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A brief, weird history of brainwashing

technologyreview.com

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Re: A brief, weird history of brainwashing

#51

Post by card_zero »

jampekka wrote: post #47
card_zero wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you be OK with 1% of GDP? But would you really be OK with some authority deciding how much gets spent on it? Or is the amount not the real issue? There's an ad in the article itself: it was offering me 25% off a subscription to MIT Technology Review during Earth Week. I didn't ask to see that information. It was trying to get me to do something I wasn't very interested in. Is that advert part of the problem, or…

I'm very OK that some authority (democratically accountable) decides what the advertisements can contain, and how prevalent they are allowed to be. I.e. that advertising is regulated. And it is regulated to an extent, but IMHO it should be regulated dramatically more and the existing regulations should be actually enforced. And at least in Finland, where I'm from, it used to be way way way more regulated than it is n…

Yes. So what this comes down to is, scams should be illegal, and a lot of advertising is scam-like, and deciding how to regulate it is a work in progress. But the topic has now moved away from brainwashing - except I suppose that some people who are exceptionally vulnerable to being scammed will also be vulnerable to repetitious pressure. It's not an aspect of adverts per se.

On the whole though you're just saying "some adverts are bad and should be stopped by regulators", which isn't going to attract much disagreement, except in the details. And regulations (beer and bread, for example) are as old as the hills, and so is consuming stuff (is that the same as consumerism?) - I think the problem is recent rapid innovations in legally permissible scamming.

Re: A brief, weird history of brainwashing

#52

Post by jampekka »

card_zero wrote: post #51
jampekka wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very OK that some authority (democratically accountable) decides what the advertisements can contain, and how prevalent they are allowed to be. I.e. that advertising is regulated. And it is regulated to an extent, but IMHO it should be regulated dramatically more and the existing regulations should be actually enforced. And at least in Finland, where I'm from, it used to be way way way more regulated than it is n…

Yes. So what this comes down to is, scams should be illegal, and a lot of advertising is scam-like, and deciding how to regulate it is a work in progress. But the topic has now moved away from brainwashing - except I suppose that some people who are exceptionally vulnerable to being scammed will also be vulnerable to repetitious pressure. It's not an aspect of adverts per se. On the whole though you're just saying "s…

The brainwashing part is more subtle than simple scams. And most advertising doesn't really work in the simple way that it would create just an urge to buy something with repetition or persuasion. It affects us all, directly and indirectly, not just some exceptionally vulnerable.

Vast majority of ads try to link some connotations to their product/service/brand. E.g. young attractive women happen to be around a certain beer brand.

But when you buy the beer, it doesn't come with the women included. It didn't of course outright claim that it would, but the women are put in the ad to create such connotation, and it seems to work. Is that a scam? In any case it's misleading and manipulative.

Now, that's just one case. But there are thousands (millions?) such products/services/scams with their own misleading and manipulative connotations. And together these manipulate the whole culture and society. It transcends just the individuals seeing the ads.

Diamonds are a good example of purely ad-constructed social phenomenon. By associating diamonds with true forever love and devotion and appreciation and whatever, they suddenly become "valuable". And the individual doesn't even have to believe any of this, but if they think that others believe it, they can deem that other people think they are worthy of appreciation and whatever if somebody bought them a diamond.

Of course all of this happens very subconsciously, but it works very effectively. This is how a lot of advertising works. By manipulating whole societal beliefs and values. That's even beyond brainwashing.

Consumerism isn't just buying stuff. It's about people e.g. identifying themselves and others based on what (brand) they buy. The actual product doesn't necessarily even matter itself, it's all the connotations that are associated to them societally with ads. Fashion items are a clear example of this, but it happens with all sorts of goods.

Edit: here's an overview of some theories on how ads work, from advertisers: https://adassoc.org.uk/credos/how-does-advertising-work/

Re: A brief, weird history of brainwashing

#53

Post by card_zero »

jampekka wrote: post #52
card_zero wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. So what this comes down to is, scams should be illegal, and a lot of advertising is scam-like, and deciding how to regulate it is a work in progress. But the topic has now moved away from brainwashing - except I suppose that some people who are exceptionally vulnerable to being scammed will also be vulnerable to repetitious pressure. It's not an aspect of adverts per se. On the whole though you're just saying "s…

The brainwashing part is more subtle than simple scams. And most advertising doesn't really work in the simple way that it would create just an urge to buy something with repetition or persuasion. It affects us all, directly and indirectly, not just some exceptionally vulnerable. Vast majority of ads try to link some connotations to their product/service/brand. E.g. young attractive women happen to be around a certai…

[dead]

Re: A brief, weird history of brainwashing

#55

Post by thiagoharry »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #44
thiagoharry wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The term IS meaningless, there is no clear distinction between "brainwashing", "education", "marketing", "propaganda" and "convincing". Except that the first term was coined as war propaganda, so that you could say that people was brainwashed by your enemy instead of admitting that your enemy convinced those people. This also helps you to brainwa... I mean, to convince your citizens that your enemy is very evil and t…

> The term IS meaningless, there is no clear distinction between "brainwashing, "education", "marketing", "propaganda" and "convincing" From Merriam Webster's definition of brainwashing [0] 1. a forcible indoctrination to induce someone to give up basic political, social, or religious beliefs and attitudes and to accept contrasting regimented ideas 2. persuasion by propaganda or salesmanship So, the term isn't meanin…

I agree that the term has a meaning in the dictionary, and colloquially people attribute a distinct and stronger meaning to it. But I think it becomes meaningless when we try to establish a more serious discussion about it. The origin of the term as war propaganda is what creates this colloquial meaning and it is also why it becomes difficult to distinguish it from other things: the evil enemy brainwashes, we just educate rebellious children and teach them to behave. The evil enemy brainwashes, we just fill the cinema with movies depicting our soldiers as heroes, and our news on TV convince even people against the war that the enemy is a real menace against us and should be attacked. We just have full of marketing companies trying to convince even people that do not want to buy more things to buy more things. All these things can make a person give up previous beliefs and accept contrasting ideas. And are forcible in a way or another.

Re: A brief, weird history of brainwashing

#56

Post by joeamroo »

paulddraper wrote: post #18
jampekka wrote: post #9

About a fifth of the economic activity in the USA is brainwashing. And quite a bit of other activity, such as most consumer internet services, exist to facilitate this brainwashing.

(Tongue in cheek reference to marketing/advertising.)

paul draper, is this normative determinism?
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