Loose Time in Fat City, part 4

[Doktor Howl]

"One of the most interesting things about loose time is that, while it gives you a good look at the past, it can also give you a few insights about the future."

Why?

Shall I just repost the entire piece for you special, or just tell you to read more than the first sentence?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

This is a fucking brilliant piece... I missed it last year.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Crushingly accurate analysis, if the public's education of marketing/memetics remains at a constant (which I am unreasonably optimistic it won't).

Also:

Jerry Pournelle insists that peace is a fallacy that we develop because there are sometimes interludes between wars.

Damn.   

Education won't help, because advertisers have gotten smarter.  Previously, they shoved the images into your face blatantly (bikini-clad hotties draped over cars, etc).  Now they try to get you to mostly tune out the commercial, and let repetition do its job.  You don't even really listen, so you don't analyze.  You just, over time, begin to associate "Bluebell Ice Cream" with simpler, less-stressful times.  This forms an emotional - rather than an intellectual - bond between you and the product.

If the ads or packaging features fields, sunshine, trees, kids jumping into swimming holes and/or drinking lemonade with grandpa while sitting on haybales, front porches, rocking chairs, contented animals, smiling animals, hand-stitched quilts, horse-drawn carts, or guys in overalls, it usually came from either a lab or a feedlot.