This isn’t some flowers that actual humans enjoy, it’s fucking spying and it’s ad industry bullshit. Don’t try and put lipstick on a pig.
Re:Smart TVs Are Watching You
by chimpansteve on Saturday September 28, 2024 @12:32AM
(#41677888)
Yeah, but people who grow or sell flowers are not on the same level as the very very good engineers who develop these dystopian systems. The people in the advertising industry who make these systems could absolutely do more good for society in a different field.
This is an example of the broken window fallacy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window)
It's a curious thing, though. We have this idea that economic activity with consent is beneficial, and without consent it's theft and harmful. But this is a rule of thumb. The vast majority of things people do are - variously - pointless, inefficient, sentimental, superstitious, idle, crazy, and otherwise indefensible except by the reasoning that its our right to do what we like with what we own, what we've earned and paid for. This we call wealth, and having it makes us feel happy and secure, but to actually centrally analyze it and assess its usefulness would be a bad thing. That would only make its value evaporate. We want to be free to do dumb things, and not to be told.
Most things we do are in the end just burning energy to create, move and destroy things in the process. The guys who benefit from ads buy salad from shops employing people. It’s arguable that anything that increases economic cycles is of at least some benefit to society. That’s the advantage of capitalism.