[Ocelot]

An interesting counterpoint from the world of perceived value

http://www.ted.com/t..._an_ad_man.html

In summary he's saying that the world of advertising is about adding perceived value without affecting reality. And yet he doesn't think that this is necessarily a bad thing. He gives examples where perceived value might be more importantant than reality, such as garnering more human satisfaction from less material wealth.

[Poor Richard]

Ocelot, on Oct 20 2009, 06:36 AM, said:

An interesting counterpoint from the world of perceived value

http://www.ted.com/t..._an_ad_man.html

In summary he's saying that the world of advertising is about adding perceived value without affecting reality. And yet he doesn't think that this is necessarily a bad thing. He gives examples where perceived value might be more importantant than reality, such as garnering more human satisfaction from less material wealth.

Sorry, Ocelot,

but value is subject to reality as much as anything else. Perceived value simply says more about the qualities of the beholder (his rose colored glasses, for example) than the thing beheld.

What if Sutherlands's train is full of doctors and nurses and xray technicians? Is it still as cute to think of slowing their travel time and raising their blood alcohol level? The story is probably most appealing to rich, fat, white businessmen, who I gather are Southerland's intended audience.

Marie Antoinette might have solved the problem by serving cake.

As far as I'm concerned these ad men are dope pushers and there should be a special level of hell for them.

And fuck happiness. We are all dopamine and endorphin junkies.

What we all need is greater knowledge of our true, enlightened self interest in the real world.


Richard

[Ocelot]

Mostly I shared because it was entertaining, but I think the one that appealed to me most was the ways to sell lower levels of consumption.

Our perceptions and conceptions may not be material items but they are still real, they come about through the material word, they appear to be nothing more than patterns of activity within our material brains and most importantly they feedback to the materials word through patterns of behaviour.

The difference in value between the original Mona Lisa hangin in the Louvere and a contemporary copy hanging in my loo might have nothing to do with the atoms and molecules that comprise the two images, but it is still real because the history and interest in the artist is part of the real world.

There can even be difference in value of even fungible commodities. Supply and demand aren't qualities of the material goods but of their environment. Nonetheless this difference in value is part of the real world.

In the US Teachers Whisky is more expensive than Jack Daniels because it's imported. In the UK JD is the more expensive brand for the same reason. Only part of this is that transport costs must be paid. The rest is the perceived value in importing a Whisky. We could just as easily have a perceived value in locally sourced goods and reducing "food miles"

[Poor Richard]

Ocelot, on Oct 25 2009, 02:47 AM, said:

Mostly I shared because it was entertaining, but I think the one that appealed to me most was the ways to sell lower levels of consumption.

I'm for lower consumption and I'm for selling people on it but not TRICKING them into it. Manipulation is not necessarily bad, but the net impact on a person's map of reality should be carefully considered. Manipulation that reinforces or preserves a person's delusions or ignorance is not ethical.

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Our perceptions and conceptions may not be material items

Or maybe they are.

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they appear to be nothing more than patterns of activity within our material brains

Where would science be if we always separated the object and the behavior, the body and motion, etc.? Neither makes any sense without the other. Politically correct science refers to "neural correlates" of consciousness rather than neural origins as if anyone can even imagine the existence of consciousness without some kind of brain (in my opinion to do so is strictly magical thinking). That's how much we have to tippy-toe around all our religious friends even in the lab.

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We could just as easily have a perceived value in locally sourced goods and reducing "food miles"

Absolutely. But I would not hire that Southerland guy for the ad campain. He was clever but did not seem committed either to ethics or reality. In fact, my impression was that he would fuck his mother to make a buck.

Richard

ps Re your title for this thread, "reality isn't everything": very funny. The whole point is that reality IS everything.