further generations of host and parasite. Kind of hideous to think of it, but it does seem likely that at some point science will find a way to retain the benefit of gene mixing without requiring the parasitic form, and the scourge will be eliminated from humanity.
- bigbluedots 4y ago
  This reminds me of Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, where humans may be only incidental. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene)
- krageon 4y ago
  As amusing as this is to read (you went to a frankly incredible amount of effort to make this sound disturbing and to my mind you absolutely succeeded), the emotion is somewhat muted by not being able to figure out whether or not you are serious. I guess you could say this is part of it. Very nice.
- SamBam 4y ago
  While that's an interesting perspective, the argument is diminished by the fact that sexual reproduction existed long before internal fertilization, so there was no "injecting" for the first 1.5 billion years of sexual reproduction.
  - gumby 4y ago
    Well, those early eukaryotic mixings did involve an exchange of genetic material though perhaps it was less "injection" than letting things drift back and forth between the two cells for a while. Of course by then viruses were already busy doing their genetic injection thing, but we tend not to consider it sexual, even though it is reproduction. Humans love to be bigoted about these kinds of distinctions!

gumby 4y ago

> Is it wrong to think of marketing akin to parasites that affect behaviour? Often they say "sex sells"... I've long believed that the evolution of sexual reproduction is a kind of parasitic virus. Just consider the case of humans: the perfectly good string of X chromosomes are slightly modified in the parasitic version (one is stunted, and alters the development). The parasite uses a variety of ways to lure a host. The parasite then literally injects its DNA into the normal host, causing it to generate either new hosts or parasites, doing all the work without further action by the parasite, spreading the parasite's own DNA into further generations of host and parasite. Kind of hideous to think of it, but it does seem likely that at some point science will find a way to retain the benefit of gene mixing without requiring the parasitic form, and the scourge will be eliminated from humanity.

bigbluedots 4y ago
This reminds me of Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, where humans may be only incidental. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene)
krageon 4y ago
As amusing as this is to read (you went to a frankly incredible amount of effort to make this sound disturbing and to my mind you absolutely succeeded), the emotion is somewhat muted by not being able to figure out whether or not you are serious. I guess you could say this is part of it. Very nice.
SamBam 4y ago
While that's an interesting perspective, the argument is diminished by the fact that sexual reproduction existed long before internal fertilization, so there was no "injecting" for the first 1.5 billion years of sexual reproduction.
- gumby 4y ago
  Well, those early eukaryotic mixings did involve an exchange of genetic material though perhaps it was less "injection" than letting things drift back and forth between the two cells for a while. Of course by then viruses were already busy doing their genetic injection thing, but we tend not to consider it sexual, even though it is reproduction. Humans love to be bigoted about these kinds of distinctions!