[DanielBMarkham]

This was long-winded and flawed in many ways.

To point just one flaw out: part of the argument is that the modern culture is designed by marketers to keep you unhealthy and consuming.

That's confusing, yet again, correlation with causation. It's just as likely that modern marketers are just doing what people want. That the current system of distraction, consumption, and unhealthiness is evolutionary and not some master plan of a cadre of evil overlords. Sure, it makes for a better straw man to bounce your essay off of, but it's flawed. If nothing else, it assumes a personality for a thing that quite obviously involves tens of thousands of people acting independently. Usually (almost always, really) such systems are emergent in nature.

I understand all the emotional buttons that are being pushed with this, and by all means enjoy your time reading it. I enjoy a good rant and pipe dream about "rational social planning" as much as the next guy. All I ask is to take a little time and ask "Am I being manipulated by people I should hate? Or am I being told a story and a narrative about people to hate so that I can be manipulated?"

EDIT: Of course the truth is somewhere in-between, and I didn't mean to make a false dichotomy. Most times these types of reasoning errors are simply artifacts of the way people solve problems. So, for instance, if you feel that systems are controlled from the top-down, you are more likely to see a dysfunctional system and assume that it was made that way from the top-down. Those of us who have studied dysfunctional systems can only wish that things were that simple. They aren't.

[moultano]

I think that is actually his point towards the end of the essay. Replace "the man" with "the invisible hand." It's the same thing anyways. The solution is to build up your own personal resistence, not to rage against any external force (according to him.)

[DanielBMarkham]

A point which I think we can all agree.

I continue to be amazed at how many different places you can start at and end up with existentialism.

[jasonkester]

It doesn't really matter whether the current system was designed by Evil Overlords or not. The author's description of the current state of things was reasonably accurate, so the question at hand is "what, as an individual, should I do about it?"

The first step in working the system is knowing that it's a system that can be worked.

Knowing that advertising, consumerism, competitiveness, worries about job security, etc. can be safely ignored is a good start. It then follows that you can wiggle yourself some extra disposable income and a healthy disinterest in your "career". From there, you quickly get to a state of perceived freedom. Keep going and maybe you'll figure out how to be happy. (hint: it doesn't require the addition of any new "stuff" to what you already have.)

[davidhollander]

>part of the argument is that the modern culture is designed by marketers to keep you unhealthy and consuming.

Welcome to the field of Applied Psychology and Cognitive Science. Once you have reverse engineered the mind, the only practical application is manipulating it.

>just as likely that modern marketers are just doing what people want

For a TRILLION dollars we are not talking about "marketers" in the Mad Men, I-made-a-website-and-wrote-a-book, or "social media expert" sense. We are at minimum talking about behavioral psychologist PhDs and global corporate parasites like Coca Cola, Philip Moris Tobacco, etc.

In reality, those are still on the billion dollar level and not on the top of the food chain. The only trillion dollar companies I'm aware of though are financial institutions, so that would be my criticism of the article. If you really want to make a trillion dollars, you'll need to be much closer to the monetary spigot. In other words, a bank.

[blasdel]

Neither Coca-Cola nor Phillip Morris invented their products or market segments — cola/caffeine and tobacco/nicotine have been used for thousands of years by huge portions of every population to gain access to them.

The products have always sold themselves, if anything it's the marketers and behavioral psychologists that are the parasites (on the commodity-selling industries).

[radu_floricica]

> the only practical application is manipulating it

Or improve it?

[gritzko]

Manipulation is simpler and pays better.

[radu_floricica]

The proper answer is a bit longer. When you have more then one entity with this knowledge, sooner or later you're going to have an arms race. Which has, as a byproduct, all sides getting better and better.

So it's not really a question of one or the other. Having manipulation will, long term, lead to corresponding vaccination.