Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 12:48 PM
aldon @ orient lodge left this comment at January 21, 2010 3:59 PM
Why aren't people buying Betamax? Because other corporations outspent Sony on marketing, convincing the public to buy an inferior product.
It is my hope that the Supreme Court decision does not result in those companies that can spend the most on marketing convincing the American people to settle for inferior legislation and move us from a government of, by and for the people to a government of by and for those corporations that have the most marketing muscle.
The Prince of Centraxis left this comment at January 21, 2010 5:46 PM
The reason is obvious - Ford & VHS proponents had much louder voices and played a lot more dirty tricks on the opposition. And hasn't anyone seen 'who killed the electric car'?
- http://newilluminati.blog-city.com/who_killed_the_electric_car.htm
Brian Sorgatz left this comment at January 21, 2010 5:57 PM
How can you honestly claim to be champions of democracy when you describe consumers and voters as such passive idiots? If you could only listen to yourselves, you would notice how little faith you have in people to make choices.
aldon's politics @ orient lodge left this comment at January 22, 2010 1:46 PM
Brian,
Can you show where either the prince or I argue that voters are passive idiots? As noted in the example of Betamax, many people were very active in thought out decisions of whether or not to purchase Betamax or settle for the second best, based on the information they could obtain.
I have a lot of faith in the ability of voters to make intelligent decisions, if, as Thomas Jefferson suggested, they are informed. However, by allowing unlimited independent expenditures by corporations, the ability of voters to get the honest information that Jefferson says democracy depends on will be severely compromised.
Brian Sorgatz left this comment at January 22, 2010 7:26 PM
Your “yes but” doesn’t change my impression that you insist on calling people victims of advertising whether the facts justify it or not. You believe voters are at effect; I believe they are at cause.
Emphatically, I don’t believe consumers and voters are never wrong. Human nature inspires many errors in reasoning, particularly at the voting booth. But except in relatively rare cases of outright fraud, American voters are never victims.
The Prince of Centraxis left this comment at January 22, 2010 11:25 PM
Betamax never lost because it wasn't the choice of the majority, but because the opposition organised corporations to club together and club the system into submission while they promoted their inferior brand.
This example is a triumph of amoral advertising and stupid vindictive competitiveness, not common sense or collective will.
It's actually an excellent negative example that disproves your point.
see http://newilluminati.blog-city.com/corporations_rule.htm
Brian Sorgatz left this comment at January 23, 2010 10:54 AM
How condescending of you to presume the superiority of Betamax as fact. The relative merits of Betamax and VHS are a subjective matter on which intelligent consumers can disagree. Perhaps Beta offered a slightly better picture quality, but why does that necessarily clinch it for the rational consumer, who may need to weigh several factors in his or her choice of format?
The page of the URL in the previous comment never mentions Betamax. Can you show me a link to a detailed account of the black magic worked by advertisers to seduce the public into buying VHS?
The Prince of Centraxis left this comment at January 25, 2010 8:20 AM
Actually, I was working at a filmmaker when the great stoush took place between Betamax and VHS and am in a very good position to judge the merits of each format; I was also an avid consumer and user of video equipment in those days.
Aside from picture quality there was also the fact that Betamax encoding was greatly superior - and the smaller SIZE of actual Beta tapes made for neater storage; so much so that commercial videographers used the only format that was suitable for their work (Beta, of course).
Consumer Beta cameras and players were also more compact. A comparable VHS camera required the operator to carry a particularly bulky and heavy satchel containing the battery pack and recorder, while Betacams held the tape cartridge in the camera itself.
I could go on and on, but as in politics the best player doesn't always win unless they're backed by the 'right' people.
However, to get back to the real issue - corporations are not actually people and often ride roughshod over the rights of actual human beings in pursuit of greed.
There are many who assert that the original ruling (some decades ago now) that declared multinational corporations to have the same rights as human beings was not only egregiously incorrect, but responsible for many ills now facing the planet.
Furthermore, directors of corporations are not held responsible for their decisions (partly as a result of this ruling) and their companies are not liable either. So-called 'limited' companies can get away with far more than any individual.
While free enterprise and the invisible hand have accomplished great things corporations, like the similar fictitious entities known as banks, have far too much power. Profits soon become untrammelled greed.
They all need to be reined in by those with a better sense of due diligence and ethical responsibility than directors who hide behind claims of a 'responsibility to maximise profits for shareholders' - particularly when extraordinary, ruinous and undeserved pay packages and bonuses for mediocre work are handed out like confetti to this intimately well connected new aristocracy.
Thanks for starting an interesting conversation - the type of issue that Playboy became famous for exposing in times gone by.
Brian Sorgatz left this comment at January 25, 2010 11:09 AM
You and Playboy have an unfortunate trait in common. The human acquisitive drive (“greed”) is no more inherently evil than the sexual drive (“lust”), but you react only to the former with moral panic. Since I still have your attention, I invite you to read my blog post from a year ago, “Why can’t Playboy think about greed the way it thinks about lust?”
The Prince of Centraxis left this comment at February 12, 2010 6:03 AM
It may be best to think of it as hedonic engineering.
Brian Sorgatz left this comment at February 12, 2010 11:36 AM
Hedonic engineering is fine by me, but I must protest the social engineering that would enable the state to set different rules of free speech for different organizations. For instance, the proposed constitutional amendment to counteract Citizens United makes an exception for “freedom of the press.” I don’t trust the government to decide which words are too “indecent” for television, so why should I let it decide which corporations get freedom of the press? The New York Times happens to belong to a corporation. Does it deserve more free speech than the Sierra Club or the National Rifle Association, both of which have been threatened with political censorship under campaign finance laws? I don’t see why. For one thing, the NYT corporation stole its current headquarters through eminent domain abuse. You and I don’t know in advance who the bad guys are, and neither does the government.
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aldon @ orient lodge left this comment at January 21, 2010 3:59 PM
The Prince of Centraxis left this comment at January 21, 2010 5:46 PM