Just a note for the reader: Think about how this article/blog is presented: Frame work, a number of historically ordered examples from the US, then a present example (conflict with Iran).
1. The framework presents an organizing structure or principle.
2. The historical examples provide evidence of (1).
3. The current conflict is supposed to be seen as analogous to (2) and thus be another example of (1).
Questions or concerns we might have:
i. Are there other organizing or interpretive frameworks missing that could have been mentioned in (1)? It seems plausible there could be.
ii. Why does the analysis of some of the historical examples omit key details about just how the example fits the framework? For instance, the first example for bacon says: "Steps 1-3, clean execution. Today, 70% of bacon consumed in the United States is eaten at breakfast. The “traditional American breakfast” was invented by one man in a PR office." No articulation of steps 4 and 5, so is there reason to double this is necessarily an example of (1).
iii. What work does providing a list of historical examples to? Plausibly, the reader thinks the framework in (1) is manipulative in some manner and thus wrong to implement. So, by providing a historical examples from past to present, from consumer choices to wars, readers are presented with an amplification of emotional stakes and moral wrongness: stakes and wrongness increase from bad (breakfast choice manipulation) to worse (support for wars, killings). Moreover, the current conflict (3) presented last in the list of historical examples arguably connotes as a kind of historical inevitability (one that albeit shouldn't be one), which brings the emotional resonance and sense of wrong to crescendo.
What I've written here doesn't allow us to conclude the author is wrong. What I take it to do is give us pause to think about why it might have seemed plausible, why it might have resonated with the reader, and to ask whether its structure and mode of presentation (content selection) are doing more evidentiary work than it first appears.
> I find this simultaneously the most useful and the most disturbing thing I’ve ever learned about human beings. Useful because - if you can see the playbook - you can choose not to be played. Disturbing because the playbook has been visible for a century, and we keep falling for it anyway.
If you can see the playbook, you can choose not to be played. But you will then see billions of people being played anyway. And then, you will be played again because someone will improve on that playbook so you won't see it in time to do anything.
Obvious solution: make children learn about countering techniques of manipulation at school. Result: a nation of anarchists?
> So I feel pretty confident in stating that it's either gonna be ads or payments.
I'm assuming you mean exclusive disjunction here, but in reality it's something closer to a conjunction, if not occasionally an inclusive disjunction. So many subscription services also have ads and if they don't, they eventually do.
The problem isn't that people want things for free; hell, we all pay for access to the internet already. The problem is a shit-ton of monied interests want to squeeze every possible dollar from people always. So we're slammed with ads and our behavior is manipulated and tracked and monetized and sold.
This was not how things were on the internet or the web in mid 90s. It was not the ethos then, but it became the ethos when monied interests took over.
Someone who is willing to pay for a service is also an extremely desirable person to show advertisements to. You've just demonstrated you have disposable income.
I think this is why so many YouTubers do sponsored segments: it’s the only way that I, a YouTube premium subscriber, will see an ad. (YT Premium still lets you skip to the end of the segment.)
Sponsored segments is no different to Netflix (and other producers) selling "product placement" in TV shows or films. If anything they are far more subtle and effective as the viewer isn't usually aware.
I remember once watching an episode (can't remember the show) where the dialogue included characters talking about how good their new car was. The B-rolls would show almost every angle of the car too.
Sure enough, according to the end credits, the episode had product placement from the car manufacturer.
This instance it was a little _too_ obvious but I have no doubt I've been exposed to hundreds of in-film/show adverts.
That will cover the physical infrastructure of your Internet provider. But there are a lot of websites and software on the internet that require either ads or payment to survive. Free usually means "surviving with somebody else's money aka investors"
While I agree somewhat with the descriptive aspect of your comment I think you assume a view of humans that is too atomic or individualistic as agenents. No doubt "these people" have "made" consuming a large part of their identity, but this is only half the story.
The reality in which many in the US and maybe the West generally (perhaps elsewhere too) is one in which one's life as an agent is constrained within the bounds of being a consumer. What I mean is people are habituated into expressing their agency as a consumer: Someone or thing offers you something, you "decide" to accept it or reject it. If you don't like what's being offered, you leverage your ability to consume as the means by which you exert power over the producer, i.e., "Make me an offer I like or I'll consumer elsewhere (if I can)".
So, of course people's identities are consumption centered. This is because is what reality is for peoples' everyday life, consumption choices. So people express who they are through the available consumption choices. Think about how people are marketed to, at least in the US. People are slammed with "Your choice" and "have it your way" and "be you" in advertising as if consuming a product is an expression of their respective identities.
Anyway, this is all just to say: The structure of society and the discourse that supports it plays a big role in constraining and guiding how people think and what choices people can even imagine are open to them when making decisions. So not all the responsibility or blame should be focused on individuals, but on large social structures, practices, and discourses.
> So, of course people's identities are consumption centered
> The structure of society and the discourse that supports it plays a big role in constraining and guiding how people think and what choices people can even imagine are open to them when making decisions. So not all the responsibility or blame should be focused on individuals, but on large social structures, practices, and discourses.
In my opinion, just by virtue of living in the developed world you're not going to be producing more than you consume. That's how the core works, it siphons from the periphery.
Additionally to what others have said LineageOS (Android open source OS) allows you to selectively turn on/off carrier modem and radio in quick settings just like you do for wifi, bluetooth, gps etc. You can use airplane mode which will by default turn off the carrier radio and wifi, of your can manually do this selectively.
Sorry. Right now we're working on developing the lost fear of fascism and radical Protestant Nationalism (N.A.R., Seven Mountains Mandate, 'dominionism', etc). We'll work on the blood thing later.
Not a terribly substantive comment (apologies) but in place of the clunky appellation "Former Prince Andrew" I suggest "Nonce Andrew" used in its place here on out to improve style and clarity.
One strategy that I've found useful for changing my behavior: changing browsers settings to not recommend sites or fill in urls from any source be it history, favorites/bookmarks, search etc. By not having the url auto fill it makes me type urls in manually from memory and this usually involves enough purposeful cognitive effort that I can stop any automatic visiting to sites. I've also uninstalled the browser from my phone (disabled built in browser on lineage and uninstalled firefox). If there is a rare time I really, really need a browser I'll download and install it for a specific task and uninstall it right after.
1. The framework presents an organizing structure or principle. 2. The historical examples provide evidence of (1). 3. The current conflict is supposed to be seen as analogous to (2) and thus be another example of (1).
Questions or concerns we might have: i. Are there other organizing or interpretive frameworks missing that could have been mentioned in (1)? It seems plausible there could be.
ii. Why does the analysis of some of the historical examples omit key details about just how the example fits the framework? For instance, the first example for bacon says: "Steps 1-3, clean execution. Today, 70% of bacon consumed in the United States is eaten at breakfast. The “traditional American breakfast” was invented by one man in a PR office." No articulation of steps 4 and 5, so is there reason to double this is necessarily an example of (1).
iii. What work does providing a list of historical examples to? Plausibly, the reader thinks the framework in (1) is manipulative in some manner and thus wrong to implement. So, by providing a historical examples from past to present, from consumer choices to wars, readers are presented with an amplification of emotional stakes and moral wrongness: stakes and wrongness increase from bad (breakfast choice manipulation) to worse (support for wars, killings). Moreover, the current conflict (3) presented last in the list of historical examples arguably connotes as a kind of historical inevitability (one that albeit shouldn't be one), which brings the emotional resonance and sense of wrong to crescendo.
What I've written here doesn't allow us to conclude the author is wrong. What I take it to do is give us pause to think about why it might have seemed plausible, why it might have resonated with the reader, and to ask whether its structure and mode of presentation (content selection) are doing more evidentiary work than it first appears.