[Terr_]

> That is the dishonesty and obfuscation.

The problem is that no culture/philosophy has (yet?) even found a clean line.

Ex: How different must the fixed menu picture of the "Burger and Fries combo"--designed to manipulate me into feeling hunger--be from the real food before it's fraud? If I tell you "pink elephants", I have created text that placed an idea into your mind against your will, but is that an offense?

[pbhjpbhj]

If it's not a picture of food cooked by a worker at the company, in the regular kitchen, with the normal ingredients then surely it's fraud (lying to get money)?

Market capitalism needs truth and transparency to have any chance of optimising delivery of goods/services. These should be preeminent goals of Western Capitalism.

[Terr_]

It's not an exact picture of the not-yet-existing burger you will receive anyway, why not say that's fraud too?

The line is subjective.

[pbhjpbhj]

Fraud requires purposeful deception. It doesn't need to be 'the not-yet-existing burger', it just needs not to be designed to deceive you.

I'm not arguing the line isn't subjective.

But, if it's not made with the same ingredients, or for example isn't actually food (as with many marketing images for food), then it's deceptive. I hope you agree?

If it wasn't even made in the restaurant you're in, then I'd agree that is more of a blurred line - if it was made with the same equipment, to the same standards, by the same company, that's reasonable.

I think my point still stands that truth is essential if the mechanism of market forces is to be at all effective.

[echoangle]

I’ll bite and say I don’t agree with

> But, if it's not made with the same ingredients, or for example isn't actually food (as with many marketing images for food), then it's deceptive. I hope you agree?

The point of the image is to give a preview what you’re about to get. It doesn’t have to be the real thing. If I sell screws online and only have CAD drawings and 3D renders of them, is that deceptive? As long as the product is properly described by the image, it doesn’t matter where it comes from. You could also sell burgers with hand-drawn preview images of them if you wanted to.

[pbhjpbhj]

>As long as the product is properly described by the image, it doesn’t matter where it comes from. You could also sell burgers with hand-drawn preview images of them if you wanted to. //

I think we agree.

The only thing left is to decide what properly described means -- as is so often the case with such matters. Thanks for your comment and pushback.