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"The people want the thing that they want because they are wrong" I never understood how this argument even makes sense. It sounds a whole lot like you're upse

"The people want the thing that they want because they are wrong" I never understood how this argument even makes sense. It sounds a whole lot like you're upset that most normal people don't care about and don't want what you want.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
I feel like I explained it above. People often want things because they don't have all the information and people who are uninformed, especially when they're intentionally uninformed, make poor decisions. And maybe there are some people who, faced with the risk of losing all their stuff, conclude that maybe all their stuff isn't that important to them and they don't have time for this YOLO! But there are even more people who never even consider the risk, and it seems like somebody should be looking out for them instead of people just saying "shut up nerd, normal people don't care about whatever you're worried about." Uh yeah, that's the problem, they're not made aware of it until it bites them on the ass and anybody who tries to express the concern on their behalf is told to keep their foot away from the hose of the money vacuum.
- zer0zzz 2y ago
  This is the bell curve meme. People just want the things that work for them, people that know what they are doing want things that work easily and know their way around a little better too. You're overblowing the harmfulness, I'm not even sure what the argument is. Prove to me you deserve to be called a "nerd."
  - chuckadams 2y ago
    GP’s smug superior attitude over non-technical people and general lack of perspective is enough nerd cred for me.
    - zer0zzz 2y ago
      Word
talldayo 2y ago
There are hundreds of examples throughout history of people being marketed something horribly harmful to themselves and defending their need for it even after being explicitly shown the downsides. Oftentimes, instead of fixing the individual people society chooses to punish the businesses that abuse this lever. Same shit with the Microsoft Netscape trial, really. People didn't want alternatives because Microsoft went absurdly far out of their way to stop fair competition on their platform. Now we're seeing the same shtick, again, on a different platform.
TeMPOraL 2y ago
It's more of: people want things obviously bad for them because of abusive salesmanship techniques, which exploit information asymmetry and opportunity cost (i.e. that people can't be bothered to do deep research on every one of the thousands things they buy). This includes effective marketing, that is typically deceptive and stops short of direct lies (sometimes not even that).

AnthonyMouse 2y ago

I feel like I explained it above. People often want things because they don't have all the information and people who are uninformed, especially when they're intentionally uninformed, make poor decisions. And maybe there are some people who, faced with the risk of losing all their stuff, conclude that maybe all their stuff isn't that important to them and they don't have time for this YOLO! But there are even more people who never even consider the risk, and it seems like somebody should be looking out for them instead of people just saying "shut up nerd, normal people don't care about whatever you're worried about." Uh yeah, that's the problem, they're not made aware of it until it bites them on the ass and anybody who tries to express the concern on their behalf is told to keep their foot away from the hose of the money vacuum.

zer0zzz 2y ago
This is the bell curve meme. People just want the things that work for them, people that know what they are doing want things that work easily and know their way around a little better too. You're overblowing the harmfulness, I'm not even sure what the argument is. Prove to me you deserve to be called a "nerd."
- chuckadams 2y ago
  GP’s smug superior attitude over non-technical people and general lack of perspective is enough nerd cred for me.
  - zer0zzz 2y ago
    Word

talldayo 2y ago

There are hundreds of examples throughout history of people being marketed something horribly harmful to themselves and defending their need for it even after being explicitly shown the downsides. Oftentimes, instead of fixing the individual people society chooses to punish the businesses that abuse this lever. Same shit with the Microsoft Netscape trial, really. People didn't want alternatives because Microsoft went absurdly far out of their way to stop fair competition on their platform. Now we're seeing the same shtick, again, on a different platform.

TeMPOraL 2y ago

It's more of: people want things obviously bad for them because of abusive salesmanship techniques, which exploit information asymmetry and opportunity cost (i.e. that people can't be bothered to do deep research on every one of the thousands things they buy). This includes effective marketing, that is typically deceptive and stops short of direct lies (sometimes not even that).