5 ms·

Quite literally last week I was randomly watching The Today Show (mainstream Australian breakfast television) and I couldn't believe what I just saw within the

by dottjt 3y ago

Quite literally last week I was randomly watching The Today Show (mainstream Australian breakfast television) and I couldn't believe what I just saw within the space of 5 minutes. It was the build up to the AFL grand final and there was a presenter on a football field with kids kicking footballs in the background. Anyway, he introduces the segment and it turns out it's a paid promotion for Shell. The show then cuts to a 2 minute promotional video for Shell fuel. Once the promo ends, he tells the kids that whoever kicks a goal gets a $1000 petrol voucher, as he waves a stack of these petrol vouchers in front of the camera. I don't get easily offended, but I've honestly never seen anything more disgusting in my entire life.

thaumasiotes 3y ago
> I don't get easily offended, but I've honestly never seen anything more disgusting in my entire life. The US government runs a prominent advertising campaign on the theme "if you let your baby sleep with you, you are a bad mother".
- roland35 3y ago
  Not sure what sudden infant death syndrome has to do with gasoline??
  - hdjjhhvvhga 3y ago
    Not with gasoline, but with disgusting ads.
    - geraldyo 3y ago
      I hate it when ads try to stop me from accidentally killing my baby
      - hdjjhhvvhga 3y ago
        Sorry, I misunderstood the parent was talking about sleeping in the same room which is shunned by many. Sleeping in the same bed is a completely different story and I hope nobody is doing that.
- slashdev 3y ago
  "if you let your baby sleep with you, you are a bad mother" that leads to a number of accidental suffocations. I think that’s pretty reasonable to educate the public about that.
  - mstipetic 3y ago
    Oh come on
  - Tade0 3y ago
    That's mostly an urban legend and the vast majority of such cases happen when the parent is not sober and essentially knocked out unconscious. I mean, infants are typically warmer than adults and they wriggle around a lot - it's hard enough to sleep next to them, much less within suffocation distance.
    - gardenhedge 3y ago
      So we have advice from the government or your HN comment to go on. There needs to be more substance to your claims
      - neurostimulant 3y ago
        Asian countries have low SIDS despite infants commonly sleeping with their mothers.
      - Tade0 3y ago
        To quote our pediatrician: "do you believe in UFOs? That's roughly in the same ballpark in terms of connection with reality". This part of the reply to my SO's question about this. Later he explained that it's mainly drunk/high people who suffocate their children like that. You only need a sufficiently wide bed and separate covers for the parents - that's it.
        slashdev 3y ago
        > mainly drunk/high people who suffocate their children like that. That's a lot of people! > You only need a sufficiently wide bed and separate covers for the parents Why even take the risk.
gray_-_wolf 3y ago
> I don't get easily offended, but I've honestly never seen anything more disgusting in my entire life. Try watching some documentaries about Tiananmen Square or Uyghurs. I am curious if this statement will still hold.
- benrutter 3y ago
  I guess the difference is it happening in your country. As much as I think Tiananmen Square was an atrocity, my feelings about it would be immeasurably stronger if it happened in the UK (where I am from).
- Etheryte 3y ago
  Someone has a problem? I will bring my problem!
  - malfist 3y ago
    Oh yeah? My problem is bigger that your problem!
    - salawat 3y ago
      Y'all keep making a fuss about being part of the problem, and I assure you, I will stop this thread and become the whole problem. Do not tempt me.
  - gray_-_wolf 3y ago
    I don't have a problem with people having problems. I have plenty of problems. What I do not like is putting absolute statements like "never seen anything more disgusting". That usually just means you are not looking hard enough. But, the fact that I have a problem with this relativization of everything does not mean I think problems people do not consider "the most disgusting" should not be tackled. Look at my country for example. Corruption in local government affects me more that what is going on in China. I can also fight it more that what is going on in China. And, in the end, I care about it more in the "daily on my mind" sense of the word. That does not mean I should label it as being objectively worse or "most disgusting ever".
bko 3y ago
I would love a petrol voucher. 90% of Australians have a car so it would be useful to pretty much anyone's family. It's also a somewhat inelastic good, meaning if I gave you a petrol voucher you probably wouldn't considerably change your driving habits. Maybe you would use it to go on an extra family trip, which yes gasoline bad, but it's not exactly conspicuous consumption. It would just give you some extra money in your pocket. I would much prefer that to something like a vacation voucher or a new car or some useless stuff that I wouldn't pay my own money for.
- averageRoyalty 3y ago
  > petrol > vacation Pick a lane ;).
- dottjt 3y ago
  The petrol voucher isn't the primary issue. It's using children to sell the petrol voucher.
  - salawat 3y ago
    We're fine with letting Microsoft use them to sell Windows and Office licenses though (through schooling)? Or Google to acclimatize them cloud-first computing + having their data hoovered (also through schooling)? Let's be real here, if you object to youth directed marketing you should have been up in arms loooooong before now. Fact is targeting kids has been basic corporate strategy 101 for decades. Tobacco in media. Coke/Pepsi. Cool cars, women, selling kids on "the Police are the good guys". In fact, your opinions about what is appropriate to shoehorn into children's formative years tends to say volumes more about what you are about than about anything else. That being said, I agree the gas vouchers telegraph a blatant desperation move.
    - seaparter 3y ago
      The whataboutism is strong in this thread…
    - Gigachad 3y ago
andix 3y ago
Can those vouchers also be used for charging your EV? Shell is operating a lot of chargers already.
- averageRoyalty 3y ago
  Shell does not operate any EV chargers in Australia.
markjonsona989 3y ago
> I don't get easily offended, but I've honestly never seen anything more disgusting in my entire life. That's a pretty bold statement to make. I don't know what kind of isolated world you live in if you think that a Shell ad is the most disgusting thing you ever saw in your life, but I can give you a hundred examples off the top of my head. One example that might be related to this subject are working conditions in a lithium mine and the purification process. If people knew the price we pay to drive EVs I'm convinced they would stick with oil. Just because it all happens in China and it doesn't affect us directly, doesn't mean it's any less disgusting. I am also getting seriously tired of this constant need for censorship which is a contradiction in an open-market economy. You should compete, not sabotage. Instead of looking for ways to ban Shell ads on TV, why doesn't the EV industry offer vouchers too?
- dottjt 3y ago
  I get your point, but I think it's relative to the society which it takes place. Corruption in China? If anything, it's to be expected. It's a literal part of how their political system operates. Corruption in a liberal democracy? Much less acceptable. Of course, that's just one point of view. As for your comment about EVs, I don't necessarily disagree. My main outrage is that they used children to sell oil. As for your comment on competition, how can you expect to compete against big oil without regulation, possibly the biggest most powerful industry in the world? The problem is that there is nothing better than oil for what it does, which extends to the other problem that open markets don't care about externalities or planetary boundaries. Which is where people need to come in and put restrictions. I'm curious, but would you have been against the breaking up of Standard Oil back in the day?
  - indigo0086 3y ago
    You'll never get what you need for EVs without child labor or extremely unhealthy work conditions. Roughnecks and engineers happily go to work to drill for the oil that runs society
    - dottjt 3y ago

by dottjt 3y ago

thaumasiotes 3y ago

> I don't get easily offended, but I've honestly never seen anything more disgusting in my entire life. The US government runs a prominent advertising campaign on the theme "if you let your baby sleep with you, you are a bad mother".

roland35 3y ago
Not sure what sudden infant death syndrome has to do with gasoline??
- hdjjhhvvhga 3y ago
  Not with gasoline, but with disgusting ads.
  - geraldyo 3y ago
    I hate it when ads try to stop me from accidentally killing my baby
    - hdjjhhvvhga 3y ago
      Sorry, I misunderstood the parent was talking about sleeping in the same room which is shunned by many. Sleeping in the same bed is a completely different story and I hope nobody is doing that.
slashdev 3y ago
"if you let your baby sleep with you, you are a bad mother" that leads to a number of accidental suffocations. I think that’s pretty reasonable to educate the public about that.
- mstipetic 3y ago
  Oh come on
- Tade0 3y ago
  That's mostly an urban legend and the vast majority of such cases happen when the parent is not sober and essentially knocked out unconscious. I mean, infants are typically warmer than adults and they wriggle around a lot - it's hard enough to sleep next to them, much less within suffocation distance.
  - gardenhedge 3y ago
    So we have advice from the government or your HN comment to go on. There needs to be more substance to your claims
    - neurostimulant 3y ago
      Asian countries have low SIDS despite infants commonly sleeping with their mothers.
    - Tade0 3y ago
      To quote our pediatrician: "do you believe in UFOs? That's roughly in the same ballpark in terms of connection with reality". This part of the reply to my SO's question about this. Later he explained that it's mainly drunk/high people who suffocate their children like that. You only need a sufficiently wide bed and separate covers for the parents - that's it.
      - slashdev 3y ago
        > mainly drunk/high people who suffocate their children like that. That's a lot of people! > You only need a sufficiently wide bed and separate covers for the parents Why even take the risk.

gray_-_wolf 3y ago

> I don't get easily offended, but I've honestly never seen anything more disgusting in my entire life. Try watching some documentaries about Tiananmen Square or Uyghurs. I am curious if this statement will still hold.

benrutter 3y ago
I guess the difference is it happening in your country. As much as I think Tiananmen Square was an atrocity, my feelings about it would be immeasurably stronger if it happened in the UK (where I am from).
Etheryte 3y ago
Someone has a problem? I will bring my problem!
- malfist 3y ago
  Oh yeah? My problem is bigger that your problem!
  - salawat 3y ago
    Y'all keep making a fuss about being part of the problem, and I assure you, I will stop this thread and become the whole problem. Do not tempt me.
- gray_-_wolf 3y ago
  I don't have a problem with people having problems. I have plenty of problems. What I do not like is putting absolute statements like "never seen anything more disgusting". That usually just means you are not looking hard enough. But, the fact that I have a problem with this relativization of everything does not mean I think problems people do not consider "the most disgusting" should not be tackled. Look at my country for example. Corruption in local government affects me more that what is going on in China. I can also fight it more that what is going on in China. And, in the end, I care about it more in the "daily on my mind" sense of the word. That does not mean I should label it as being objectively worse or "most disgusting ever".

bko 3y ago

I would love a petrol voucher. 90% of Australians have a car so it would be useful to pretty much anyone's family. It's also a somewhat inelastic good, meaning if I gave you a petrol voucher you probably wouldn't considerably change your driving habits. Maybe you would use it to go on an extra family trip, which yes gasoline bad, but it's not exactly conspicuous consumption. It would just give you some extra money in your pocket. I would much prefer that to something like a vacation voucher or a new car or some useless stuff that I wouldn't pay my own money for.

averageRoyalty 3y ago
> petrol > vacation Pick a lane ;).
dottjt 3y ago
The petrol voucher isn't the primary issue. It's using children to sell the petrol voucher.
- salawat 3y ago
  We're fine with letting Microsoft use them to sell Windows and Office licenses though (through schooling)? Or Google to acclimatize them cloud-first computing + having their data hoovered (also through schooling)? Let's be real here, if you object to youth directed marketing you should have been up in arms loooooong before now. Fact is targeting kids has been basic corporate strategy 101 for decades. Tobacco in media. Coke/Pepsi. Cool cars, women, selling kids on "the Police are the good guys". In fact, your opinions about what is appropriate to shoehorn into children's formative years tends to say volumes more about what you are about than about anything else. That being said, I agree the gas vouchers telegraph a blatant desperation move.
  - seaparter 3y ago
    The whataboutism is strong in this thread…
  - Gigachad 3y ago

andix 3y ago

Can those vouchers also be used for charging your EV? Shell is operating a lot of chargers already.

averageRoyalty 3y ago
Shell does not operate any EV chargers in Australia.

markjonsona989 3y ago

> I don't get easily offended, but I've honestly never seen anything more disgusting in my entire life. That's a pretty bold statement to make. I don't know what kind of isolated world you live in if you think that a Shell ad is the most disgusting thing you ever saw in your life, but I can give you a hundred examples off the top of my head. One example that might be related to this subject are working conditions in a lithium mine and the purification process. If people knew the price we pay to drive EVs I'm convinced they would stick with oil. Just because it all happens in China and it doesn't affect us directly, doesn't mean it's any less disgusting. I am also getting seriously tired of this constant need for censorship which is a contradiction in an open-market economy. You should compete, not sabotage. Instead of looking for ways to ban Shell ads on TV, why doesn't the EV industry offer vouchers too?

dottjt 3y ago
I get your point, but I think it's relative to the society which it takes place. Corruption in China? If anything, it's to be expected. It's a literal part of how their political system operates. Corruption in a liberal democracy? Much less acceptable. Of course, that's just one point of view. As for your comment about EVs, I don't necessarily disagree. My main outrage is that they used children to sell oil. As for your comment on competition, how can you expect to compete against big oil without regulation, possibly the biggest most powerful industry in the world? The problem is that there is nothing better than oil for what it does, which extends to the other problem that open markets don't care about externalities or planetary boundaries. Which is where people need to come in and put restrictions. I'm curious, but would you have been against the breaking up of Standard Oil back in the day?
- indigo0086 3y ago
  You'll never get what you need for EVs without child labor or extremely unhealthy work conditions. Roughnecks and engineers happily go to work to drill for the oil that runs society
  - dottjt 3y ago