3 ms·

Others have addressed the surveillance issue plenty (but in case it's still not clear, if your data is for sale commercially, then your government will buy it),

Others have addressed the surveillance issue plenty (but in case it's still not clear, if your data is for sale commercially, then your government will buy it), but I think it's important to also stress the insidiousness of repeated mass consumer propaganda, given your toilet bowl cleaner example. Consider Oreo O's: a breakfast "food" with 11.5 g sugar and 1.3 g protein. Allegedly (according to the Wikipedia article), it was a very successful "food" and had approval from parents. Now, if you ask someone whether it's appropriate to give your child a pile of sugar or cookies for breakfast, they'll probably tell you no, that's neglect. But somehow people have gotten it into their heads that products from Post or General Mills are acceptable, and weirdly enough now almost half of Americans are obese, and over 10% are diabetic, and how this could have come to be is a total mystery. How did people come to the conclusion that something with marshmallows or cinnamon sugar swirls in every bite is appropriate to give your children every day? Or cans/bottles of sugar water? Something tells me the decades of endless advertising helped normalize it. Look at the website for boxtops for education: big bold letters "YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE FOR SCHOOLS" (by giving your child sugar for breakfast). You're making a difference! You're a good person! This kind of propaganda is profoundly evil, and this is without targeting messaging to individuals.

pembrook 3y ago
The truth is, there are far more complex reasons behind American kids being fed sugary cereal than "the dumb people got duped by the evil advertisers (but not me of course!)." It turns out kids like sugar, incomes have been stagnant for decades, and food deserts exist. What's the cheapest, shelf stable food item on a per-meal basis that your children will voluntarily eat without a fight before work? Sugary cereal. Could any of those factors possibly be the root cause of the market success of sugary cereal? Or is it all because of the evil mind controlling advertisers tricking the stupid people (not you of course)? The reality is, in a free society, at some point you have to give people responsibility over themselves. I know the impulse of the elite (and rich people on the internet) is always "let me protect you from your own stupidity, I'm smarter!" However, history has shown that impulse is wrong. Preventing businesses and customers with needs from efficiently reaching each other through targeted advertising is in fact a net negative for society.
- ndriscoll 3y ago
  You keep including the (not me of course) parenthetical, but at least my experience was that I grew up on sugar cereal. I vaguely remember schools having things like apple jacks on offer in individual packs. I and other kids brought their boxtops to school. Best I could tell, it was normal. It's still in the aisles and the companies haven't gone out of business, so best I can tell it still is. We bought it in the same stores where we bought real food back then. We buy food in the same stores that have breakfast cereal now. I haven't watched TV or movies for like the last 10 years, and I've blocked ads on my computers for ~20, so I've at least minimized the most blatant exposure, but I don't think myself immune. That's why I've done what I can to remove them from my life. But I'm naive too; like I didn't realize until recently that radio "callers" are just iheartmedia employees, or that you can just buy an "interest" piece on the news or Ellen or an "opinion" or "lifestyle" piece in the newspaper or whatever. It makes sense in retrospect, but the extent to which literally all media around us are just ads is hard to wrap one's head around, and a little unexpected IMO. I don't think it's intuitive or that you have to be dumb to be tricked. You just have to be honest enough that it wouldn't occur to you that everything around you is lying and that these people will relentlessly work to construct some Hell version of Plato's cave in order to sell you things and that it's basically legal to do so. Maybe I'm just one of the dumb ones, but IMO ads like this[0] masquerading as national news should maybe require extremely clear labeling and disclaimers, or just be illegal. Maybe when shills on youtube say "this is sponsored, but this is my real opinion", the second half of that sentence should be illegal. Maybe they should have to say "this video is an advertisement for X, and I am not presenting my opinions on it". The food desert idea is plausible, but the literal definition is useless (poor people can't walk 0.5 miles?), so I'm forced to be skeptical of any claims around it. To me the plausible explanation for breakfast cereals is that people underestimate how evil these companies can be, and probably figure it must be illegal to sell candy advertised as food or something, so it can't be that bad if it's so common and if it's allowed to be advertised on TV. Surely they couldn't or wouldn't say it's "part of a complete breakfast" if it weren't at least mostly true. Surely if it's on the news, the reporter would mention if it's actually extremely horrible for you and surely the "report" isn't literally written by the advertiser. [0] https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/oreo-os-cereal-returning-to-supermarkets-after-10-years https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/oreo-os-cereal-returning-...
JAlexoid 3y ago
You're missing an important point in your example - the reason why high sugar cereals were so successful was because of government interventions (buying up grain supplies, unreasonably propping up certain crops, etc) The utter failures of governments to provide any meaningful guidance, or intentionally boosting certain product consumption. We can have an argument on how effective that propaganda was, but in the end governments in EU and US make bad food much more available than traditional diets. We can all rant about how evil corporations are for putting HFCS into their products in the US, but it's disingenuous to disregard the fact that US government spends billions on propping up corn production that makes HFCS more economically viable. In the end you still choose to buy sugary cereals, but if you are in poverty - you're left without a choice when it comes to calorie sources, because of government interventions.
- LargoLasskhyfv 3y ago
  Governments do this on behalf of corporations. Ever heard of lobbying, revolving door effect, regulatory capture and so on? Maybe watch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation_(2003_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation_(2003_film) and it's sequel from 2020 (linked from there) for starters?
  - JAlexoid 3y ago
    They do, but a lot of original sins comes from failed public policy. Like support for dairy industry came before the dairy industry got enough money to lobby... and sustain itself through lobbying. Same goes with HFCS, and many others. It's unfair to argue "evil corporations", when these corporations are made evil specifically by the government intervention in the first place. I can guarantee you, that should US government pull all financial support for the dairy industry and support plant based products - these corporations will move to plant based alternatives. Because their pure interest is to make money the least cumbersome way.

pembrook 3y ago

The truth is, there are far more complex reasons behind American kids being fed sugary cereal than "the dumb people got duped by the evil advertisers (but not me of course!)." It turns out kids like sugar, incomes have been stagnant for decades, and food deserts exist. What's the cheapest, shelf stable food item on a per-meal basis that your children will voluntarily eat without a fight before work? Sugary cereal. Could any of those factors possibly be the root cause of the market success of sugary cereal? Or is it all because of the evil mind controlling advertisers tricking the stupid people (not you of course)? The reality is, in a free society, at some point you have to give people responsibility over themselves. I know the impulse of the elite (and rich people on the internet) is always "let me protect you from your own stupidity, I'm smarter!" However, history has shown that impulse is wrong. Preventing businesses and customers with needs from efficiently reaching each other through targeted advertising is in fact a net negative for society.

ndriscoll 3y ago
You keep including the (not me of course) parenthetical, but at least my experience was that I grew up on sugar cereal. I vaguely remember schools having things like apple jacks on offer in individual packs. I and other kids brought their boxtops to school. Best I could tell, it was normal. It's still in the aisles and the companies haven't gone out of business, so best I can tell it still is. We bought it in the same stores where we bought real food back then. We buy food in the same stores that have breakfast cereal now. I haven't watched TV or movies for like the last 10 years, and I've blocked ads on my computers for ~20, so I've at least minimized the most blatant exposure, but I don't think myself immune. That's why I've done what I can to remove them from my life. But I'm naive too; like I didn't realize until recently that radio "callers" are just iheartmedia employees, or that you can just buy an "interest" piece on the news or Ellen or an "opinion" or "lifestyle" piece in the newspaper or whatever. It makes sense in retrospect, but the extent to which literally all media around us are just ads is hard to wrap one's head around, and a little unexpected IMO. I don't think it's intuitive or that you have to be dumb to be tricked. You just have to be honest enough that it wouldn't occur to you that everything around you is lying and that these people will relentlessly work to construct some Hell version of Plato's cave in order to sell you things and that it's basically legal to do so. Maybe I'm just one of the dumb ones, but IMO ads like this[0] masquerading as national news should maybe require extremely clear labeling and disclaimers, or just be illegal. Maybe when shills on youtube say "this is sponsored, but this is my real opinion", the second half of that sentence should be illegal. Maybe they should have to say "this video is an advertisement for X, and I am not presenting my opinions on it". The food desert idea is plausible, but the literal definition is useless (poor people can't walk 0.5 miles?), so I'm forced to be skeptical of any claims around it. To me the plausible explanation for breakfast cereals is that people underestimate how evil these companies can be, and probably figure it must be illegal to sell candy advertised as food or something, so it can't be that bad if it's so common and if it's allowed to be advertised on TV. Surely they couldn't or wouldn't say it's "part of a complete breakfast" if it weren't at least mostly true. Surely if it's on the news, the reporter would mention if it's actually extremely horrible for you and surely the "report" isn't literally written by the advertiser. [0] https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/oreo-os-cereal-returning-to-supermarkets-after-10-years https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/oreo-os-cereal-returning-...

JAlexoid 3y ago

You're missing an important point in your example - the reason why high sugar cereals were so successful was because of government interventions (buying up grain supplies, unreasonably propping up certain crops, etc) The utter failures of governments to provide any meaningful guidance, or intentionally boosting certain product consumption. We can have an argument on how effective that propaganda was, but in the end governments in EU and US make bad food much more available than traditional diets. We can all rant about how evil corporations are for putting HFCS into their products in the US, but it's disingenuous to disregard the fact that US government spends billions on propping up corn production that makes HFCS more economically viable. In the end you still choose to buy sugary cereals, but if you are in poverty - you're left without a choice when it comes to calorie sources, because of government interventions.

LargoLasskhyfv 3y ago
Governments do this on behalf of corporations. Ever heard of lobbying, revolving door effect, regulatory capture and so on? Maybe watch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation_(2003_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation_(2003_film) and it's sequel from 2020 (linked from there) for starters?
- JAlexoid 3y ago
  They do, but a lot of original sins comes from failed public policy. Like support for dairy industry came before the dairy industry got enough money to lobby... and sustain itself through lobbying. Same goes with HFCS, and many others. It's unfair to argue "evil corporations", when these corporations are made evil specifically by the government intervention in the first place. I can guarantee you, that should US government pull all financial support for the dairy industry and support plant based products - these corporations will move to plant based alternatives. Because their pure interest is to make money the least cumbersome way.