4 ms·

> The spherical-cow "ideal" 100% efficient perfect marketing campaign/tactic literally hypnotizes you into dropping all your money on an arbitrary good or servi

by lurk2 2y ago

> The spherical-cow "ideal" 100% efficient perfect marketing campaign/tactic literally hypnotizes you into dropping all your money on an arbitrary good or service. It is isomorphic to somebody mugging you. I like the quote and despise advertising of any kind for mostly the same reason, but you could apply this logic to any kind of business and it starts to fall apart. > The spherical-cow "ideal" 100% efficient perfect pharmaceutical is physically addictive. It is isomorphic to narcotics trafficking. > The spherical-cow "ideal" 100% efficient perfect medical system keeps you sick. > The spherical-cow "ideal" 100% efficient perfect food product induces constant cravings. There’s arguments to be made that all of these things are true, but what we’re talking about is not essential to the activities themselves but the profit motive that underlies them. Profit motive in and of itself is not sufficient to cause this kind of behavior; it requires a disregard for the consequences that your actions will have upon others. A lot of marketers fall into this category, but I’m not convinced that marketing in and of itself can be reduced to this spherical-cow in a vacuum.

WD-42 2y ago
The difference is all those other things you listed - food, drugs, etc provide value. An ad provides none.
- baconbrand 2y ago
  Ads provide information. An event you might be interested in is happening. A food you might like is available. A thing that will totally improve your life can be yours. etc
  - spencerflem 2y ago
    The information in most ads is things like: "Skinny beautiful people are worthy of love and use this brand of makeup". Or "good parents who love their children go to Disney World". Or "it's a rugged and cool type of person that buys a Jeep". The type of ads that do what you're taking about are sought out. People willingly watch Nintendo Directs.
  - WD-42 2y ago
    If that is all they were they wouldn't be a problem but this is obviously an over simplification.
- lurk2 2y ago
  I’m in a group chat for a language I am studying. It gets targeted for event flyers due to the group’s subject. These sorts of flyers are allowed where other advertising is not because they add value to the group, even though most of them are for-profit.
cdecl 2y ago
I'm actually convinced that "marketing", as such, can be completely orthogonal to profit altogether. Any sort of communication of a novel thing would fall under this banner, but I learn about new FOSS projects on here every day because the maintainers and developers are willing to 'advertise' them to me.
- spencerflem 2y ago
  Marketing is so rarely for a "novel" thing. The biggest spender is CocaCola, how much do we still need to know about them?
  - slumberlust 2y ago
    Did you know the invented modern santa branding? Prior to that he was more a vagabond/homeless type and much much less jolly.
    - kristopolous 2y ago
      Snopes has a classic extensive article on that https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-claus-that-refreshes/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-claus-that-refreshes/
    - spencerflem 2y ago
      I wasn't trying to say the contents of the ads aren't novel- just that what they're selling very often isn't. Its also so very rarely factual - the idea is more for you to believe that 'Disney Land is an important milestone for all happy families'. Or 'Stella Artois is the type of beer a sexy intellectual orders - that's you right?' I completely believe that ads are a huge part of our culture.
  - cdecl 2y ago
    Rarely by dollar amount or by volume? Because I assume, by volume, it must be mostly novel things.
    - 2y ago
spencerflem 2y ago
I like where you're going with this - we do need an economic system that priorities people and not profits. So I hope you take this for the pedantry it is- But the customer for an ad is the company. They are buying it, so a hypnotizing ad would be 100% effective for them. In your version of the analogy, its what's effective for the seller- so the ad equivalent would be a situation where in order to get any sales, 100% of your margin goes towards advertising.
eMPee584 2y ago
> but you could apply this logic to any kind of business and it starts to fall apart. Exactly, it all starts to fall apart when common sense is applied - it's just that we've become horribly dependent, many even addicted to the dehumanizing grind of our beloved competition economy.. The immanent rise of autonomous machines is the sudden emergency exit from capitalism we (or rather: some of us) have been rooting for.. IF we can convince the people of this planet that a non-commercial post-scarcity open-access open-source commons economy is a more hopeful trajectory into the long future.. Let's not give up on this one yet.
- mapt 2y ago
  > The immanent rise of autonomous machines is the sudden emergency exit from capitalism we (or rather: some of us) have been rooting for.. IF we can convince the people of this planet that a non-commercial post-scarcity open-access open-source commons economy is a more hopeful trajectory into the long future.. Let's not give up on this one yet. Or, it's an invitation to plug us into the Entertainment-Marketting-Hyperstimulus-Feed that is eminently personalized and replace all our human culture with persuasive slop, until we cease to be of use, bankrupt husks with no friends and no avocations other than those that provide a reliable revenue return. Quite possibly with individualized radical ideologies because whatever hits your dopamine button, the Algorithm pumps more into you (See Neal Stephenson's "Dodge").
  - spencerflem 2y ago
    Yea, I think this is more likely the case for AI as we have it now or will have it, imo. If somehow AI is better than all humans at everything idk if we get communism or what but I don't think I can really think about it but it sounds meaningless and bad and not going to happen anyways.
ElevenLathe 2y ago
I'm willing to go along with this hypothesis. So first step is to end capitalism, then we can see if we still hate ads?
- mapt 2y ago
  You don't need to "First, we end capitalism" to recognize a problem that has already gone out of bounds and promises to go further. Hawaii bans billboards, and has, since 1927. Look into that. They manage to do so without some kind of slippery slope that ends in authoritarian oppression, or some kind of guillotine wielding anti-corporate mob. There are lots of ways to limit the harm without trying to completely erase our political economy. We used to ban gambling. Gambling was regarded as slightly harmful. Now we have legalized gambling, and we've plugged it into modern marketting, and the harm has expanded to the point that some of us regret the entire idea; The gambling industry is in the process of consuming all of sports entertainment. "Decriminalization" of small gambling concerns and an almost total ban on paid advertising is probably, it turns out, a better outcome.
  - spencerflem 2y ago
    I agree we should do all that right now- but I will say a huge number of problems in our society right now are caused by a prioritization of profit over social stability which is inherent to capitalism. One thing that convinced me is that we don't need to get rid of markets even- just make it so that its not a extremely small pool of unelected shareholders making all the major decisions affecting our lives.
    - mapt 2y ago
      > I will say a huge number of problems in our society right now are caused by a prioritization of profit over social stability which is inherent to capitalism. I totally agree. I would prefer harnessing capitalism for our means and regulating it heavily, but I understand if you don't think our democracy could survive the conflict (or if you think that it isn't surviving the conflict already). I'm just very aware of all of the ways solutions to this problem have gone wrong in the past.
zellyn 2y ago
This is a good point. You could equally well argue that the spherical cow “ideal” 100% marketing shows you exactly the right product right as you need it. And then shuts the hell up!
- curiousllama 2y ago
  Yea but "we waste the greatest minds of our generation on global economic information symmetry" just doesn't scratch the same itch
- spencerflem 2y ago
  Except when a company buys an ad it's to sell Their product , not just A product.
  - zellyn 2y ago
    Sure. But there are different ways of selling. I've been lucky to avoid sales, but… I think I could tolerate selling a product I truly believed was useful, and would improve the situation of those buying it, and where I felt free to recommend alternatives in situations where my product was a bad fit. I couldn't tolerate selling a product where I had to trick people into buying it, knowing that there was a better alternative and a good chance they would regret the choice. Running an ad to entice or trick people into buying your product in a massive avalanche of sales that ultimately leaves a bad taste is a strategy. Running an ad to accurately target people who would genuinely benefit from your product, and attempting to build credibility and trust over years is also a strategy. Of course, it's always somewhere between the two, but it's not clear which end the 100% spherical cow lives on :-)
- mapt 2y ago
  Ideal for whom?
  - zellyn 2y ago
    Right.
TeMPOraL 2y ago
100% efficient everything is an unimaginable dystopia. All that's nice, and good, all kindness and love and happiness, all that exists within economic inefficiencies. It's the slack that lets us be human. That said, of the four examples you mentioned, only one has the distinction of being a metaphorical cancer on modern society, entrapping everything it touches in negative-sum games until it burns out all value and metastasizes to the next fertile ground. It's what ruined medium after medium, from phones through over-the-air TV, cable, web, video streaming, news, social media - and it just keeps going. I wrote this over 5 years ago, and since then, the cancer analogy only felt ever more accurate to me: https://jacek.zlydach.pl/blog/2019-07-31-ads-as-cancer.html https://jacek.zlydach.pl/blog/2019-07-31-ads-as-cancer.html
- joquarky 2y ago
  In the past few decades, hedge funds have had a significantly negative impact upon the following industries: - Manufacturing - Retail - Local Journalism/Media - Private Prisons & Detention - For-Profit Education - Healthcare Services - Veterinary/Pet grooming Clinics - Mortuary/Funeral Homes - Pharmaceuticals - Housing/Real Estate, - Toll Roads - Hospitality - Restaurants - Addiction Treatment Centers - Daycares - Hospice What's next? Doh, I keep forgetting that this site doesn't do markdown.
navane 2y ago
Without ads there's no craving to be filled. Without food I still die of hunger. Without pharmaceuticals I still die of sickness.

by lurk2 2y ago

WD-42 2y ago

The difference is all those other things you listed - food, drugs, etc provide value. An ad provides none.

baconbrand 2y ago
Ads provide information. An event you might be interested in is happening. A food you might like is available. A thing that will totally improve your life can be yours. etc
- spencerflem 2y ago
  The information in most ads is things like: "Skinny beautiful people are worthy of love and use this brand of makeup". Or "good parents who love their children go to Disney World". Or "it's a rugged and cool type of person that buys a Jeep". The type of ads that do what you're taking about are sought out. People willingly watch Nintendo Directs.
- WD-42 2y ago
  If that is all they were they wouldn't be a problem but this is obviously an over simplification.
lurk2 2y ago
I’m in a group chat for a language I am studying. It gets targeted for event flyers due to the group’s subject. These sorts of flyers are allowed where other advertising is not because they add value to the group, even though most of them are for-profit.

cdecl 2y ago

I'm actually convinced that "marketing", as such, can be completely orthogonal to profit altogether. Any sort of communication of a novel thing would fall under this banner, but I learn about new FOSS projects on here every day because the maintainers and developers are willing to 'advertise' them to me.

spencerflem 2y ago
Marketing is so rarely for a "novel" thing. The biggest spender is CocaCola, how much do we still need to know about them?
- slumberlust 2y ago
  Did you know the invented modern santa branding? Prior to that he was more a vagabond/homeless type and much much less jolly.
  - kristopolous 2y ago
    Snopes has a classic extensive article on that https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-claus-that-refreshes/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-claus-that-refreshes/
  - spencerflem 2y ago
    I wasn't trying to say the contents of the ads aren't novel- just that what they're selling very often isn't. Its also so very rarely factual - the idea is more for you to believe that 'Disney Land is an important milestone for all happy families'. Or 'Stella Artois is the type of beer a sexy intellectual orders - that's you right?' I completely believe that ads are a huge part of our culture.
- cdecl 2y ago
  Rarely by dollar amount or by volume? Because I assume, by volume, it must be mostly novel things.
  - 2y ago

spencerflem 2y ago

I like where you're going with this - we do need an economic system that priorities people and not profits. So I hope you take this for the pedantry it is- But the customer for an ad is the company. They are buying it, so a hypnotizing ad would be 100% effective for them. In your version of the analogy, its what's effective for the seller- so the ad equivalent would be a situation where in order to get any sales, 100% of your margin goes towards advertising.

eMPee584 2y ago

> but you could apply this logic to any kind of business and it starts to fall apart. Exactly, it all starts to fall apart when common sense is applied - it's just that we've become horribly dependent, many even addicted to the dehumanizing grind of our beloved competition economy.. The immanent rise of autonomous machines is the sudden emergency exit from capitalism we (or rather: some of us) have been rooting for.. IF we can convince the people of this planet that a non-commercial post-scarcity open-access open-source commons economy is a more hopeful trajectory into the long future.. Let's not give up on this one yet.

mapt 2y ago
> The immanent rise of autonomous machines is the sudden emergency exit from capitalism we (or rather: some of us) have been rooting for.. IF we can convince the people of this planet that a non-commercial post-scarcity open-access open-source commons economy is a more hopeful trajectory into the long future.. Let's not give up on this one yet. Or, it's an invitation to plug us into the Entertainment-Marketting-Hyperstimulus-Feed that is eminently personalized and replace all our human culture with persuasive slop, until we cease to be of use, bankrupt husks with no friends and no avocations other than those that provide a reliable revenue return. Quite possibly with individualized radical ideologies because whatever hits your dopamine button, the Algorithm pumps more into you (See Neal Stephenson's "Dodge").
- spencerflem 2y ago
  Yea, I think this is more likely the case for AI as we have it now or will have it, imo. If somehow AI is better than all humans at everything idk if we get communism or what but I don't think I can really think about it but it sounds meaningless and bad and not going to happen anyways.

ElevenLathe 2y ago

I'm willing to go along with this hypothesis. So first step is to end capitalism, then we can see if we still hate ads?

mapt 2y ago
You don't need to "First, we end capitalism" to recognize a problem that has already gone out of bounds and promises to go further. Hawaii bans billboards, and has, since 1927. Look into that. They manage to do so without some kind of slippery slope that ends in authoritarian oppression, or some kind of guillotine wielding anti-corporate mob. There are lots of ways to limit the harm without trying to completely erase our political economy. We used to ban gambling. Gambling was regarded as slightly harmful. Now we have legalized gambling, and we've plugged it into modern marketting, and the harm has expanded to the point that some of us regret the entire idea; The gambling industry is in the process of consuming all of sports entertainment. "Decriminalization" of small gambling concerns and an almost total ban on paid advertising is probably, it turns out, a better outcome.
- spencerflem 2y ago
  I agree we should do all that right now- but I will say a huge number of problems in our society right now are caused by a prioritization of profit over social stability which is inherent to capitalism. One thing that convinced me is that we don't need to get rid of markets even- just make it so that its not a extremely small pool of unelected shareholders making all the major decisions affecting our lives.
  - mapt 2y ago
    > I will say a huge number of problems in our society right now are caused by a prioritization of profit over social stability which is inherent to capitalism. I totally agree. I would prefer harnessing capitalism for our means and regulating it heavily, but I understand if you don't think our democracy could survive the conflict (or if you think that it isn't surviving the conflict already). I'm just very aware of all of the ways solutions to this problem have gone wrong in the past.

zellyn 2y ago

This is a good point. You could equally well argue that the spherical cow “ideal” 100% marketing shows you exactly the right product right as you need it. And then shuts the hell up!

curiousllama 2y ago
Yea but "we waste the greatest minds of our generation on global economic information symmetry" just doesn't scratch the same itch
spencerflem 2y ago
Except when a company buys an ad it's to sell Their product , not just A product.
- zellyn 2y ago
  Sure. But there are different ways of selling. I've been lucky to avoid sales, but… I think I could tolerate selling a product I truly believed was useful, and would improve the situation of those buying it, and where I felt free to recommend alternatives in situations where my product was a bad fit. I couldn't tolerate selling a product where I had to trick people into buying it, knowing that there was a better alternative and a good chance they would regret the choice. Running an ad to entice or trick people into buying your product in a massive avalanche of sales that ultimately leaves a bad taste is a strategy. Running an ad to accurately target people who would genuinely benefit from your product, and attempting to build credibility and trust over years is also a strategy. Of course, it's always somewhere between the two, but it's not clear which end the 100% spherical cow lives on :-)
mapt 2y ago
Ideal for whom?
- zellyn 2y ago
  Right.

TeMPOraL 2y ago

100% efficient everything is an unimaginable dystopia. All that's nice, and good, all kindness and love and happiness, all that exists within economic inefficiencies. It's the slack that lets us be human. That said, of the four examples you mentioned, only one has the distinction of being a metaphorical cancer on modern society, entrapping everything it touches in negative-sum games until it burns out all value and metastasizes to the next fertile ground. It's what ruined medium after medium, from phones through over-the-air TV, cable, web, video streaming, news, social media - and it just keeps going. I wrote this over 5 years ago, and since then, the cancer analogy only felt ever more accurate to me: https://jacek.zlydach.pl/blog/2019-07-31-ads-as-cancer.html https://jacek.zlydach.pl/blog/2019-07-31-ads-as-cancer.html

joquarky 2y ago
In the past few decades, hedge funds have had a significantly negative impact upon the following industries: - Manufacturing - Retail - Local Journalism/Media - Private Prisons & Detention - For-Profit Education - Healthcare Services - Veterinary/Pet grooming Clinics - Mortuary/Funeral Homes - Pharmaceuticals - Housing/Real Estate, - Toll Roads - Hospitality - Restaurants - Addiction Treatment Centers - Daycares - Hospice What's next? Doh, I keep forgetting that this site doesn't do markdown.

navane 2y ago

Without ads there's no craving to be filled. Without food I still die of hunger. Without pharmaceuticals I still die of sickness.