[ExI] How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds

Tue May 31 18:21:21 UTC 2016

BillW, do you remember when the notion of “subliminal seduction” was all
the rage back in about the 70s?  I did object to that at the time.  I made
it clear that I didn’t want any of that subliminal jazz; I wanted to be
seduced the old fashioned external literal physical way only.
spike

Actually, I missed that - darn.  Well, married at the time anyway.

I think what we may be missing is an ocean and we are concentrating on a
bay.

Is all the self-improvement stuff just crap designed to make you into a
phony?  What about How to Win Friends and Influence People, which is making
a comeback?  We deceive people all the time with fibs and little white lies
and other deceptions.  We market ourselves and don't fool yourself that we
don't.

We see a rebounding of subliminal ads, in experiments, that do work.  And
what about product placement?  You may notice the Coke bottle and you may
not but your unconscious saw it in all likelihood.

As for kids, there is no really workable way to protect them except
teaching by parents/guardians etc. We'd like for them to know that they
can't trust anything on TV, movies, ads anywhere.  But these are the same
parents who sell their kids the idea of Santa and the Easter Bunny, not to
mention all the religious ideas.  They are urged to believe without any
kind of proof other than somebody said so.  There are even adults who
believe that no one can put something on TV unless it's true.

It's kind of funny - you say that kids cannot reason, which is somewhat
right, somewhat wrong, but clearly they are not adults, though you could
say that about 18 year olds too.  In Revolutionary times people thought of
children as just small adults (who had to learn everything because of the
Blank Slate idea of John Locke that influenced our constitution).

Where did you go, Bill K?  Rejoin us, please.  Would you prevent tech
people from doing the same kind of marketing everyone else is doing?  After
all, this is a product that sells itself for the most part.  As for trying
to make something trendy, it usually doesn't work.  Find a secret that
ensures trendiness and you'll own the world.

bill w

On Tue, May 31, 2016 at 12:30 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On
> Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace
> *…*
> -----------------
>
> >…Are you upset that marketers of other products and services study
> psychology hard to sell you their offerings?
>
>
>
> Nah, not at all.  I see the fields of psychology and marketing has having
> merged in a sense.  Back in the long time agos, the 1970s, it was hip to
> have a psychologist.  It was sort of a status symbol.  We saw the Bob
> Newhart show which was one of the funnier ones of its day doing subtle
> parodies on people who didn’t need a psychologist for anything other than
> status.
>
>
>
> >… Madison Avenue or its like have been around a very long time and with
> the progress of psychology they have gotten better and better…
>
>
>
> Well, OK.  If they make me want their stuff, then we both win in a sense.
> They get paid and I buy their product.
>
>
>
> >…They want to make you want what they are selling.  As old as selling…
>
>
>
> Ja.  It is one of those cases of legal yes.  Ethical: maybe.  Plenty of
> yellow flags in the ethics department.  I would think marketing would be a
> fun job, but I wouldn’t go there because of the ethical dilemmas when your
> job is to sell stuff you know is crap.
>
>
>
> >…Can sales techniques and marketing be immoral or even illegal?
>
>
>
> Sure, but mostly when it is aimed at kids, who cannot reason.  Those who
> were children in the 1960s (not hippies, I mean were actual elementary
> school children then) may have fond memories of cartoons and how they
> incessantly hammered the sugary breakfast cereal with about as much
> nutritional value as the colorful ad-filled box it came in.  Those who were
> hip kids knew the stuff was nutritionally worthless.  Some of us could feel
> a difference when we stayed with our own grandparents who didn’t eat that
> stuff and didn’t have it in their houses.  They ate actual food in the
> morning.
>
>
>
> What about entertainment-linked marketing?  60s children, do you remember
> when Underdog was getting his ass kicked, he would say in a weary defeated
> Wally Cox-ish voice “The secret compartment of my ring I fill with an
> Underdog super energy pill.”  He eats one, boom, whoops everybody’s ass.
>
>
>
> OK so we see little plastic rings with a compartment marked with a U and
> several sugar pills.  Fair game?  Well hard to say.  Copyright
> infringement.  Possibly disappointed kids who found they couldn’t fly after
> eating one, but most kids would know it was just a toy.
>
>
>
> I would have fun doing beer commercials and ads aimed at guys.  Women?  I
> would suck.  Kids?  I wouldn’t go there.
>
>
>
> >… What if it's subliminal?  bill w
>
>
>
> BillW, do you remember when the notion of “subliminal seduction” was all
> the rage back in about the 70s?  I did object to that at the time.  I made
> it clear that I didn’t want any of that subliminal jazz; I wanted to be
> seduced the old fashioned external literal physical way only.
>
>
>
> spike
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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