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The New Mind Control – The internet has spawned subtle forms of influence

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Re: The New Mind Control – The internet has spawned subtle forms of influence

#201

Post by indians_pro »

nickff wrote: post #80
chc wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try to sell a bad product? It's done all the time. Heck, a tube of wax called "HeadOn" managed to sell pretty well with an ad campaign that stopped just short of claiming it helped headaches.

The fact that one product which seems to be a placebo may have made some money does not disprove my point; I never said it was completely impossible to make money by selling a bad product, just that it is vanishingly unlikely. If you think that selling diluted ingredients in wax is an easy way to make money, please go ahead and try your hand at it. My position is that advertising a bad product is a very bad bet; the…

>I never said it was completely impossible to make money by selling a bad product,

from last comment in the thread -

>An advertisement will _never_ convince people to buy things they don't want and don't need; if you disagree, please go and try to sell a bad product, and we will see how well your 'mind control' works.

le contradiction

Re: The New Mind Control – The internet has spawned subtle forms of influence

#202

Post by clock_tower »

yarou wrote: post #101
clock_tower wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite frankly, it might not be the worst solution. Britain has a government-sponsored TV station which is generally pretty well-regarded, for example...

Government-sponsored is totally different than government-led. China has the latter in terms of their search engine.

Indeed -- but the grandparent talked about "government-sponsored."

Re: The New Mind Control – The internet has spawned subtle forms of influence

#203

Post by ArkyBeagle »

treebeard901 wrote: post #198
ArkyBeagle wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And here's Stimpy with the red shiny history eraser button...

I am ashamed that I had to look up this reference.

I should probably be ashamed that I brought it up :)

Re: The New Mind Control – The internet has spawned subtle forms of influence

#204

Post by ocdtrekkie »

smitherfield wrote: post #199
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth pointing out that the positions of a company's executives and financial staff aren't necessarily the position of a company's line employees or engineers. Sanders is much less supportive of big business in government. And Google has put a LOT of money into government.

I think if Google execs had been directing Google engineers to make search results less favorable to Bernie and/or more favorable to Hillary, we would have heard about it. The relevant engineers themselves would have more opportunity to change the search algorithm without generating public complaints from their coworkers. I really doubt they would, though, so conspiracy theorizing about it is still silly. Like I said…

I'm just saying, the fact that Google would push politically something different than their lower level employees support wouldn't be surprising. Also, bear in mind that search ranking code is among Google's most carefully-guarded code. In fact, it's some of the only code not available company-wide.

The people who have access to Google's 'secret sauce' are likely the sort of die-hard "I bleed Google" people who would do anything in Google's best interests.

Of course, for that same reason, it's much less likely search tampering would happen... the group that could do it is very small and likely very closely monitored.

Re: The New Mind Control – The internet has spawned subtle forms of influence

#205

Post by WalterGR »

Agustus wrote: post #173
pdehaye wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the original PageRank paper. Page and Brin themselves acknowledge that (while they were still academics): [L]ess blatant bias are likely to be tolerated by the market. For example, a search engine could add a small factor to search results from "friendly" companies, and subtract a factor from results from competitors. This type of bias is very difficult to detect but could still have a significant effect on the…

This was obvious back when Yahoo, WebSpider (Spidercrawler), AskJeeves, and AltaVista did it. It was ridiculous that you would type in "Delta Airlines tickets" and the results would go: United Airlines, TWA, Fly By Night Corp, Rickety Rickshaw Airlines, We Barely Stay in the Air, and DuctTape & Flights. The results were so bad that when Google came along and used the PageRank feature to deliver information, it was a…

Has Google ever officially stated that they've done away with the old practice of buying rank? The same thing happens now, just unofficially. Employees of Google manipulate its search rankings, even if there is no "official" way for companies to purchase rank.

Re: The New Mind Control – The internet has spawned subtle forms of influence

#206

Post by dwaltrip »

whatTheFuckEvr wrote: post #97

Oh god. This article is so fucking disappointing. What a quaint boogey man this "Search Engine Manipulation Effect" is. It even has it's own obscure little acronym, SEME, to appear more relevant. I learned about the subtle effects of advertising by the time I was in fourth grade, and certainly understood how to ignore them by middle school. Back when special holographic foil comic book covers and trading cards were n…

It seems you are saying that there is nothing to worry about, because you specifically have learned to magically rebuff any attempts at mental manipulation.

Did I read that correctly? Assuming you have this ability, how does this tell us anything about society at large?

Re: The New Mind Control – The internet has spawned subtle forms of influence

#207

Post by nunyabuizness »

butterfinger wrote: post #155
nunyabuizness wrote: post #118

I once read an article about surveillance with a title along the lines of "A Tale of Two Cities." In it, the author explains that there are two types of surveillance cities that will emerge in the future: one where every park bench is rigged with a mic, every street corner has a camera aimed at it, and where all the data collected is funneled to law enforcement agencies; if you were mugged on some street corner, they…

Could be that one: http://www.davidbrin.com/transparentsociety1.html

This is it, thank you!!

Re: The New Mind Control – The internet has spawned subtle forms of influence

#208

Post by alanwatts »

nickff wrote: post #196
alanwatts wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does make a product bad then?

My definition of a bad product would simply one where the purchaser would not have bought it given the information they learned after acquiring it. A simple way to measure how good a product is would be to see whether the product is recommended by the purchaser, or whether they buy similar products from the same brand/source again.

Ah so you don't mean good and bad in terms of morality or the harm it will bring to the user but solely upon consumption preference. By this definition crystal meth can be considered a good product.

Re: The New Mind Control – The internet has spawned subtle forms of influence

#209

Post by abandonliberty »

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #194
abandonliberty wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money buys speech. I also used to fantasize about the democratization of speech via the internet. No longer would money determine what information reached you. Adwords is no less ethical than search rankings, newspapers, TV, radio, literature, bus stops, music - reality, ultimately. Reality is for sale. Good news: I agree that this is a problem. Bad news: It's incredibly more prevalent than you realize. If communicat…

We want speech to be pure and abstract. So this relegates money to our expression of the venal. Then we find this, and wonder why it bothers us. You are ultimately responsible for your own perceptions.

>You are ultimately responsible for your own perceptions.

Would you consider a Muslim born and raised in the Maldives, where the state and populous are all Muslim and questioning the status quo can result in severe injury and incarceration, personally responsible for their views even though they are denied alternative perspectives?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_the_Maldives

Re: The New Mind Control – The internet has spawned subtle forms of influence

#210

Post by ArkyBeagle »

abandonliberty wrote: post #209
ArkyBeagle wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We want speech to be pure and abstract. So this relegates money to our expression of the venal. Then we find this, and wonder why it bothers us. You are ultimately responsible for your own perceptions.

>You are ultimately responsible for your own perceptions. Would you consider a Muslim born and raised in the Maldives, where the state and populous are all Muslim and questioning the status quo can result in severe injury and incarceration, personally responsible for their views even though they are denied alternative perspectives? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_the_Maldives

Yes.
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