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Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

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Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#371

Post by rexpop »

Chathamization wrote: post #334
enlyth wrote: post #15

To me, it is worrying how much human effort we're investing into advertising as a whole. The top minds of our generations, backed by billions of dollars in funding, are working on increasingly manipulative ways to capture people's attention and use it to generate profit. We're constantly getting better at it; who knows what path this will lead us down. I suspect it might not be the one we had wished for.

It seems like a larger and larger percentage of our economy is being taken up by parasitic sectors that have a net negative value for society. Advertising, soda, highly processed food, credit cards, car dealerships, (most) sales people, etc. We'd probably be better of as a society paying these people to do nothing than to do what they do now; we'd be even better off if we paid them to do something actually productive…

You'd be smart to accuse me, here, of throwing out the baby with the bathwater, but the core parasite is Capital, which siphons value from the labor of mankind in a Byzantine labyrinth of social games meant to obscure this essential truth.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#372

Post by foldingmoney »

r00fus wrote: post #368
foldingmoney wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like there's some central planning committee that sits down and decides what to pay everyone. Citizens decide where to spend their money -- at least the part that the government doesn't tax and spend for them -- and all of these industries you name exist and pay well because people value them and choose to spend their money on them.

Almost correct. Governments have a strong say in what is incentivized and what is not through taxation and monetary policy. The people running government are (in most places) elected by the people but that is affected by political manipulation, gerrymandering and politicians often represent the moneyed interests that got them into power.

Okay, explain to me how the government is incentivising 'advertising, soda, highly processed food, credit cards, car dealerships, (most) sales people, etc.' through taxation and monetary policy.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#373

Post by js8 »

fourthark wrote: post #155
kaybe wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say that's not true any more. We do have a war to fight, the war against destruction of our planet by humanity. (Hoping our politicians would fix it has turned out to be ineffective so far.) If we could have a war against drugs or terror we can also have a war against climate change, soil degradation, desertification, insect decline and biodiversity loss.

What's a war without killing people?

A war with even less enjoyment than it usually entails?

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#374

Post by csomar »

foldingmoney wrote: post #360
Chathamization wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like a larger and larger percentage of our economy is being taken up by parasitic sectors that have a net negative value for society. Advertising, soda, highly processed food, credit cards, car dealerships, (most) sales people, etc. We'd probably be better of as a society paying these people to do nothing than to do what they do now; we'd be even better off if we paid them to do something actually productive…

It's not like there's some central planning committee that sits down and decides what to pay everyone. Citizens decide where to spend their money -- at least the part that the government doesn't tax and spend for them -- and all of these industries you name exist and pay well because people value them and choose to spend their money on them.

> and all of these industries you name exist and pay well because people value them and choose to spend their money on them.

I think his point is, these industries are not valuable to people; they are just aggressive at extract wealth from other people. In net, they have a negative value (from his perspective) and thus society will be better without them.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#375

Post by chc »

JohnFen wrote: post #238
TACIXAT wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I view this as a major failing of our payments infrastructure. I have no way to send a few cents to a business digitally.

What I find odd about this is that there does exist at least one perfectly fine micropayment system. It's running in my laundromat (the company is Heartland Micropayments), where I can use my credit/debit or laundry payment card. When I wash and dry three loads of laundry, I don't get 6 charges on my card. I get one. It seems like it wouldn't be a huge amount of work to bring this to the internet, particularly since…

Batching small payments is not the hard part of creating a payment system that can support the entire Web. Harder parts include problems like UX (e.g. balancing the need to make a system people will want to use against the danger of users unknowingly running up a huge bill), getting buy-in from websites (why should they use your service in particular?), and just convincing people to sign up for yet another godforsaken account on the Internet.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#376

Post by flukus »

foldingmoney wrote: post #360
Chathamization wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like a larger and larger percentage of our economy is being taken up by parasitic sectors that have a net negative value for society. Advertising, soda, highly processed food, credit cards, car dealerships, (most) sales people, etc. We'd probably be better of as a society paying these people to do nothing than to do what they do now; we'd be even better off if we paid them to do something actually productive…

It's not like there's some central planning committee that sits down and decides what to pay everyone. Citizens decide where to spend their money -- at least the part that the government doesn't tax and spend for them -- and all of these industries you name exist and pay well because people value them and choose to spend their money on them.

> Citizens decide where to spend their money

That's the problem, to a large extent we don't because of the pervasive manipulation the advertising industry does to us, the industries reason for existence is literally undermine our free will.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#378

Post by opportune »

jodrellblank wrote: post #301
JohnFen wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not impossible at all. Math tells me that growth capitalism can't be maintained forever. The only question is when, and under what conditions, it will end.

Why can't it be maintained forever? If a house can be valued at $4,000 one year, and $40,000 a few decades later, and $200,0000 a few decades later, what's the reason that "value" can't keep increasing eternally? There's obviously no real substance to "the value" of a thing, only people's interpretation and desire for it, and there's plenty of "value" where there is no physical substance at all, like exclusivity, or…

The real value has to increase, not just inflation. If the number goes up doesn't mean anything if everything goes up in equal amounts

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#379

Post by QuercusMax »

foldingmoney wrote: post #372
r00fus wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost correct. Governments have a strong say in what is incentivized and what is not through taxation and monetary policy. The people running government are (in most places) elected by the people but that is affected by political manipulation, gerrymandering and politicians often represent the moneyed interests that got them into power.

Okay, explain to me how the government is incentivising 'advertising, soda, highly processed food, credit cards, car dealerships, (most) sales people, etc.' through taxation and monetary policy.

Well, to start, corn is highly subsidized. This means corn syrup is cheaper than it should be, making soda and most processed foods cheaper than healthier options.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#380

Post by skrebbel »

fwn wrote: post #369
kaybe wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_as_metaphor Even though that was meant tongue in cheek, I fear there will be innumerable deaths before this is over. We can discuss who killed them then. edit: A war-economy-level effort is needed, with the same dedication of all participants, so there is another similar line of though.

Here's another take on the war metaphor in international relations: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securitization_(internationa... > an extreme version of politicization that enables extraordinary means to be used in the name of security

Wow, nice term, I hadn't heard of it yet.

Too many people in the EU don't know that our many decades of peace (longer than ever before!) is due to how the EU effectively did some reverse securitization. Basically, after WWII, any discussion of foreign countries was heavily securitized. "Germany" wasn't considered a major indutrial competitor, but a threat. And who knows, maybe France would be the next aggressor? Better be prepared.

The creation of the European Coal and Steel Community (the EU's predecessor) transformed the language in which politicians discussed neighbouring countries. Right now, it is unimaginable to have war within the EU.

When people (rightfully) complain about how, say, Germany abuses their position of power, or how the EU is un-democratic, or how too many MEPs are corrupt fucks, then it always strikes me how ridiculously successful the EU has been at preventing war among its member states. I mean, if there was any grounded reason to fear war, the last thing people would worry about is some MEP spending public funds in a strip club.

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