[LINK] O/t responsible consumers

[Karl Auer]

On Sun, 2010-09-05 at 22:48 +1000, Craig Sanders wrote:
> you have a comprehension problem.
> [...]
>[yawn] to the rest. tldr.

What charming arrogance.

You wrote:

"[...] it's not 'consumer demand. because consumers, by and large,
'demand' whatever marketing people tell them to demand."

My best shot is that you meant this: "If consumers are demanding things,
it is because they were told to demand them by marketing people. The
real problem is thus not the demand itself, but the fact that consumers
are being told to demand these things. And the telling is under the
control of the corporations, so the question remains: Why are they
telling people to demand stuff that is so demonstrably bad?"

All that in the context of an assumption that just as much money could
be made from selling good things as can be made from selling bad things.

Is that what you meant? If so, I retract the statement that it "made no
sense". The interesting thing about your statement is that it doesn't
matter whether demand is controlled by marketing. Your question is still
a fair one, because corporations clearly do behave as if marketing did
control demand - or at least affected demand sufficiently to be worth
doing.

My answers - the bit you yawned at - still stand. I offered reasons why
*people* are prepared to do bad things. The answer is simpler for
commercial entities, because commerce has no ethics, only regulation. In
commerce, an unmet demand is an opportunity, and whether the demand is
for something good or bad is a question with no meaning.

Regards, K.

-- 
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Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)                   +61-2-64957160 (h)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer/                   +61-428-957160 (mob)

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