I "joke" all the time that the CIA ended their mind control programs because they succeeded and moved all if it into the private sector in advertising.

Yes, it's absolutely horrific where we're at. But there is an upside!

If you're able to acknowledge its existence and protect against it, you've built a tremendous foundation for preserving your mental health that will last a lifetime.

One thing I've learned over the years is that these ad companies (and the companies who deploy their services) only have control over you if you give them permission to.

• Block ads whenever you can.
• Avoid apps/websites that use dark patterns. .
• Work to improve your health (physical and mental), find meaningful tasks, be with people in real life or enjoy the outdoors alone; the less time you spend on ad territory, the less impact they will have on you.
• Buy from ethical companies, if possible.
• Avoid "influencers", people who constantly promote "sponsored content", and other strongly bias sources for your information or entertainment.

We as a society aren't okay with it. There's tons of pushback against it. But the corporations own the politicians that make the laws. We need to revoke the "corporations are people" ruling to make any progress on this and many other fronts.

Also can't forget gaming companies that have turned many modern games into Skinner-boxes.

You know all that research that gets done by colleges that gets published? You know how they're all bound by ethical guidelines about how they conduct those studies?

You know who doesn't publish their studies? You know who's not bound by those same ethical guidelines? Merely by law? You know who has way more expendable cash? And a vested interest in spending it this way?

Look into the careers of guys like Ernest Dichter or Louis Cheskin. And those guys only did it into the 80s.

Imagine the knowledge some of these companies have with smartphone usage data and shit. It's wild.

Welcome to capitalism babyyyyyy

Young girls have had this happening for decades. Today they're constantly being fed fake images and cartoonishly filtered women in videos as the base standard of beauty. They're told that their flaws are "ugly" and "embarrassing".

But buy our makeup / skincare / acne treatment / anti-fat tea and you'll finally be beautiful and people won't think you're ugly flith!!

That's exactly where I wanted to work, but before you hate, I wanted to get into advertising because I didn't like what I saw and thought I could do better. I got the degrees, took the psych classes, and set off to change the world for the better. Nobody hired me.

You can't buy what you don't know exists, and there are some awesome things out there. But being hammered by messages or propaganda is lazy and abusive; I don't put up with it.

So yeah, I'm an wannabe advertiser turned massive ad blocker/privacy supporter. Screw the industry.

It also counters the consumer-as-rational-agent model that underlies most mainstream economics.

This isn't a recent thing, it's been going on since the beginning of psychology in the early 20th century. The doco 'The century of the self' explains it all https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

I recently found out that you can watch full youtube videos without ads if you only watch the... whatsitcalled...thumbnail?... you can even enabke the sound. No adds! That feels like a loophole. There's better solutions, but this one feels special, since it's in the official youtube app. I can't believe they left that in on accident though, but I'll take it.

That's the beautiful thing about weaponizing psychology; if you've done it well enough, people won't even realize that you've done it

Reminds me of Minutemen's song Shit From an Old Notebook: "Let the products sell themselves Fuck advertising, commercial psychology Psychological methods to sell should be destroyed"

we had this for solid few years already https://archive.org/details/the-alt-right-playbook-how-to-radicalize-a-normiee

brought to you by CIA

They always have and we don't really get a choice in the matter. The reason why you're noticing it increasing particularly online is because there was a time not too long ago that it didn't have any of the bullshit and in some ways they're still figuring it out.

I mean,

I don't think psychology is meant to help people.

It's neutral, neither good or evil. While you can argue it's pretty dark how deep the psychology can go, it's hard to go into a deep evaluation of that.

To me the shit is as barbaric is treating cancer with chemo-therapy. It's going to be one of those things future generations look back on with total disgust and horror like the way we look back and people dumping their shit buckets into the street.

Welcome to the club. I‘m 36 now and have seen this for the past 10+ years while its also speeding up. If I tell people they look at me with empty eyes.

Solution would be to create a movement but most people are too busy. Lmk if you want to start something.

And yet if you try to defend yourself (say, by painting over billboards), you'd be the one charged with a crime.