Well aren’t we confusing good advice for the individual vs good advice for the mean. There is room for both sets of advice, but I think on average we need to look towards implementing policy that takes the whole into consideration. Not everyone has access to people or content that will motivate them to make the right individual choices. But, most everyone has access to advertising that actually promotes us making the wrong decision to make people money.
> Not everyone has access to people or content that will motivate them to make the right individual choices.
This might be true, but I see the much larger problem in the fact that many people, who do have such access, tend to ignore it and go with the mainstream.
> But, most everyone has access to advertising that actually promotes us making the wrong decision to make people money.
I have a strong tendency to ignore advertising that is not coherent with my values. In this sense, I believe/hope, that I am a tough nut for advertisers to crack. :-)
More seriously: I do not believe that one can manipulate people into doing/buying things that they are mentally opposed to. For example: If before a Youtube video some Netflix trailer is shown, I immediatelly think: "Not interested in the slightest as long as Netflix uses DRM" etc.
So having strong principles is a good vaccination against advertising - but most people actively do not want to become vaccinatinated against this kind of brainwashing.
You are basing your analysis purely on your own personal experience and attitude towards the world which is definitionally anecdotal and extremely anti scientific.
If people are not influenced by advertising and marketing why then do governments put fourth propaganda, why is advertising a multi billion dollar industry, why is it an extremely sought after undergraduate degree, why are there advertisements literally everywhere you look? The answer is because it works, and it makes people a lot of money and gives them a lot of power.
We are highly influenced by the mainstream and by culture, I mean culture is what is allowing us to communicate with each other by providing us with a set of symbols (alphabet and English language). In fact we don’t know what we don’t know and therefore can never truly be objective in our view of the world, it’s always built and based off of cultural artifacts and norms.
So it’s not a problem per say that people do the wrong thing at large, it’s simply a fact of life, people tend go with the flow. That means people who don’t go with the flow need to make the flow flow better. Or else you are suggesting we leave normal people behind because they suck. Where I personally think we are as individuals defined by how we help people that are weaker than ourselves.
> why is advertising a multi billion dollar industry
An atheist would argue: If god does not exist, why is religion a multi billion dollar industry? The answer is: because there are people who believe in its effectiveness and put their money where their mouth is.
Religion is a perfect example of guerilla marketing, multilayer marketing, grassroots marketing and a pyramid scheme. They advertise by hooking guilable people looking for easy answers, the churches convince their local populace to give them money, those churches then pay up to larger regional institutions and so on.
The people need to be presented something to believe in before they can pay money for it or else they wouldn’t know it existed and therefore wouldn’t be able to put their money where their mouth is. Getting the word out is the most important thing. missionary work and preaching the gospel is a main tenant of Christian theology for example... because they understand advertising and marketing is important. This is why the Catholic Church covered up the molestations of children, because they understood bad PR would hurt their bottom line.
