[ExI] How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds

[William Flynn Wallace]

Persuading people to do / buy things they don't really want almost
amounts to coercion / theft.
If these techniques are used to persuade a majority to vote Trump into
power, is that OK? After all, people voted for him and they
(supposedly) had a free choice.
I remember reading Vance Packard's The Hidden Persuaders (pub.1957).
He was shocked by the techniques used then. What would he think
nowadays?  bill k

Do you think that the phone users or victims, as you would seem to have it,
are acting out of free will?  If not, then they are addicted?

Trends come and go, often very fast.  Hula hoops, Beanie Babies, Deely
Bobbers.  Gotta have the latest thing.

My problem with looking at some marketing strategy as coercion is a problem
of definition:  when do we call coercion?  When do we call it against their
will?  When they don't really want it?  I suspect if you ask people they
will tell you they do want it and mind your own business.

>From my perspective, looking at a smartphone, which I don't have, 150 times
a days is just pathetic and stupid.  But it's not my time they are wasting
with the often inane texts.

"Wait, there's more...." has proved a remarkably effective selling
technique.  The more effective the more coercive?

Maybe we are dealing with something kind of like the difference between
education and indoctrination, and I find that very hard to differentiate.
We don't teach kids bad things about our country.  Is that indoctrination?
Propaganda?  Conforming to one's peers is a very powerful force - maybe the
best selling point of all.  "The silent majority is with us."

Is our view of the sales technique influenced by what is being sold?

bill w

On Tue, May 31, 2016 at 2:19 PM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 31 May 2016 at 19:21, William Flynn Wallace  wrote:
> > 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.
> <snip>
> > 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.
> >
> >
>
> I think what I mostly object to is 'hidden' sales techniques that prey
> on the unwary / less smart.
>
> I don't mind adverts, as they can be ignored. (Half the work my
> computer does is deleting adverts and cleaning up the websites before
> I see the webpage). If people had been told that buying a smartphone
> would mean a life spent staring at a small screen, oblivious to their
> surroundings, would they still have gone down that route?
>
> About 10% of the 18-25 generation text *during* sex. Not before or
> after, - during!
>
> Persuading people to do / buy things they don't really want almost
> amounts to coercion / theft.
> If these techniques are used to persuade a majority to vote Trump into
> power, is that OK? After all, people voted for him and they
> (supposedly) had a free choice.
> I remember reading Vance Packard's The Hidden Persuaders (pub.1957).
> He was shocked by the techniques used then. What would he think
> nowadays?
>
> BillK
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> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
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>
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