3 ms·
The crudeness of the intro video on the site and the PR material aside (quite successful in its sensationalistic goal) it's really interesting to read people's
by Jun8 13y ago
The crudeness of the intro video on the site and the PR material aside (quite successful in its sensationalistic goal) it's really interesting to read people's reactions to them. The idea is in fact prevalent in the animal kingdom, e.g. male spiders routinely give presents to females to mate with them (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/02/0214_050214_valentines.html http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/02/0214_050214_...). The notion, of course, is that us, being humans, are way above these animalistic methods. Are we? As the Merovingian puts it: "And this is the nature of the universe. We struggle against it. We fight to deny it, but it is of course pretense. It is a lie. Beneath our poised appearance, the truth is we are completely... out of control".
- mildtrepidation 13y agoIt's kind of hilarious to see a Merovingian quote here, but I agree that the ridiculous "we're people, not animals" argument can't be disparaged enough. A limited but very significant example of this is the fact that the vast majority of money made on mobile apps and games depends on behavioral conditioning. You know... ring the bell, dog salivates? We've been doing this for decades -- just look at my Final Fantasy collection -- but only now is it really juicing us for cash at optimal levels. And it's not because we're Impressively Sophisticated.