| Shamelessly reposting an earlier comment of mine (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9909259) because I feel it's relevant here: --- >For quite some time I've felt that advertising/marketing, at least the sort we've had for the past century or so, is inherently immoral. The fact that it's a necessary evil in our economic system doesn't stop it from being an evil. >Modern advertising is not merely informing people about products and what they do. It's brain-hacking, where advertisers have figured out over decades of experience, and research into human cognitive biases and failure modes, ways of presenting the same product, the same information, but getting a desired response out of the target. >We accept this as a society because we tell ourselves that, as rational human beings, we have the choice to listen to or reject these messages. But modern understandings of cognitive biases show how advertising works on deeper levels, and even works despite us knowing about the tricks that are being used on us. >The problem is that there's a severe imbalance. Advertisers are getting better and better at attacking -- at figuring out precisely what makes us tick, down to the level of pixels on an A/B-tested website.
Are people getting any better at defending themselves? Are people being trained in dealing with their cognitive biases to make themselves resistant? Overall, I don't think so. |