[ToucanLoucan]

> I like the market because it lets me make more choices of my own.

Are you making your own choices?

Do you sincerely believe that when one of the largest pillars of the American economy right now is staffed from top to bottom with PhD holders who use everything they know about psychology to make you think certain ways? To want shit you don't need? To make you play games you don't like? To make you consume art that makes you feel nothing? To make you hate people you don't know? To make you eat food that makes you feel shitty? Do you really make your own choices?

To be clear this is not meant as an attack. I'm just saying there are trillions of dollars on the line in making people, at scale, make choices. Do you really believe you are an island, free from influence? Do you honestly think your wants, needs, desires are not socially informed?

[bluGill]

You say that as if there is any alternative. Every other system as well has people who are good at psychology spreading propaganda.

[ToucanLoucan]

Oh I'm not questioning that at all. I'm just saying if they aren't really your choices, why is making them valuable to you? Sure, you have 30 different choices of peanut butter to pick from, but you always pick the same one, because it's what your mom used when you were a kiddo, or because you don't like the oil separating ones, or because the chunky makes you feel like it's healthy even though it's loaded down with as much sugar as a Coke.

What does choice even mean in that kind of environment?

[bluGill]

I have changed my peanut butter choice - when science started realizing trans fat was a problem I switched before the law changed to reflect science. I have also tried various of the 30 different options in other situations and found the one I personally like best. The value isn't just that I can make a choice, it is also that other people really do make different choices.

You are forgetting about the time factor. I don't make a choice every time, but I'm not a 22 year old out on his own for the first time either (22 was about 30 years ago for me, and there are reasonable odds I have another 30 years to go). I don't have to make a choice every time to take advantages of choices.