I like digging through Slashdot’s comments. You can get a very good information and knowledge beyond the original article, or simply fall off your seat laughing so hard at witty one-liner. But sometimes you can get what is needed to reaffirm your faith. This comment was done by #777677. Big wall of text coming right up (you’ve been warned).

That’s not really paranoia. In fact marketers have a word for it; they call it “mindshare”. There are related concepts. For example, what is advertising other than the manipulation of behavior (convincing you to do something you may not have done had you not seen the ad) brought about by “planting a message in everyone’s head”? Advertisers will use humor, half-truths, small children, etc. to get you to associate laughter, an inaccurate but convenient worldview, or paternalistic/maternalistic feelings and instincts with their products. Absolutely nothing is sacred to them; nothing is so good or wholesome or precious or innocent or sacred that they won’t use it as a tool to create an emotional association that allows them to implant a suggestion. They don’t see you as a human being who is equal to them and worthy of respect. They can’t, because if they saw you that way, they would be disinclined to manipulate you. They see you as a dehumanized resource to be mined just like so much coal or metallic ore. This is a good fit with the nature of a corporation and the way it calls on human beings to become interchangable parts in its machinery. Beings who are individuals and worthy of love and respect are not interchangable parts in a faceless machine.

If a company sees an increase in sales immediately following an advertising campaign, something has happened other than customers proactively considering all available options and choosing the best solution for their needs based on objective criteria. If the customers were doing that, no advertisement of any kind would change their minds because the dialog of a TV commercial does not change their needs or the facts of their situation. That something that has happened is manipulation by suggestion.

What you call paranoia is the realization that anyone willing to treat people in such an alienated, dehumanized fashion does this because he fancies himself to be their master. As mindless, sheeplike, obsessed with conformity, and unfamiliar with critical thinking as most people have become (yes I do level this charge; do you doubt it?), such a person is unfortunately correct in many cases. I realize that our current economy depends on this system and that the people participating in it are mostly well-meaning and ignorant of the damage that it does because it is difficult to quantify. You can’t really assign a numer or an equation to it and our culture is terrible at handling anything for which this is the case because we celebrate cleverness but not wisdom.

Lots of people seem like they want to believe that there are no downsides to our current way of life. I am merely saying that we hear about the benefits of this system all the time; what so few are willing to discuss are its costs. No one is fully informed without a solid understanding of both the benefits and the costs. You were right, in a way, that it was being taken “out on an emotional limb”, but that’s because the manipulation upon which much of the modern economy is based is primarily accomplished by emotional impact. Contrast that with persuasion, which is done dispassionately with facts and reasoning, and you can then discern the motivation with ease.