Re:Predatory Behavior Runs Rampant in Facebook’s Addiction S...
by rosser on Monday May 21, 2018 @05:17PM
(#17121903)
The fact of manipulation is, itself, morally neutral. When you manipulate someone into something that's against their interests, but serves yours, and that manipulation is done by means of shading (if not worse) the truth somehow, it's pretty unambiguously a negative, in my book.
Unless you somehow think that having a "society" or "economy" is predicated on that kind of manipulation. I actively repudiate that notion, personally.
Re:Predatory Behavior Runs Rampant in Facebook’s Addiction S...
by ggg9990 on Monday May 21, 2018 @05:41PM
(#17122084)
Some people who have been considered great leaders have manipulated people into something that is perhaps against their interests, but in the long-term interest of society at large. It's hard to say that the soldiers who died in the Civil War had their "interests" served, but it's a lot easier to make the claim that fighting that war was better than the alternative.
Re:Predatory Behavior Runs Rampant in Facebook’s Addiction S...
by BeetleB on Monday May 21, 2018 @05:29PM
(#17121993)
Thanks for your opinion. Do note that nowhere in my comment did I endorse manipulation by shading the truth. Nor did I suggest all manipulation is OK. My parent was making a statement without qualifiers, and I was highlighting the dangers of such statements.
>The fact of manipulation is, itself, morally neutral.
I don't disagree. The person I was responding to, however, seems to.
I'm no fan of advertising (canceled cable decades ago, happily use Ad Blocker, etc). But these sweeping statements do not sit well with me.
Any time I try to persuade someone to do something, I am engaged in brain manipulation. As someone who in the last few years decided to take up subjects like negotiation and communications, most effective communication is brain manipulation - and not in a way that is significantly different from advertising. As the GP said - once you learn these topics, you begin to see it everywhere - in all the ways people talk.
For most of my life, I tried to convince people with purely objective means, and for the most part, it was a failure. If you want to achieve good for most people, brain manipulation is not just a nice-to-have - it is a must.
So declaring it to be brain manipulation is not, in my mind, a negative. It is unfortunate, but not unreservedly evil. Certain applications of it are evil. But banning advertising wholesale is just a lazy way of not dealing with the problem.