[asdfqwer234]

"...[I]s also why we invented the wheel, harnessed fire, founded fancy schools like Harvard" there's a huge false equivalency here; I'll let you figure out which one it is.

How much consumer advertising appeals to "good" aspiration and fills a need which is fairly priced (ie doesn't have brand/marketing/silly subliminal cultural messaging priced in).

[nickelcitymario]

When I talked about inventions, I was talking about aspirations. I.e. whenever we do anything it's because we aspire to something better. Someone was cold, stumbled upon fire and saw that it kept them warm, and aspired to harness that so they could be warm all the time. I don't see how that's controversial.

As for how much advertising appeals to good aspirations, I have no idea. Probably not a lot of it. I wasn't defending all of advertising; I was saying don't throw the entire industry under the bus. I, for one, try to do only honest work for companies that provide goods and services that I believe in. Not everyone in this industry gets that freedom, but most of us do our best.

I get it, though. It's easy to hate on advertisers, just as it's easy to hate on salespeople and lawyers and politicians and stock brokers. I happen to consider all these professions necessary to our economy, though. I don't think it's a coincidence that the most prosperous societies have the most of these professions, including advertisers.