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How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

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Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#251
post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Slowly but surely, your mind will associate Coca cola with happiness and relaxing. Not really. My mind associates Coca cola with high blood sugar, diabetes and horrible tasting sugar water that would take decades off my life expectancy. Looks like I'm doing something wrong. > There is no such thing as 'filtering' out ads. I'm pretty sure there is, based on my own experience. > They are designed to infiltrate your s…

Friend, you are dangerously naive. I don't have time to write a big long thing about how wrong you are right now, but I'll provide this though: Santa Claus is a Coke Ad. http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/coke-lore-santa-clau...

That version of Santa Claus may have started that way, but it isn't any longer. Kids will grow up today never knowing that it is a Coke advert and will never associate the two until they learn the truth at a later stage of life.

And that version of Santa Claus was still based on fictional folk characters from history.

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#252
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Image a day in your life without coming across an ad I have had such days. I read a lot of stuff online, and I have adblockers. My entertainment is supplied by books and TV, where I watch either channels like Netflix or recorded shows, where I can skip through commercials. It's not exactly not encountering ads - and I surely encounter billboards when I drive around (though I don't think I can recall any of them, th…

> That is preferable to the society which underproduces things and where large part of your survival depends on you skill in finding how to satisfy basic needs - food, shelter, etc. I'd rather watch ads than be hungry. And that is perfectly correct. One thing I might add is that capitalism looks much like communism in the long run as companies merge, fuse and become bigger and bigger, because centralisation and contr…

Surely you mean fascism rather than communism?

That kind of reckless corporatism was a core tenet of early fascist ideology.

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#253
post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well then the OP ignores the biggest advertiser of them all: the communist party.

Most of that CP did, at least where I grew up, was not advertisement but slogans. Like "in God we trust" in US. Nobody really takes it as an ad for God.

> Nobody really takes it as an ad for God.

Are you sure?

Seems like the right-wing evangelicals of the US definitely do.

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

please expand upon your definition of "true change".

Microprocessors, Internet, Green Revolution, T-Cell therapy, China & India over the last 2 decades ..... You know the stuff that actually required knowledge and power. Not some feel goodery truthiness.

Feel-goodery truthiness like emancipation of the slaves, women's suffrage, civil rights and the welfare state?

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Friend, you are dangerously naive. I don't have time to write a big long thing about how wrong you are right now, but I'll provide this though: Santa Claus is a Coke Ad. http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/coke-lore-santa-clau...

That version of Santa Claus may have started that way, but it isn't any longer. Kids will grow up today never knowing that it is a Coke advert and will never associate the two until they learn the truth at a later stage of life. And that version of Santa Claus was still based on fictional folk characters from history.

My point is two-fold: 1. There exists a sophisticated art and science of "subconscious" and it's used extensively in the advertising industry. 2. Even if you isolate yourself from ads personally, there is a huge and largely inescapable effect from rampant commercial advertising.

If the fact that a soda company can suborn an ancient figure like Saint Nick so completely that no one remembers it happened doesn't drive the point home then consider this: Diamond engagement rings are a deliberately ad-created "tradition".

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/ho...

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#256
post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of that CP did, at least where I grew up, was not advertisement but slogans. Like "in God we trust" in US. Nobody really takes it as an ad for God.

> Nobody really takes it as an ad for God. Are you sure? Seems like the right-wing evangelicals of the US definitely do.

Could you quote a couple of them saying so? Because it doesn't match what I know about evangelicals, they don't exactly consider God something you can buy.

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#257
post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody really takes it as an ad for God. Are you sure? Seems like the right-wing evangelicals of the US definitely do.

Could you quote a couple of them saying so? Because it doesn't match what I know about evangelicals, they don't exactly consider God something you can buy.

I didn't mean it as a literal object you could buy.

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That version of Santa Claus may have started that way, but it isn't any longer. Kids will grow up today never knowing that it is a Coke advert and will never associate the two until they learn the truth at a later stage of life. And that version of Santa Claus was still based on fictional folk characters from history.

My point is two-fold: 1. There exists a sophisticated art and science of "subconscious" and it's used extensively in the advertising industry. 2. Even if you isolate yourself from ads personally, there is a huge and largely inescapable effect from rampant commercial advertising. If the fact that a soda company can suborn an ancient figure like Saint Nick so completely that no one remembers it happened doesn't drive t…

I'm not disagreeing with any of that.

I'm just supporting what the other poster said about advertising not always having the intended effect.

There are some brands I actively avoid simply because I didn't like their advertisements, or how often they advertise and others where no amount of advertising will convince me to use their product (like Coke for example, because I think it tastes vile and I know it's basically just unhealthy sugar water).

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> >Journalism — the historical counter to propaganda Wow. Then they need a lesson in the history of journalism. They might want to read up on hearst and pulitzer and the founding of modern american journalism. > "The good old days", except that never existed. Journalism has always been the tool for the powerful to paint a positive picture of themselves to the general public via "unbiased agents" called journalists wh…

> foxnews and the nytimes are just propagandists like any other This is a textbook example of the lazy, uneducated thinking that causes fear and outrage. Lazy lazy lazy false equivalence. To say that "they're all the same" is absolutely not the case and nor will it ever be. The sooner people become more discerning of the information that they consume, the better off we all will be. There is an extremely large gulf in…

> This is a textbook example of the lazy, uneducated thinking that causes fear and outrage.

I'm highly educated despite what you may think.

>Lazy lazy lazy false equivalence.

I have a degree in philosophy and I think you need a refresher course on logic.

> To say that "they're all the same" is absolutely not the case and nor will it ever be.

I didn't say they were the "same". Saying an apple and a banana are fruits doesn't mean that I'm saying an apple is a banana. Just because I say foxnews and the nytimes are propagandists doesn't mean I'm saying foxnews = nytimes.

> The sooner people become more discerning of the information that they consume, the better off we all will be.

Agreed. Hopefully, you'll join us one day in being a more discerning about information.

> There is an extremely large gulf in the baseline quality of reporting between those two outlets.

Agreed. NYTimes is far better quality propaganda. They have a lot more influence and credibility. But the NYTimes is still propaganda.

> If you cannot discern that, then you are too far gone.

One of us seem to gone for sure.

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll get myself in trouble, but the main difference between Fox News and the NYT is that the NYT is far more effective at disguising its bias. Let's face it, Fox News doesn't even try. My advice to you is to follow foreign news services and compare the news you get. The biggest challenge, unfortunately, is that you have to dig a bit because lately English language news is dominated by stories from Reuters and AP. You…

Which sources would you recommend? The BBC and The Guardian are foreign and have their own news gathering networks but for the most part seem similar to the NYT. If it helps I can read French as well as English. When I was a kid I listened to Radio Moscow and to go honest found it not that much different from the BBC..

The BBC, Guardian, NYTimes, etc are just the mouthpiece of the same group of elites.

To get a "diverse" set of information, you need to expand your "sources". RT, Al Jazeera, Xinhua, etc.

You need to get information from the propaganda representing other elites.

But you have to keep in mind that all propaganda outfits are in the business of SPINNING the truth for their own agenda. You will never get the "truth" from the NYTimes, BBC, RT, Xinhua, Al Jazeera, etc.

It's up to you as a rational intelligent human being to filter the propaganda from the articles to get at the truth.

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