Why Am I Not Surprised?

Propaganda works. Advertising works. And if you couple the saturation ad blitz with food products that are engineered to be addictive substances rather than actual food - well you can guess what happens. People can't get enough of the artificial shit you're peddling, and the shareholders can't get enough of those oh-so-very sweet quarterly dividends.

Many of today’s unhealthy foods were brought to you by Big Tobacco

A new study suggests that tobacco companies, who were skilled at marketing cigarettes, used similar strategies to hook people on processed foods.

For decades, tobacco companies hooked people on cigarettes by making their products more addictive. Now, a new study suggests that tobacco companies may have used a similar strategy to hook people on processed foods.

In the 1980s, tobacco giants Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds acquired the major food companies Kraft, General Foods and Nabisco, allowing tobacco firms to dominate America’s food supply and reap billions in sales from popular brands such as Oreo cookies, Kraft Macaroni & Cheese and Lunchables.

By the 2000s, the tobacco giants spun off their food companies and largely exited the food industry — but not before leaving a lasting legacy on the foods that we eat.

The new research, published in the journal Addiction, focuses on the rise of “hyper-palatable” foods, which contain potent combinations of fat, sodium, sugar and other additives that can drive people to crave and overeat them. The Addiction study found that in the decades when the tobacco giants owned the world’s leading food companies, the foods that they sold were far more likely to be hyper-palatable than similar foods not owned by tobacco companies.

In the past 30 years, hyper-palatable foods have spread rapidly into the food supply, coinciding with a surge in obesity and diet-related diseases. In America, the steepest increase in the prevalence of hyper-palatable foods occurred between 1988 and 2001 — the era when Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds owned the world’s leading food companies.

Even though the tobacco companies no longer own these food brands, researchers say the findings matter because many of the ultra-processed foods that we eat today were engineered by an industry that wrote the playbook on products that are highly-palatable, addictive and appealing to children.

“We found that tobacco companies selectively disseminated hyper-palatable foods into the food supply,” said Tera Fazzino, the lead author of the new study and an assistant professor in the department of psychology at the University of Kansas. “It’s important for people to understand where these foods came from and who was responsible for putting them into our food system in a way that saturates the environment.”

How cigarette makers sold food

For their study, Fazzino and her colleagues pored over documents contained in the University of California at San Francisco’s Industry Documents Library, which contains millions of internal tobacco industry documents that shed light on how the companies designed their products to be addictive and the strategies they used to market them.

Fazzino and her colleagues identified 105 foods that were among the best-selling products for brands owned by either Philip Morris or R.J. Reynolds between 1988 and 2001. At the time, R.J. Reynolds owned Nabisco, whose popular brands included Oreo cookies, Teddy Grahams, Ritz crackers and SnackWell’s fat-free Devils Food cookies.

Philip Morris once owned the world’s largest food company, Kraft-General Foods, which sold popular brands like Kraft Mac & Cheese, Jello-O, Kool-Aid and Oscar Mayer hot dogs.

The researchers compared the nutritional makeup of these foods to 587 similar products sold by competing brands that were not owned by tobacco companies.

They found that tobacco-owned foods were 80 percent more likely to contain potent combinations of carbs and sodium that made them hyper-palatable. Tobacco-owned brands were also 29 percent more likely to contain similarly potent combinations of fat and sodium.

Foods that find your ‘bliss’ point

The findings suggest that tobacco companies engineered processed foods to hit what is known as our “bliss” point and elicit cravings, said Ashley Gearhardt, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan who studies food addiction.

She said that hyper-palatable foods have a lot in common with addictive substances. They contain ingredients from naturally occurring plants and foods that have been purified, concentrated and transformed into products that are quickly absorbed into our bloodstreams, which amplifies their ability to light up reward centers in our brains.

“Every addictive substance is something that we take from nature and we alter it, process it and refine it in a way that makes it more rewarding — and that is very clearly what happened with these hyper-palatable food substances,” said Gearhardt, who was not involved in the new study. “We treat these foods like they come from nature. Instead, they’re foods that come from big tobacco.”

Philip Morris, which changed its name to Altria, declined to comment. R.J. Reynolds, Kraft and Mondelez, which owns Nabisco, did not respond to requests for comment.

Experts in the flavor business

Tobacco companies got into the food business 60 years ago to diversify their product portfolios. These firms had extensive libraries of colors, flavors and additives that they developed for cigarettes, and executives realized they could use these ingredients to make a variety of processed foods.

In the 1960s, R.J. Reynolds launched a project to develop sugary drinks, which involved market research on children. In an internal memo that year, the company’s manager of biochemical research wrote to an RJR executive that the firm was not “merely” a tobacco company: “In a broader and much less restricting sense,” he wrote, “R.J. Reynolds is in the flavor business.”

The research manager noted that many of the flavors the company had developed for cigarettes “would be useful in food, beverage and other products,” leading to “large financial returns.”

Turning Hawaiian Punch into a kids’ drink

The following year, RJR bought the maker of Hawaiian Punch, which at the time was a cocktail mixer that was available in only two flavors. After conducting dozens of market research studies in children and housewives, RJR expanded Hawaiian Punch to at least 16 flavors, including many preferred by kids. The company was among the first to introduce a nationally distributed “juice box,” which became an instant hit.

“They took something that was an adult cocktail mixer and a year later they had turned it into a children’s beverage,” said Laura Schmidt, a professor of health policy at the UCSF School of Medicine who has published studies examining the tobacco industry’s involvement in food companies.

RJR used a cartoon mascot, Punchy, to market Hawaiian Punch to children. For decades, Punchy appeared in TV commercials, Sunday comics, schoolbook covers, toys and magazines, helping to generate tens of millions of dollars in sales and becoming what RJR called “The best salesman the beverage has ever had.”

The rise of Teddy Grahams

Its success with Hawaiian Punch led RJR to expand into other foods, including puddings and maple syrup. Then in 1985 the tobacco giant acquired Nabisco, which catapulted the company into a dominant player in the food industry. The conglomerate went on to launch many successful new processed foods, including Teddy Grahams, a bite-sized children’s snack that soon became the third best-selling cookie behind only Chips Ahoy and Oreo, both also produced by Nabisco.

RJR Nabisco marketed Teddy Grahams as “a delicious yet wholesome snack because they’re made with graham flour and other wholesome ingredients.” Yet critics pointed out that the product was predominantly made from white flour and contained just two grams of graham flour in a one-ounce serving. The snack was so popular that Nabisco created an adult version of it, Honey Maid Honeycomb Graham Snacks. “Nabisco reasoned that the sweet taste and relatively healthful image could also hook adults,” according to a 1990 New York Times article about the launch of the new snack.

A couple years later, as the low-fat craze was underway, Nabisco introduced its wildly popular SnackWell’s cookies, which sold out in stores across the country, reaching sales of almost a half-billion dollars in only three years. SnackWell’s low-fat and fat-free cookies appealed to weight-conscious consumers. But the snacks contained plenty of sugar and calories, and critics pointed out that people would often binge on them because they believed they weren’t fattening — a phenomenon known as the SnackWell effect.

Marketing Kool-Aid and Lunchables

Nabisco was bought in 2000 by Philip Morris, which was already a dominant player in the food industry thanks to its acquisitions of Kraft and General Foods in the 1980s. Schmidt at UCSF said that when Philip Morris bought General Foods in 1985, it installed tobacco executives at the food company and launched initiatives to market sugary drinks and processed foods to children and minorities.

To broaden the reach of its cigarettes, Philip Morris used a marketing strategy called “line extensions”: Marlboro cigarettes were marketed to men, Virginia Slims targeted women and menthol cigarettes were heavily advertised to Black consumers.

The company applied the same tactic to processed foods, Schmidt said. It added new flavors and formulas to many of its existing products, giving consumers an endless variety of hyper-palatable foods to buy.

Between 1986 and 2004, Philip Morris developed a dozen new products of liquid and frozen Kool-Aid and introduced around 36 child-tested flavors, including Kickin’ Kiwi Lime and Great Bluedini, which had its own cartoon mascot.

One of its best-selling products, Lunchables, was introduced in 1988 by Oscar Mayer. Designed to look like a TV dinner and marketed to busy moms and their children, the iconic, prepackaged meal of bologna, crackers and processed cheese contained so much sodium and saturated fat that some doctors called it a “blood pressure bomb.” One Philip Morris executive joked about references that the healthiest item in a package of Lunchables was the napkin.

According to “Salt Sugar Fat,” the best-selling book by investigative journalist Michael Moss, Lunchables had sales of $218 million in its first 12 months on the market. This prompted Oscar Mayer to introduce line extensions such as Lunchables with Snickers bars, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Kool-Aid and Capri Sun.

By the early 2000s, Philip Morris was mired in tobacco lawsuits. Moss said the company’s leadership warned its food-side executives that they could face a similar risk of litigation over the health effects of processed foods. One senior Kraft executive named Michael Mudd, Moss said, reviewed the company’s records and products and told a Philip Morris lawyer he was worried that some of its cookies and processed foods could drive people to eat compulsively.

The tobacco companies are no longer in the food business — but the impact they had on the food supply was substantial.

Fazzino’s new study found that by 2018, the differences in previously tobacco-owned foods and other foods had mostly disappeared. It’s not that foods got healthier, Fazzino said, but that other companies saw what worked and many products likely were reformulated to make them just as hyper-palatable as those sold by their competitors.

And not all that frou-frou organic shit is great for you either.

Common Foods That Can Be Toxic

Cherry Pits

The hard stone in the center of cherries is full of prussic acid, also known as cyanide, which is poisonous. But there’s no need to freak out if you accidentally swallow one -- intact pits just pass through your system and out the other end. Avoid crunching or crushing pits as you nosh on your cherries.

Apple Seeds

Apple seeds also have cyanide, so throwing back a handful as a snack isn’t smart. Luckily, apple seeds have a protective coating that keeps the cyanide from entering your system if you accidentally eat them. But it’s good to be cautious. Even in small doses, cyanide can cause rapid breathing, seizures, and possibly death.

Elderberries

You may take elderberry as a syrup or supplement to boost your immune system and treat cold or flu symptoms or constipation. But eating unripe berries, bark, or leaves of elderberry may leave you feeling worse instead of better. They have both lectin and cyanide, two chemicals that can cause nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.

Nutmeg

Nutmeg adds a nice, nutty flavor when you add it in small amounts to baked goods. But eaten by the spoonful, it can cause big problems to your system. Even as little as 2 teaspoons can be toxic to your body because of myristicin, an oil that can cause hallucinations, drowsiness, dizziness, confusion, and seizures.

Green Potatoes

The leaves, sprouts, and underground stems (tubers) of potatoes contain a toxic substance called glycoalkaloid. Glycoalkaloids make a potato look green when it’s exposed to light, gets damaged, or ages. Eating potatoes with a high glycoalkaloid content can cause nausea, diarrhea, confusion, headaches, and death.

Raw Kidney Beans

Of all the bean varieties, raw red kidney beans have the highest concentration of lectins. Lectins are a toxin that can give you a bad stomachache, make you vomit, or give you diarrhea. It only takes 4-5 raw kidney beans to cause these side effects, which is why it’s best to boil your beans before eating.

Rhubarb Leaves

Eating the stalk is OK, but leave out the leaf. Rhubarb leaves contain oxalic acid, which binds to calcium and makes it harder for your body to absorb it­­. In turn, your bones can’t grow the way they should, and you’re at risk for kidney stones, blood clotting problems, vomiting, diarrhea, and coma.

Bitter Almonds

Both types of almonds -- bitter and sweet -- have amygdalin, a chemical compound that can turn into cyanide, but bitter almonds have the highest levels by far. Sweet almonds are safe to snack on, but eating untreated bitter almonds can cause cramps, nausea, and diarrhea.

Star Fruit

If you have kidney disease, it’s best to leave star fruit out of your diet. Normal kidneys can filter out the toxins in this sweet fruit, but for a system that can’t, the toxin sticks around and can cause mental confusion, seizures, and death.

Mushrooms

They may be great on pizza, but beware of certain mushrooms in the wild. Two types are particularly harmful -- the death cap (Amanita phalloides), and the destroying angel (Amanita virosa). Eating these wild mushrooms can cause abdominal pain, diarrhea and vomiting, dehydration, intense thirst, liver failure, coma, and death.

Raw Cashews

The cashews you get in stores with a raw label aren’t exactly that. Before they hit shelves, they’re steamed to remove a toxin called urushiol in their shells. Urushiol is the same toxin you find in poison ivy. Eating pre-steamed cashews can cause an allergic reaction and can be fatal if your allergies are severe.

Mangoes

Just like raw cashews, the skin, bark, and leaves of mangoes contain urushiol, the toxin in poison ivy. If you’re allergic to poison ivy, especially if that allergy is a bad one, biting into a mango can cause a severe reaction with swelling, rash, and even problems breathing.

Propaganda

How do they want me to feel?

How are they trying to influence or manipulate me?

• Learn the purpose
• Recognize the technique
• Get the facts
• Weigh the facts against the purpose and the technique

PSA from 1947

And don't forget about that nasty little subliminal fuckery.

No, Stoopid - It's The Guns

"It's not the guns, it's the people."

Yeah. The people with guns.

"It's not the guns, it's the culture."

Yeah. The gun culture.

"It's not the guns, it's the mental health problems."

Yeah. The people who have mental health problems and guns.

Flannel, muddy girl camo and man cards.

See the ads used to sell the AR-15.

The Colt AR-15 looked more like a laser blaster than dad’s trusty rifle when it hit the market in 1964.

It was made from aluminum and plastic, not the heavier metals and wood used in traditional firearms. Its cartridges were tiny compared with typical hunting ammunition. And it was all black — a dour monochrome far from the rich walnut accentuating many guns at the time.

What does an AR-15 do to a human body? A visual examination of the deadly damage.

In short, the AR-15 presented a litany of challenges for those tasked with trying to sell it.

Many gun enthusiasts and industry executives were initially skeptical that an offshoot of a weapon originally designed for combat could sell in a marketplace focused on extolling the virtues of rifles for hunting and handguns for self-defense.

But in the ensuing decades, the AR-15 would become a powerful symbol for whoever invoked it, from gun-control advocates decrying it as a preferred tool for mass killers to gun owners who championed it as the pinnacle of Second Amendment rights.

- more -

Guns don't kill people,

gun nuts kill people -

with guns -

cuz they're fuckin' nuts

Slouching Towards Oblivion

In marketing, one of the major obstacles you have to overcome is getting your product in front of a potential customer. And that's a big problem because everybody and his fuckin' uncle is completing for that customer's attention.

You have figure out how to cut through the clutter.

Used to be, you needed some decent amounts of spending money to buy billboard space, or air time on radio and TV, or newspaper ads and The Yellow Pages, or whatever.

Now, what you need is time and an iPhone and some outrageous subject matter - which is how you cut thru the clutter on the intertoobz - just put up the most outrageous bullshit your fevered little brain can conjure.

(ed note)

The kind of rank speculation this piece is addressing is not "hypothesis". It's pure fantasy conceived by attention junkies who know they can get some likes and follows by posting imaginary "findings" based on meaningless random details (apophenia).

What Is Apophenia?

Apophenia refers to the human tendency to see patterns and meaning in random information. The term was coined in 1958 by German neurologist Klaus Conrad, who was studying the “unmotivated seeing of connections” in patients with schizophrenia. Statisticians refer to apophenia as patternicity or a “type I error.”

4 Types of Apophenia
Apophenia is a general term that refers to seeing meaningful patterns in randomness. Here are the subcategories of apophenia:

1. Pareidolia. Pareidolia is a type of apophenia that occurs specifically with visual stimuli. People with this tendency most often see human faces in inanimate objects. Some examples of pareidolia include seeing a face in a slice of toast or seeing the shape of a bunny in a random mass of clouds.
2. Gambler’s fallacy. People who regularly gamble often fall prey to the gambler’s fallacy. They may perceive patterns or meaning in random numbers, often interpreting the pattern as an indication of an oncoming win. Learn more about gambler’s fallacy in our guide here.
3. Clustering illusion. A clustering illusion occurs when looking at large amounts of data—humans tend to see patterns or trends in data even when it is entirely random.
4. Confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is a psychological phenomenon in which a person will test a hypothesis under the assumption that it’s true. This form of apophenia can lead to overemphasizing data that confirms a hypothesis and explaining away information that disproves it.

Honestly

Cracked - Honest Ads

Today's Beau

Justin King - Beau Of The Fifth Column

1. Ad Hominem
2. Ad Nauseam
3. Appeal To Authority
4. Appel To Fear
5. Appeal To Prejudice
6. The Band Wagon
7. Inevitable Victory
8. Beautiful People
9. Card Stacking
10. Glittering Generalities

This Connected World

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes

(Who watches the watchers?)

In about 2002 or 2003, Don Rumsfeld and Tom Ridge were pimping Total Information Awareness as part of their anti-terrorism theatrics - and we jumped up and down on their heads for it, as any decent patriotic American should have done.

So the fuckers went private with it and did it anyway.

Fuckers.

WaPo: (pay wall)

Ask Help Desk: Cell carriers can use your web history for ads

Here is how you can opt out of their advertising programs that run on your personal data

When you signed up for your mobile plan, your carrier may have signed you up for an extra program that uses data including your Internet history to target you with ads.

I visited my own Verizon account settings and found that yep, I was enrolled in what the company calls “Custom Experience.” Not only do I have no memory of saying yes, I had no idea wireless carriers were in the business of peeking in on my activities and using that information to market to me. And my blissful ignorance works in favor of the company.

At Help Desk, we read privacy policies so you can save time. This week, Ron, a curious reader from Houston, inspired us to dive deeper into mobile carriers. I read the privacy policies from the three major wireless carriers, and my eyeballs are only bleeding a little. AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile have some less than great privacy practices hiding in plain sight.

Depending on the carrier, it can draw on your browsing history, location data, call logs and even app use to learn things about you and nudge you to spend more money on products from themselves or third-party companies. The good news is that you can opt out whenever you want, and we are going to show you how.

Are there other privacy policies you want us to check?

Send them our way at yourhelpdesk@washpost.com.

What data do they want?

AT&T has a “Relevant Advertising” program in which customers are automatically opted in, and the company draws on information including your browsing history and videos you have watched to help show you targeted ads. If you sign up for “Enhanced Relevant Advertising,” your device location and call history are also fair game.

Verizon has a program that works similarly. Customers appear to be automatically opted into its “Custom Experience,” which means the company can use your browsing history and data from your apps to help target ads. The company says it “makes efforts” not to target you based on any adult sites you visit, health conditions and sexual orientation. Thanks, Verizon. If you said yes to “Custom Experience Plus” at any point, the company can also use your location data and call logs.

In comparison, T-Mobile seems relatively tame when it comes to this information. It says it does not use any browsing, precise location or call history data for its ad program, but it can use your “mobile app usage” and data on video viewing, according to its website.

What if I never opt out?

According to the companies, staying enrolled in these programs will improve your experience by showing you more relevant ads. If targeted ads spark joy and you are fine with your cell carrier using your information to make money, you can stop reading now and pour yourself a lemonade.

But these programs may let not just cell carriers but also their third-party partners benefit from your personal data. T-Mobile states clearly in its privacy policy that it can share inferences based on your data with third parties. AT&T also leaves room in its policy to share your information, but a spokesman told me the company is not doing it, though theoretically it can start any time.

Verizon says that if you choose to stay in “Custom Experience,” the company uses data including your Internet history to put you into interest categories like “sports lover.” A spokeswoman said the program does not involve any third-party targeted advertising, but she declined to tell me whether Verizon shares inferences with outside companies.

As always, it can be hard to know for sure where your information ends up. T-Mobile appears to be the only carrier of the three with a public list of its third-party partners.

Can I change my mind?

You can opt out of these ad programs any time. AT&T customers can opt out by signing into att.com, navigating to the “Consent Dashboard” and scrolling to the section called “Control How We Use Your Data.” Opt out of “Relevant Advertising” and check that you are not signed up for “Enhanced Relevant Advertising.”

Verizon customers can opt out of the “Custom Experience” program by going to their privacy settings in the My Verizon app. While you are there, you should also check that you have not said yes to “Custom Experience Plus.”

T-Mobile says customers can opt out by opening the app, going to “Advertising and Analytics” then “Use My Data To Make Ads More Relevant To Me.” Turn the toggle off so that it turns gray. On the website, go to “My Account” then “Profile.” Click “Privacy and Notifications” then “Advertising and Analytics,” then “Use My Data To Make Ads More Relevant To Me.” Turn the toggle off.

Two of my Washington Post colleagues tried to opt out on T-Mobile accounts, and both got an error message saying it “looks like we got our wires crossed.” When they tried via the website, it froze or showed an error message. A T-Mobile spokeswoman said the company had not heard of any problems but was working to address the issue. Keep in mind that opting out does not necessarily stop carriers from collecting your data or marketing their own products to you.

Should I be worried?

I would recommend opting out of all these ad programs. It is tough to determine exactly what personal information these companies are sharing with whom, and it is shady for the companies to opt you in by default.

It will be tempting for any company with as much data access as a cell carrier to make some money off your information. What matters is that customers are given clear descriptions of how our data is monetized and that companies stop opting us in by default.

hat tip = WT

Today's Rethink

Marketing works. Propaganda works.

From a piece in The Atlantic 5 years ago:

How an Ad Campaign Invented the Diamond Engagement Ring

In the 1930s, few Americans proposed with the precious stone. Then everything changed.

When I decided to propose to the woman who is now my wife, I gave a lot of thought to how I was going to do it. But I didn't think much about what I was going to do it with. Not only did a diamond ring seem the logical—nay, the inevitable—choice, but I had just the very diamond. My grandfather had scrounged up enough money to buy a diamond ring for my grandmother in the early 1950s, and the stone had passed to me when he passed away. I reset the diamond in a more modern band, got the ring appraised, and slipped it on my fiancée's finger.

It was a beautiful moment—a gesture of love and commitment spanning generations. And it was also exactly what De Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd. wanted. I was a century-old marketing campaign, actualized. And I'm far from alone; three-quarters of American brides wear a diamond engagement ring, which now costs an average of $4,000.

Every so often, an article comes along that makes you thoroughly rethink a rote practice. Edward Jay Epstein's "Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?" was one of them. In his 1982 Atlantic story, the investigative journalist deconstructed what he termed the "diamond invention"—the "creation of the idea that diamonds are rare and valuable, and are essential signs of esteem."

That invention is surprisingly recent: Epstein traces its origins to the discovery of massive diamond mines in South Africa in the late 19th century, which for the first time flooded world markets with diamonds. The British businessmen operating the South African mines recognized that only by maintaining the fiction that diamonds were scarce and inherently valuable could they protect their investments and buoy diamond prices. They did so by launching a South Africa–based cartel, De Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd. (now De Beers), in 1888, and meticulously extending the company's control over all facets of the diamond trade in the ensuing decades.

Most remarkably, De Beers manipulated not just supply but demand. In 1938, amid the ravages of the Depression and the rumblings of war, Harry Oppenheimer, the De Beers founder's son, recruited the New York–based ad agency N.W. Ayer to burnish the image of diamonds in the United States, where the practice of giving diamond engagement rings had been unevenly gaining traction for years, but where the diamonds sold were increasingly small and low-quality.

Meanwhile, the price of diamonds was falling around the world. The folks at Ayer set out to persuade young men that diamonds (and only diamonds) were synonymous with romance, and that the measure of a man's love (and even his personal and professional success) was directly proportional to the size and quality of the diamond he purchased. Young women, in turn, had to be convinced that courtship concluded, invariably, in a diamond.

Ayer insinuated these messages into the nooks and crannies of popular culture. It marketed an idea, not a diamond or brand:

Movie idols, the paragons of romance for the mass audience, would be given diamonds to use as their symbols of indestructible love. In addition, the agency suggested offering stories and society photographs to selected magazines and newspapers which would reinforce the link between diamonds and romance. Stories would stress the size of diamonds that celebrities presented to their loved ones, and photographs would conspicuously show the glittering stone on the hand of a well-known woman. Fashion designers would talk on radio programs about the "trend towards diamonds" that Ayer planned to start. ...

In its 1947 strategy plan, the advertising agency ... outlined a subtle program that included arranging for lecturers to visit high schools across the country. "All of these lectures revolve around the diamond engagement ring, and are reaching thousands of girls in their assemblies, classes and informal meetings in our leading educational institutions," the agency explained in a memorandum to De Beers. The agency had organized, in 1946, a weekly service called "Hollywood Personalities," which provided 125 leading newspapers with descriptions of the diamonds worn by movie stars. ... In 1947, the agency commissioned a series of portraits of "engaged socialites." The idea was to create prestigious "role models" for the poorer middle-class wage-earners. The advertising agency explained, in its 1948 strategy paper, "We spread the word of diamonds worn by stars of screen and stage, by wives and daughters of political leaders, by any woman who can make the grocer's wife and the mechanic's sweetheart say 'I wish I had what she has.'"

In the late 1940s, just before my grandfather started hunting for his diamond ring, an Ayer copywriter conceived of the slogan that De Beers has used ever since: "A Diamond Is Forever." "Even though diamonds can in fact be shattered, chipped, discolored, or incinerated to ash, the concept of eternity perfectly captured the magical qualities that the advertising agency wanted to attribute to diamonds," Epstein writes

. A diamond that's forever promises endless romance and companionship. But a forever diamond is also one that's not resold. Resold diamonds (and it's maddeningly hard to resell them, as Epstein's article details) cause fluctuations in diamond prices, which undermine public confidence in the intrinsic value of diamonds. Diamonds that are stowed away in safe-deposit boxes, or bequeathed to grandchildren, don't.

Between 1939 and 1979, De Beers's wholesale diamond sales in the United States increased from $23 million to $2.1 billion. Over those four decades, the company's ad budget soared from $200,000 to $10 million a year.

De Beers and its marketers proved extraordinarily adaptable at molding public perceptions. When the U.S. engagement market seemed tapped out, a new campaign promoted the gift of a second diamond as a way to reaffirm romance later in marriage. When small Soviet diamonds entered the market, people were told that the size of diamonds (as opposed to their quality, color, and cut, or the mere gesture of buying a diamond in the first place) didn't matter much after all. (Some gambits backfired, like the diamond-ring-for-men misadventure of the 1980s.)

And when De Beers sought to expand internationally in the mid-1960s, it didn't flinch at entering markets like Japan's, where a deeply rooted tradition of arranged marriages left little space for premarital romance, let alone diamond engagement rings. De Beers, Epstein writes, aggressively marketed diamond rings in Japan as tokens of "modern Western values." In 1967, when the campaign began, less than 5 percent of betrothed Japanese women had a diamond engagement ring. By 1981, that figure had risen to 60 percent, and Japan had become the second-largest market, after the United States, for diamond engagement rings. De Beers conjured up "a billion-dollar-a-year diamond market in Japan, where matrimonial custom had survived feudal revolutions, world wars, industrialization, and even the American occupation," Epstein marvels.

1956

The Real Blitz Is Coming

The firehose of bullshit we've had to endure since about 2011 is part of a deliberate attempt to make us question the very existence of truth - and it's going to get worse.

McKay Coppins, The Atlantic:

The story that unfurled in my Facebook feed over the next several weeks was, at times, disorienting. There were days when I would watch, live on TV, an impeachment hearing filled with damning testimony about the president’s conduct, only to look at my phone later and find a slickly edited video—served up by the Trump campaign—that used out-of-context clips to recast the same testimony as an exoneration. Wait, I caught myself wondering more than once, is that what happened today?

As I swiped at my phone, a stream of pro-Trump propaganda filled the screen: “That’s right, the whistleblower’s own lawyer said, ‘The coup has started …’ ” Swipe. “Democrats are doing Putin’s bidding …” Swipe. “The only message these radical socialists and extremists will understand is a crushing …” Swipe. “Only one man can stop this chaos …” Swipe, swipe, swipe.

I was surprised by the effect it had on me. I’d assumed that my skepticism and media literacy would inoculate me against such distortions. But I soon found myself reflexively questioning every headline. It wasn’t that I believed Trump and his boosters were telling the truth. It was that, in this state of heightened suspicion, truth itself—about Ukraine, impeachment, or anything else—felt more and more difficult to locate. With each swipe, the notion of observable reality drifted further out of reach.

- and -

What I was seeing was a strategy that has been deployed by illiberal political leaders around the world. Rather than shutting down dissenting voices, these leaders have learned to harness the democratizing power of social media for their own purposes—jamming the signals, sowing confusion. They no longer need to silence the dissident shouting in the streets; they can use a megaphone to drown him out. Scholars have a name for this: censorship through noise.

We ain't seen nothin' yet.

Here's a link to a 2014 piece in The Atlantic, about some beta-testing that Putin was doing.

At the NATO summit in Wales last week, General Philip Breedlove, the military alliance’s top commander, made a bold declaration. Russia, he said, is waging “the most amazing information warfare blitzkrieg we have ever seen in the history of information warfare.”

It was something of an underestimation. The new Russia doesn’t just deal in the petty disinformation, forgeries, lies, leaks, and cyber-sabotage usually associated with information warfare. It reinvents reality, creating mass hallucinations that then translate into political action. Take Novorossiya, the name Vladimir Putin has given to the huge wedge of southeastern Ukraine he might, or might not, consider annexing. The term is plucked from tsarist history, when it represented a different geographical space. Nobody who lives in that part of the world today ever thought of themselves as living in Novorossiya and bearing allegiance to it—at least until several months ago. Now, Novorossiya is being imagined into being: Russian media are showing maps of its ‘geography,’ while Kremlin-backed politicians are writing its ‘history’ into school textbooks. There’s a flag and even a news agency (in English and Russian). There are several Twitter feeds. It’s like something out of a Borges story - except for the very real casualties of the war conducted in its name.

The invention of Novorossiya is a sign of Russia’s domestic system of information manipulation going global. Today’s Russia has been shaped by political technologists—the viziers of the system who, like so many post-modern Prosperos, conjure up puppet political parties and the simulacra of civic movements to keep the nation distracted as Putin’s clique consolidates power. In the philosophy of these political technologists, information precedes essence. “I remember creating the idea of the ‘Putin majority’ and hey, presto, it appeared in real life,” Gleb Pavlovsky, a political technologist who worked on Putin's election campaigns but has since left the Kremlin, told me recently. “Or the idea that ‘there is no alternative to Putin.’ We invented that. And suddenly there really was no alternative.”

The point is that we're on the receiving end of some truly and amazingly scary shit.

And the question is: do your neighbors - and some of your wackier family members - have what it takes to resist the sophistication and the insidiousness of it? Have they already been sucked into it?

How may Bernie Bros are being manipulated in the same ways?
How will the means and methods described in these articles be adapted to, &/or adopted by, the campaigns of our own homegrown candidates?

In a D&D fight, the Chaotic Neutral character has a bit of an edge, but it's offset by the powers of a Lawful Good character.

In the real world, it's a lot worse because the good guy is expected to follow rules that the bag guy is free to ignore.

Today's GIF

These ad guys are genius.

AKA: Trumponomics

I always called it The Blondie & Dagwood Marketing Strategy.

If I'd known the GOP was going to adopt it as their main policy, I woulda kept my fuckin' mouth shut.

Toxic Masculinity

The Trigger:

The Emotional Reaction:

If I say: "There's too many assholes being assholes - we need assholes to stop being such assholes"

And you respond: "How dare you call me an asshole!?!"

Then it's not unreasonable for me to conclude that you've self-identified as one of the assholes who need to stop being such assholes.

And the Man-splaining aspects of the reactions? Don't get me started.

The sensible perspective:

Christmas Ad

The phrase "truth in advertising" has some interesting twists.

The best ads (ie: the most effective) always play on our emotions; sometimes in a cynically manipulative way. 

But that doesn't mean there's never a good message.

One of my faves.

It's good to remember that it's always up to us. No matter what the politicians or other bosses tell us, we make the final decision on what we do - on our own, for ourselves.

It's not much of a war if nobody shows up to fight.

In These Troubled Times

It just seems like the perfect product for the moment we find ourselves in.

Citizens For Fresher Orange Juice

John Oliver - Astroturfing:

The Power Of The Visual

One of the great moments in American political image-making - combining visuals (that go from pastoral to stark) with Bill Conrad's amazing voice-over to create a powerful message intended to motivate people to get together and do something about a serious problem.

And we did some pretty great things. Even with a slug like Dick Nixon in the White House.

The actor is Iron Eyes Cody, born Espera Oscar De Conti, in 1904 to parents who immigrated to this country from Italy.

The guy spent most of his adult life taking great pains to maintain the manufactured illusion of his "heritage".

As an aside - the piece also allows the inference that while American Aboriginals may be a bit peeved by European wars of conquest and that little genocide-y thing, what really gets' em is roadside litter and water pollution. White people - whaddaya gonna do?

Anyway, we did some things. We saved the bald eagle. We stopped lead and asbestos. We insisted that companies be held responsible for their actions. And we began to understand that a paycheck isn't worth much if what you're doing to earn that check is hurting - and even killing - everything and everybody you love.

If you live in the mountains because you love to fish, but your favorite stream is being killed by the runoff caused by the logging operations of the lumber company you're working for, what's the fuckin' point?

Progress

Maybe - we'll see if anybody picks it up and/or follows it up.

endgadget:

Early this month, Facebook announced it will change how political ads appear on the company's platforms. Anyone advertising about elections or issues would need their identity 'verified' before the messages go online, and the messages themselves would be labeled 'Political Ad' with disclosure of who paid for it. Ideally, this could make advertisements on Facebook much more transparent, though we'll start finding out as the platform began requiring US-based advertisers to get verified today. In the coming months, this will spread to ad buyers across the world.


Starting today, anyone based in the US running an electoral or issue ad will have to run through the authorization process to provide a government-issued ID and mailing address. Then Facebook confirms identity by mailing a letter with a unique access code that only the advertiser's Page admin account can use, like an old-school version of email verification. And then, of course, they'll have to disclose who paid for the ads before Facebook will put them up.

While the changes went into effect, Facebook posted a Q&A about what advertisers know about you. While the company maintains that they don't know as much about us as we feared, by default, advertisers are still targeting users based on their interests and browsing habits. At least after these changes, we know a bit more about them.

Farther Down The Rabbit Hole

To have any shot at sorting thru everything that went into the American election in 2016, we'll have to make a real attempt to separate the means from the ends.

And we have to figure out who the players are - 

• the people who vote
• the people those people vote for or against
• the people who manipulate both the vote-casters and the vote-getters.

And we have to make more of an effort to figure out what the objectives really are. 

I've been going on about The Daddy State for quite a while, but I think it's more than that - actually, more than that and a lot less than that at the same time.

The short version of my hypothesis boils it down to:

This is not government - this is a fucking robbery.

And the way the thing was set up is the key to understanding how ideology is co-opted; used as a decoy; and becomes the proverbial License To Steal, all under the guise of Rugged Individualism and Patriotic Zeal, or whatever turns the crank of the voter you're trying to motivate.

There's also the little wrinkle of having to separate the shit that's actually illegal from the shit that's just run-of-the-mill Rat-Fucking.

Nothing particularly new about any of that, but there is definitely a lot that's new about the way the bad actors have been going about all that bad acting.

The chief executive of SCL U.S. (the U.S. branch of the parent company of Cambridge Analytica) worked for Michael Flynn for 6 years. SCL got a Pentagon contract because of that relationship, Nigel Oakes told @EmmaLBriant https://t.co/MAAB8VuUss pic.twitter.com/308FdKwOGa

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) April 18, 2018

Three Explanatory Essays Giving Context and Analysis to Submitted Evidence

Part 1: Cambridge Analytica, the Artificial Enemy, and Trump's 'Big Lie'

by Emma L. Briant, University of Essex:

Due to my expertise on this topic, I was compelled by the UK Electoral Commission,
Information Commissioners Office and the Chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
Committee's Fake News Inquiry Damian Collins MP to submit information and research
relating to campaigns by SCL, Cambridge Analytica and other actors. Statements from
my research interviews with staff at Cambridge Analytica (CA), SCL personnel or
otherwise related to their campaigns were submitted in evidence to the Inquiry. It is
essential therefore that I comment on and contextualize what are academic research
interviews. I discuss the evidence I submitted here in three accessible explanatory texts.

The interviews submitted in evidence address key questions and illustrate the unethical
nature of this company’s practices. Cambridge Analytica promotes itself as a “data-
driven” company and there has been much debate over how data was obtained and
used in the US election, including use of personality tests and ‘psychographic targeting’.

Regarding this, the Director of Business Development Brittany Kaiser said, “What they used on certain campaigns and what they didn't, it's hard to say, but all of our data, you know, that [...] was used for everything, whether or not we actually did psychographic groupings or not, it doesn't change the fact that we undertook to those quant surveys and that was put into our data set. And then some of those, some of those, uh, variables were used in our models. So in general you would say everything was used in everything but [...] not to the extent that I think some people had prophesized.” (Interview: Kaiser/Briant, 4th March 2018). 

We now know from Chris Wylie that data they used was harvested in unethical ways and hoarded to analyse, ‘microtarget’, and change audience behaviour, all enabled by Facebook’s business model. CA Chief data officer Alex Tayler has explained that psychological analysis is used for not just dividing up an audience along the lines of gender or what you’ve bought, but along the lines of the disposition – the psychological profile of those audiences.”

Regulation is failing to keep up with the rapid progression of coordinated data-driven propaganda powered by AI and augmented with insights from neuroscience and psychology, this should raise alarm for us all.

We have an awful lot more shit to shovel thru before we find the pony.

There Will Be Propaganda

It's never time for Radical Skepticism - because that's an exercise in self-defeat, which makes it a very useful thing for the Daddy State.

Radical skepticism or radical scepticism is the philosophical position that knowledge is most likely impossible.[1] Radical skeptics hold that doubt exists as to the veracity of every belief and that certainty is therefore never justified. To determine the extent to which it is possible to respond to radical skeptical challenges is the task of epistemology or "the theory of knowledge".
Every year, the big guys spend many many billions of dollars on Marketing and Branding and Advertising and straight-up Propaganda. They don't spend that kinda money on something that doesn't work.

Be Aware.

Dark Forces (ie: "conservatives" in this case) have been pouring very large butt-loads of Money, Time, and Effort into a project that takes us back to the equivalent of mid-18th century Europe.

Today's Tweet

Comey just confirmed both political parties were hacked in 2016 by Russians—but that only Democratic info was released.

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) March 20, 2017

Take a candidate we've been conditioned to dislike - for a good 25 years now - and just play up everything negative even more. Hammer on it night-n-day. It's especially effective when "the dirt" just happens to include the magic word "email", which of course links nicely to the more recent negative inferences about Hillary that were set in place over the last 5 years or so.

Eventually you can move the needle enough to make a difference.

Because advertising works. The world is being run by some pretty smart people (current POTUS notwithstanding), and smart people don't spend $500 Billion a year on shit that don't work.