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Google in Sicko Storm - Welcome to democracy google style
mouser:
Let me add something i think is important for this discussion:
Most of economic theory seems to be based on the presumption of a fairly rationale (in terms of their self interest) and informed public.
One of my biggest concerns about the world we live in is that the commercial marketplace has their hooks in every level of power in our society, and is set up to distributed advertising/propaganda/misleading information in an incredibly effective fashion, and leveraging every innate weakness of the human psyche.
In such a situation, it's my belief that the normal controls that a "free marketplace" might excercise are ineffective in practice. You don't get the benefits of democracy if most of your population is not informed about the issues.
Cpilot:
Let me add something i think is important for this discussion:
Most of economic theory seems to be based on the presumption of a fairly rationale (in terms of their self interest) and informed public.
One of my biggest concerns about the world we live in is that the commercial marketplace has their hooks in every level of power in our society, and is set up to distributed advertising/propaganda/misleading information in an incredibly effective fashion, and leveraging every innate weakness of the human psyche.
In such a situation, it's my belief that the normal controls that a "free marketplace" might excercise are ineffective in practice. You don't get the benefits of democracy if most of your population is not informed about the issues.
-mouser (July 13, 2007, 05:32 PM)
--- End quote ---
The tools for the population to be informed are already out there if that population chooses to be informed.
The problem isn't different companies trying to spin favorable opinions about their products, they exist to make money. It's no different than when someone goes to a job interview and inflates their resume' to spin their abilities in a more favorable way, how many times you think someone would hire you if you emphasize your negative characteristics?.
The problem is the decline in critical thinking skills, the ability to determine absolutes with society emphasizing relative thinking over logic.
If someone feels that a product, service or idea is garbage they are put into a position to defend that feeling by others who are always pushing to "see it from another angle".
The problem is looking at issues from a relative position, no one nowadays is allowed to have an absolute opinion on anything.
People are susceptible to marketing because society is wishy-washy.
Grorgy:
Im interested in how you can satisfactorily discuss economics in more than a very theoretical sense if you remove issues of public policy. It seems to me that the 'laboroatory' for the 'science of economics' is the real world, and in that real world it is public policy which to a large degree determines what will happen in economic policy.
Lashiec:
I should mention that although PR departments in big companies are full of liars, some of the blame should be put on the people for believing downright lies (that's what all ads are about). Sometimes it's because of simple ignorance, but most it's caused by lack of time to properly weight all the alternatives. Media should be doing this job, but they need money to survive, and they lost objectivism time ago. Individuals on the Internet have to cover this hole, but unlike the people around DC, some of them are not trustable anymore. Consumer organizations are also a good, objective group (at least in Spain).
But what do you expect considering the people in charge of everything are being taught the wrong things? The first thing they taught me about economics is that companies pursue the ultimate objective of making the best products of the market. The teacher almost kicked me out of the class, because I was laughing so hard :-[
Good opinions, everyone. My rhetoric can't compete with your well-thought opinions. And to think we are (theoretically) just a bunch of software fanatics ;D
alxwz:
Let me add something i think is important for this discussion:
Most of economic theory seems to be based on the presumption of a fairly rationale (in terms of their self interest) and informed public.-mouser (July 13, 2007, 05:32 PM)
--- End quote ---
That's not necessarily correct. Only the most basic economic theories are based on such assumptions, and most economists are well aware that this is a crude way of modeling. There are a lot of economic theories that deal with informational asymetries (like the principal-agent theory), different risk aversions, non-rational choice and the like. But AFAICT (it's been quite a while since dealt with that stuff at university, and my curriculum only included parts of economics then) there is no unified theory to wrap all this into a big picture. The problem is, IMHO, that some people generalize the most primitive theories to help them pursue their agenda and their real (hidden) interests.
One of my biggest concerns about the world we live in is that the commercial marketplace has their hooks in every level of power in our society, and is set up to distributed advertising/propaganda/misleading information in an incredibly effective fashion, and leveraging every innate weakness of the human psyche.
In such a situation, it's my belief that the normal controls that a "free marketplace" might excercise are ineffective in practice. You don't get the benefits of democracy if most of your population is not informed about the issues.
-mouser (July 13, 2007, 05:32 PM)
--- End quote ---
This point of view is pretty much mainstream in most parts of Europe (at least Western and Central Europe), and most people here agree that there has to be a strong "social" component in economy and society, and that effective controls have to be in place to regulate the "free marketplace". The problem is that there has been a lot of pressure lately from the U.S. (and globalization in general) to abandon all those social "hurdles". Life has become a lot tougher here over the last 10-20 years.
Wrt advertising, I'd like to say that I'm pretty fed up with all the aggressive advertising everywhere nowadays.
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