Comment by milesrout
18 days ago
I don't think that is really the source of the issues for most people that are bad with money.
They spend more than they earn. They don't earn enough and they spend too much.
It is like blaming Cocacola for people being fat. Yeah they probably have some diffuse structural blame for the situation at a societal level but nobody is forcing anyone to drink a litre of coke a day or to fritter away their money on takeaways instead of investing it sensibly.
Could you blame advertisers for people spending money. Maybe? Do ads even work? They don't seem to work at all in politics so I doubt they do much anywhere else.
> Do ads even work? They don't seem to work at all in politics so I doubt they do much anywhere else.
Is the planet even round? It don't seem to be round everywhere I look so I doubt it is round anywhere else. :)
Please ask an LLM to explain the basics of epistemology to you.
Don't be condescending when you don't even understand the difference between a hypothesis based on a translation of an observation in one field into another, and a firm conclusion based on the same.
Absent all the other evidence we have, hypothesising that the world is flat because everywhere is locally flat would be entirely reasonable.
> It is like blaming Cocacola for people being fat. > Do ads even work?
Coca-Cola spends four billion dollars a year on advertising. Generally speaking, ad revenues are in the order of trillions. It's hard to claim they don't work.
> They spend more than they earn. They don't earn enough and they spend too much.
Yeah, because Coca Cola (and other "businesses") convince them to spend.
> Yeah they probably have some diffuse structural blame for the situation at a societal level but nobody is forcing anyone to drink a litre of coke a day
Have you seen advertisements at all?
Nobody's forcing people to see/hear them. But they're shoved in your face wherever you go.
> Could you blame advertisers for people spending money. Maybe?
Not even just maybe. You're shortselling yourself.
> They don't seem to work at all in politics so I doubt they do much anywhere else.
You might want to double check how politics use advertisements.
> Yeah, because Coca Cola (and other "businesses") convince them to spend.
It's amusing to see that a lot of people don't believe in ad, because "they don't work on me".
I think that the best lesson school should teach is to learn how to shield ourselves from ads and avoid consumerism. Not going to happen in the US for obvious reasons.
I don't think that ads don't work on me. Of course they do. But they don't make anyone do anything. They encourage, they suggest, they shape your ideas. But no number of Cocacola ads will get me to buy Cocacola because I don't like Cocacola! It tastes bad. The same applies generally: you can suggest and cajole and encourage all you like, but ultimately the decision lies with me. You aren't responsible for my decisions. If I am only aware of the brands that advertise, that is my fault for not doing any independent research before purchasing. Maybe that is fine, because it is a low impact purchase. But that is still a decision.
Ads do not make anyone do anything. Only one person is responsible for what you do: you!
BTW, accepting this is very liberating.
You can only convince someone with an argument and ads don't have arguments. Cocacola suggests they spend. It plants ideas in their heads. It puts Coke at the top of their minds. But the decision is not Coke's. Coke doesn't make them buy Coke. This is basic responsibility.
>Nobody's forcing people to see/hear them. But they're shoved in your face wherever you go.
So what? You are forced to hear or see all sorts of things in your life. That has nothing to do with whether you are ultimately responsible for your own decisions.
I think that on a societal level we should be talking about what impact these products (ultraprocessed food) have. But that is no excuse at an individual level. It is so easy to be normal: just don't eat crap food, which BTW is far more expensive than cooking your own meals.
>You might want to double check how politics use advertisements.
Hilary and Kamala outspent Trump by huge amounts and it did basically nothing. Lots of research shows that political campaign spending has little or no correlation with electoral success across many different countries.
It turns out that when decisions are important people make their own minds up, ads don't tell them what to think, and politics is important enough if you care enough to vote at all.
> You can only convince someone with an argument
That's a logical fallacy.
> ads don't have arguments
No, they have information. Often misinformation.
Let me pick just from some that Coca Cola themselves have had in the past [0]:
- "BE REALLY REFRESHED..."
- "SIGN OF GOOD TASTE"
- "It's the real thing. Coke."
- "Have a coke and a smile."
What's the common theme among these? That if you drink coca-cola, then you will be affected by good things.
[0]: https://www.coca-colacompany.com/about-us/history/history-of...
> Coke doesn't make them buy Coke.
Nope, but it certainly does convince people to buy coke.
> So what? You are forced to hear or see all sorts of things in your life. That has nothing to do with whether you are ultimately responsible for your own decisions.
You seriously think that hearing something won't affect your decision making?
So if you're standing on a sidewalk next to a road and you hear a large vehicle coming, are you going to continue doing what you do, or will you decide to avoid the danger?
And, if you do decide to avoid the danger, do you not think that someone who sees an advertisement for a product can likewise make a decision that they wouldn't have made without seeing the advertisement?
> I think that on a societal level we should be talking about what impact these products (ultraprocessed food) have.
Yes, absolutely.
> But that is no excuse at an individual level
Sure, sure.
> It is so easy to be normal: just don't eat crap food
I'm sure you're writing that with a straight face. I'm also sure you're writing it without thinking.
> just don't eat crap food, which BTW is far more expensive than cooking your own meals.
You really think that? Would you consider opportunity costs here? It's truly unconscionable that you'd make a statement like this without considering the cost in time to learn how to cook vs doing other work or relaxing, or the cost in time to actually do cooking vs paying someone else to cook while you do CEO things, or the cost in sanity if you don't like to cook.
It's also just as easy to eat crap food when you cook crap food for yourself.
> Lots of research shows that political campaign spending has little or no correlation with electoral success across many different countries.
You really think it has to do with the spending and not the message?
> It turns out that when decisions are important people make their own minds up, ads don't tell them what to think, and politics is important enough if you care enough to vote at all.*
And on the flip side of the coin there are a lot of people who go out to vote just on party lines. That's not thinking at all.
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