[myshpa]

> Advertising, by its very nature, is emotional manipulation with the goal of getting you to give up some of your money for something you most likely don't really need and won't improve your life all that much

I've heard somewhere that ads are rich people screaming "give me money".

(i know, i know, but i like it)

> To me, that's evil.

Bill Hicks on marketing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHEOGrkhDp0

[Terr_]

> I've heard somewhere that ads are rich people screaming "give me money".

That makes me think of this Paul Graham piece on "the PR industry, lurking like a huge, quiet submarine beneath the news." [0]

[0] http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

[nick-of-time]

He makes one really good insight:

> If you really want to be a critical reader, it turns out you have to step back one step further, and ask not just whether the author is telling the truth, but why he's writing about this subject at all.

Followed quickly by being hopelessly naïve about the future:

> Whatever its flaws, the writing you find online is authentic. It's not mystery meat cooked up out of scraps of pitch letters and press releases, and pressed into molds of zippy journalese. It's people writing what they think.