[razakel]

>You know your marketing yourself right now with your statements to the audience here, right?

I understand your sentiment, but I believe that's a toxic worldview.

>An audience built around silicon valley's capitalist culture...

I am criticising consumerism, not capitalism.

[sooheon]

Interesting, what do you think is the distinction? The greatest contributor to flourishing capitalism is strong consumerism. And the biggest driver of the consumerist mind is capitalist manipulation. They feed off of each other, and are so intertwined that it's hardly useful to refer to one without acknowledging that it comes with the other.

[razakel]

>Interesting, what do you think is the distinction? The greatest contributor to flourishing capitalism is strong consumerism. And the biggest driver of the consumerist mind is capitalist manipulation. They feed off of each other, and are so intertwined that it's hardly useful to refer to one without acknowledging that it comes with the other.

It would be disingenuous to pretend the two aren't highly interrelated, but we are still discussing two separate phenomena.

The distinction, I think, can be summarised by "build a better mousetrap". I'll try the new product and mention it to my friends. Soon everyone is buying the new mousetrap. That's competition at work.

You don't need a multi-million ad campaign carrying an implicit, or perhaps explicit, message of "if you don't buy <new mousetrap> your wife will leave you/women won't find you attractive/<insert any other insecurity>".

Consumerism is the encouragement of consumption by encouraging vanity and appealing to emotional insecurities. Fundamentally I object to the application of psychological science to the manipulation of society in order to extract profit by causing psychological distress.

[lonewolf_ninja]

While your distinction about building a better mousetrap is true - the corporation building a better mousetrap needs more money to put into R&D and it can get more only if it is either marketing itself to investors (consumers in this scenario?) or gaining a larger market share by promoting themselves.

[razakel]

>While your distinction about building a better mousetrap is true - the corporation building a better mousetrap needs more money to put into R&D and it can get more only if it is either marketing itself to investors (consumers in this scenario?) or gaining a larger market share by promoting themselves.

There is a distinction between promotion and advertising.

[sooheon]

I completely agree with you. But it's much more profitable (and therefore fit to survive in a capitalist system) to manipulate consumers to buying your shit mousetrap, than it is to engineer a better mousetrap.

[cmdrfred]

>The greatest contributor to flourishing capitalism is strong consumerism.

Not if you ask a businessman or a politician. Boosting the supply side is how you get to a robust economy according to them.

[sooheon]

The businesses that lobby politicians to hold these positions are simply using the most powerful marketing tools at their disposal allowed under capitalism: money.

[adrianN]

That depends on your definition of "flourishing".