Oh, I see. Let me raise a separate objection then.
What is your rational reason for wanting happiness? There can be no good reason for such a desire. It simply is: it's axiomatic. Most desires are thus. Desires created or encouraged by marketing are no less so than others, nor is a person any less rational, in an economic sense, for pursuing them.
However, that said, I think most good marketing makes people aware of desires they already have or attempts to convince them that a product will satisfy those desires. Most marketing, again, in my opinion, does this without attempting to deceive. At most, the worst of it just attempts to spin the truth.
On the other hand, economics does also explain the appeal of, say, celebrity endorsements of certain products. The second chapter of "The Armchair Economist" has some stuff about this.
There's more than I have time to explain. You cannot convince people to buy things they don't want. People simply don't buy things they don't want. You can only convince people to want things they did not before, perhaps on false information, but you still are convincing them to want something.
If you still have objections, consider reading "The Armchair Economist." It will help you more with this than I can.
* To convince people that a product offers something they want, * To convince people that they should want something the product offers, and * To raise awareness of a product.
Economists don't judge peoples' tastes. To quote Landsberg: "When we assert that people are rational, we assert only this: That by and large, a man who wants to read the poetry of Rod McKuen, and who does not care how his books look on the table, and who feels no urge to deceive his friends about his literary tastes, and who has no other good reason to buy the collected works of Yeats, will not go out and buy the collected works of Yeats. And most of the time [on average], this is true." Also, "De gustibus non est disputandum," or, "There's no accounting for tastes."
This definition of rational in no way conflicts with marketing.
The point of the whole free-culture position is that it does not make economic sense to purchase what is downloadable for free.
Nowhere did I dispute this.
Those who wish to make money need to find something non-digital to sell. The experience of a live show is one of many hundreds of possible examples.
In the future you support, that would be true. Right now, of course, it is not. All other things being equal, if the incentive for producing digital content was decreased (I.e. you could no longer reliably sell it), the supply of such content would also decrease. Bands would record less music.
The dwarf's basic problem is that "incentives" is merely a metaphor, and as a metaphor to describe human creative activity it's pretty crummy.
How do you know they are crummy? Where is the fucking evidence? I mean numbers, not hole-y logic. And what is this bullshit "econodwarf" name-calling? Does he really think his anecdotes about Mozart prove anything? They do not. That one guy "Did it for the love," does not show that there aren't a thousand others who would have done that much and more if only the fruits of their labor were guaranteed.
And how does he support the opinion that software was worse off because of Microsoft? He says, "The result, so far as the quality of software was concerned, was disastrous," but people still bought the software. Economists assume that people act rationally in the presence of incentives on average, a hypothesis that no one has ever reproducibly shown false. If you want to say that people were irrational to buy MS software, OK then, but there's no evidence to show on average that this is ever true. I only boot Linux, but I cannot understand those who think that Linux (Or any other piece of free software) is strictly better than Windows (Or any other piece of proprietary software).
From my POV, that article you cited is a lot of feel-good, unsupported crap. Some people are willing to do the work for free, and they should. But those who require payment will not do the work if it is not possible to charge money for it. In everything you cited, there's nothing suggesting my previous statement to be incorrect.
The study of economics proposes that people respond to incentives. P2P deincentivizes the purchase of music, because there is a substitute good for a lower price. This is the opposite of what you are suggesting. Do you have any data to refute this cursory analysis of your argument?
I ask because I see this argument all the time, but I have never once seen data to back it up. The status quo assumption should obviously be that, if people can download something for free, they will not buy it. A serious skeptic would offer some evidence that this is not the case. Otherwise, it's just an unsubstantiated conjecture.
Kinda like this? Certain kinds of judgement passing are healthy, certain kinds aren't. Saying that a kid is wasting his life because he wants to become a lawyer falls in the latter class.
I think animals that eat more meat and use other animals to their advantage are the ones that tend to move up in the evolutionary chain. So, I don't really get your meaning.
No. I'm saying that they don't immediately get what they want either way. If they firebomb my house, there's a good chance that they will be incarcerated. If they don't, then they can't immediately bend me to their will. Their only safe path is the long, slow process of the law. Even that can never work for them because most people believe on some level the same thing that I do, even if they don't think about it.
We should kill all the lions too because they eat other animals. Oh the . . . well, humanity doesn't apply, but I think you catch my meaning.
At some level, all this terrorism stuff comes from people who start out with radically different premises on some issue. You think that animals have some basic rights. I believe that animals are only worth a damn inasmuch as they serve my purposes or the purposes of the rest of humanity. We can never agree on this one, so our only choice is to ignore it or to fight against each other. Fortunately, the law is on my side in this case. You lose if you fight me, and you lose if you don't.
Yes, I got the wrong article, but I believe that adsense does still do this. If you search Google for/adwords auction/, you will find many references to the Adwords auction system. Thanks for pointing out my error, but my question stands.
I agree on your analysis of what Google is doing. I also have a question. They're trying to avoid losing their trademark by keeping the name from becoming too mainstream a word. However, do they actually have to succeed in order to maintain the trademark? Or, do they only have to demonstrate that they are trying?
Nationalism is historically and presently very common. Come on, you can't tell me you haven't seen it before. It's just as stupid as it was when Hitler was preaching it seventy years ago.
Oops. That's . . . whose law is it again? Whatever.
Come on, it's not that hard to get a job here. You just have to try! And it really is a nice place to work. A lot of fun, cool people, (unexpectedly) kind of family-centric, and the pay's nothing to sneeze at either.:) I recommend it to anyone who's thinking about giving it a shot. Don't let the interview process scare you!
BillG seems to be anything but interested in setting himself up as a great ruler. I don't think there's any similarity between Osymandius of the poem and Gates.
A search client in which stored searches are not important to the company's business is not the same as, say, a customer relationship management system where the data is important. You argument relies on the idea that all web apps used within a company will have the same level of importance attached, which is obviously not true. The parent may make some sweeping generalizations, but you are even further off target.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, I see. Let me raise a separate objection then.
What is your rational reason for wanting happiness? There can be no good reason for such a desire. It simply is: it's axiomatic. Most desires are thus. Desires created or encouraged by marketing are no less so than others, nor is a person any less rational, in an economic sense, for pursuing them.
However, that said, I think most good marketing makes people aware of desires they already have or attempts to convince them that a product will satisfy those desires. Most marketing, again, in my opinion, does this without attempting to deceive. At most, the worst of it just attempts to spin the truth.
On the other hand, economics does also explain the appeal of, say, celebrity endorsements of certain products. The second chapter of "The Armchair Economist" has some stuff about this.
I normally don't like to quote myself, but right now, it's appropriate. From the comment you replied to:
"You can only convince people to want things they did not before, perhaps on false information, but you still are convincing them to want something."
How in the world do you extract from that quote the idea that I don't think marketing involves shaping people's desires?
There's more than I have time to explain. You cannot convince people to buy things they don't want. People simply don't buy things they don't want. You can only convince people to want things they did not before, perhaps on false information, but you still are convincing them to want something.
If you still have objections, consider reading "The Armchair Economist." It will help you more with this than I can.
No, the basis for marketing is
* To convince people that a product offers something they want,
* To convince people that they should want something the product offers, and
* To raise awareness of a product.
Economists don't judge peoples' tastes. To quote Landsberg: "When we assert that people are rational, we assert only this: That by and large, a man who wants to read the poetry of Rod McKuen, and who does not care how his books look on the table, and who feels no urge to deceive his friends about his literary tastes, and who has no other good reason to buy the collected works of Yeats, will not go out and buy the collected works of Yeats. And most of the time [on average], this is true." Also, "De gustibus non est disputandum," or, "There's no accounting for tastes."
This definition of rational in no way conflicts with marketing.
The point of the whole free-culture position is that it does not make economic sense to purchase what is downloadable for free.
Nowhere did I dispute this.
Those who wish to make money need to find something non-digital to sell. The experience of a live show is one of many hundreds of possible examples.
In the future you support, that would be true. Right now, of course, it is not. All other things being equal, if the incentive for producing digital content was decreased (I.e. you could no longer reliably sell it), the supply of such content would also decrease. Bands would record less music.
The dwarf's basic problem is that "incentives" is merely a metaphor, and as a metaphor to describe human creative activity it's pretty crummy.
How do you know they are crummy? Where is the fucking evidence? I mean numbers, not hole-y logic. And what is this bullshit "econodwarf" name-calling? Does he really think his anecdotes about Mozart prove anything? They do not. That one guy "Did it for the love," does not show that there aren't a thousand others who would have done that much and more if only the fruits of their labor were guaranteed.
And how does he support the opinion that software was worse off because of Microsoft? He says, "The result, so far as the quality of software was concerned, was disastrous," but people still bought the software. Economists assume that people act rationally in the presence of incentives on average, a hypothesis that no one has ever reproducibly shown false. If you want to say that people were irrational to buy MS software, OK then, but there's no evidence to show on average that this is ever true. I only boot Linux, but I cannot understand those who think that Linux (Or any other piece of free software) is strictly better than Windows (Or any other piece of proprietary software).
From my POV, that article you cited is a lot of feel-good, unsupported crap. Some people are willing to do the work for free, and they should. But those who require payment will not do the work if it is not possible to charge money for it. In everything you cited, there's nothing suggesting my previous statement to be incorrect.
The study of economics proposes that people respond to incentives. P2P deincentivizes the purchase of music, because there is a substitute good for a lower price. This is the opposite of what you are suggesting. Do you have any data to refute this cursory analysis of your argument?
I ask because I see this argument all the time, but I have never once seen data to back it up. The status quo assumption should obviously be that, if people can download something for free, they will not buy it. A serious skeptic would offer some evidence that this is not the case. Otherwise, it's just an unsubstantiated conjecture.
What will really be remembered . . . will be those other countries tooling up for being the United States' information slaves.
Corrected. Come on, man, you've gotta have higher aspirations than that.
OK, I can roll with that. :) I would not try to force him not to say it, but I still think it's wrong for him to do so.
Kinda like this? Certain kinds of judgement passing are healthy, certain kinds aren't. Saying that a kid is wasting his life because he wants to become a lawyer falls in the latter class.
Is it right to imprison a kidnapper (I.e. to imprison someone who does wrong by imprisoning a third person)?
Right has other meanings than the legal. The one I meant was, "A moral entitlement."
Responsibility and youthfulness are not irreconcilable. :) Congratulations on being forty-six years young!
I hope you realize that you have no right to pass judgement on someone else like this.
I think animals that eat more meat and use other animals to their advantage are the ones that tend to move up in the evolutionary chain. So, I don't really get your meaning.
No. I'm saying that they don't immediately get what they want either way. If they firebomb my house, there's a good chance that they will be incarcerated. If they don't, then they can't immediately bend me to their will. Their only safe path is the long, slow process of the law. Even that can never work for them because most people believe on some level the same thing that I do, even if they don't think about it.
We should kill all the lions too because they eat other animals. Oh the . . . well, humanity doesn't apply, but I think you catch my meaning.
At some level, all this terrorism stuff comes from people who start out with radically different premises on some issue. You think that animals have some basic rights. I believe that animals are only worth a damn inasmuch as they serve my purposes or the purposes of the rest of humanity. We can never agree on this one, so our only choice is to ignore it or to fight against each other. Fortunately, the law is on my side in this case. You lose if you fight me, and you lose if you don't.
Read this Wikipedia section about trademark abandonment and genericide and you will understand.
Yes, I got the wrong article, but I believe that adsense does still do this. If you search Google for /adwords auction/, you will find many references to the Adwords auction system. Thanks for pointing out my error, but my question stands.
I thought Google Adsense already did the whole real time auction thing. This article seems to confirm the idea.
I agree on your analysis of what Google is doing. I also have a question. They're trying to avoid losing their trademark by keeping the name from becoming too mainstream a word. However, do they actually have to succeed in order to maintain the trademark? Or, do they only have to demonstrate that they are trying?
On top of that, in my experience, we don't normally chillax _with_ the students while grading.
Nationalism is historically and presently very common. Come on, you can't tell me you haven't seen it before. It's just as stupid as it was when Hitler was preaching it seventy years ago.
Oops. That's . . . whose law is it again? Whatever.
Come on, it's not that hard to get a job here. You just have to try! And it really is a nice place to work. A lot of fun, cool people, (unexpectedly) kind of family-centric, and the pay's nothing to sneeze at either. :) I recommend it to anyone who's thinking about giving it a shot. Don't let the interview process scare you!
BillG seems to be anything but interested in setting himself up as a great ruler. I don't think there's any similarity between Osymandius of the poem and Gates.
A search client in which stored searches are not important to the company's business is not the same as, say, a customer relationship management system where the data is important. You argument relies on the idea that all web apps used within a company will have the same level of importance attached, which is obviously not true. The parent may make some sweeping generalizations, but you are even further off target.