3 ms·

After reading the symptoms of the disease, I would say that Advertising could qualify as "Flu on Society". Adverse effects, some people might die of it, but not

by otikik 2y ago

After reading the symptoms of the disease, I would say that Advertising could qualify as "Flu on Society". Adverse effects, some people might die of it, but not as fatal or devastating as cancer. Arguably advertising has some benefits for society as well. I have at least found some products that I really wanted and enjoyed thanks to their ads (not many compared to the number of ads I have seen through all my life. Still, I did find some). The author himself is falling to the "Advertising Trap" of click-baiting his potential audience.

canadaduane 2y ago
I appreciate this alternate diagnosis :) At what point would you say the "flu" becomes a more virulent strain that is dangerous enough to do something more than tolerate? For example, more and more sexualized content in advertising (esp. harming teen girls [1]), or forced ads built-in to a browser sidebar (esp. harming the poor [2]), or ads on the surface of each school desk in 3rd grade (esp. harming the young [3]). Anxiety about the future, depression, etc. can be tied to advertising. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18444705/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18444705/ [2] https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=cceb602fe28969baedf0d1de40aac906b7363782 https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&d... [3] https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/132/5/958/31699/Children-Adolescents-and-the-Media https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/132/5/958/31...
TeMPOraL 2y ago
> The author himself is falling to the "Advertising Trap" of click-baiting his potential audience. Maybe? It's provocative, but I felt (and still feel) it's an accurate metaphor. The thing that made me start thinking of advertising in these terms is a bit of trivia I picked up (from IIRC Scott Alexander's blog posts) on why big mammals like whales get much less cancer than they should per models that correlate cancer rates with body size and metabolism. Turns out, one hypothesis is that those big animals do get more cancer, and their larger bodies allow the cancer to get proportionally larger - so large, that it eventually develops its own cancer, and gets killed by it. This image of a cancer growing on another cancer was a good fit for a bunch of personal experiences I had observing social media content marketing people who happened to work in the same room as I did at the time (a spin-off from a startup I worked for), and also fit well with stories about A/B testing services, whose UI encouraged mistakes invalidating results in just the right way to make them think they're getting good value from the testing service. That made me start thinking in these terms, and from there I slowly developed a general cancer analogy, which I then put in the article you just read. WRT. cancer-on-cancer thing, the article doesn't mention it at all, though it was partly the thought behind this fragment: > It also allows the advertisers to scam each other on attribution, which isn't surprising if you consider that lying is literally their job. Cancer cells don't play well with each other unless they have to. I'll need to update the article and include a paragraph about the meta-cancer thing.

by otikik 2y ago

canadaduane 2y ago

I appreciate this alternate diagnosis :) At what point would you say the "flu" becomes a more virulent strain that is dangerous enough to do something more than tolerate? For example, more and more sexualized content in advertising (esp. harming teen girls [1]), or forced ads built-in to a browser sidebar (esp. harming the poor [2]), or ads on the surface of each school desk in 3rd grade (esp. harming the young [3]). Anxiety about the future, depression, etc. can be tied to advertising. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18444705/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18444705/ [2] https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=cceb602fe28969baedf0d1de40aac906b7363782 https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&d... [3] https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/132/5/958/31699/Children-Adolescents-and-the-Media https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/132/5/958/31...

TeMPOraL 2y ago

> The author himself is falling to the "Advertising Trap" of click-baiting his potential audience. Maybe? It's provocative, but I felt (and still feel) it's an accurate metaphor. The thing that made me start thinking of advertising in these terms is a bit of trivia I picked up (from IIRC Scott Alexander's blog posts) on why big mammals like whales get much less cancer than they should per models that correlate cancer rates with body size and metabolism. Turns out, one hypothesis is that those big animals do get more cancer, and their larger bodies allow the cancer to get proportionally larger - so large, that it eventually develops its own cancer, and gets killed by it. This image of a cancer growing on another cancer was a good fit for a bunch of personal experiences I had observing social media content marketing people who happened to work in the same room as I did at the time (a spin-off from a startup I worked for), and also fit well with stories about A/B testing services, whose UI encouraged mistakes invalidating results in just the right way to make them think they're getting good value from the testing service. That made me start thinking in these terms, and from there I slowly developed a general cancer analogy, which I then put in the article you just read. WRT. cancer-on-cancer thing, the article doesn't mention it at all, though it was partly the thought behind this fragment: > It also allows the advertisers to scam each other on attribution, which isn't surprising if you consider that lying is literally their job. Cancer cells don't play well with each other unless they have to. I'll need to update the article and include a paragraph about the meta-cancer thing.