What do the Corps really want?, looking for discussion Options

[Ryu]

Real world protrayal. I mentioned I was reading. Flemming's books are no where near as over the top as the movies and considering his profession before becoming a writer I give it a lot of weight.

Spy novels profit from portraying evil (like SR does), and his personal experiences are based on wartime secret service games against russia. Getting better sales was also likely more important than portraying Russia (as he knew it).

[Snow_Fox]

Ever read the books?
Seriously. FRwL has the unprecedented forward by Flemming detailnig that the stuff he sets down about the soviet secret service is correct and accurate.

The books really seem a good idea of what was happening.Property of a Lady talks about how soviet agents in Britain was paid off. Live and Let Die was smuggling to finance soviet agents in America.ETC

[Ryu]

Ever read the books?
Seriously. FRwL has the unprecedented forward by Flemming detailnig that the stuff he sets down about the soviet secret service is correct and accurate.

The books really seem a good idea of what was happening.Property of a Lady talks about how soviet agents in Britain was paid off. Live and Let Die was smuggling to finance soviet agents in America.ETC

I didn´t - otherwise I would have said that.

I´m not contesting the quality of his information on the soviet secret service. It´s the world-domination part were I have issues. Stalin was a proponent of "socialism in one country", and quite a few Russian activities - in war and afterwards - can be explained as reactions to international politics.

[Heath Robinson]

Yes and no. What I said was the most effective and subtle path to control. I don't believe I ever mentioned that life will always be descending into something worse. Just because A can shape B's thoughts and desires and make them seek out their designated place within society there is still a conflicting message from many of the corps. Furthermore, there will always be a counterculture which is fueled by relative deprivation (the problem of the poor seeing the rich and wanting what they can't have) and in the case of Seattle, a sense of good old fashioned American unruliness which never disappeared from the scene. Sure, a lot of people can buy into that corporate lifestyle. 2.4 kids, two cars, a nice corporate job, etc, but not everyone can have it. So people rebel because it really is something that you have to buy into. And without that cred you're not a part of that culture.

Can A shape B's thoughts and desires? Really, can you think of any way that a corp can shape people's wants? It's far more cost effective for a corp to fulfill the desires of the population and make known the fact that they can do so. This is not shaping anyone, it's satisfying them.

You are saying that we had all we needed yesterday and that what we are getting today is worthless junk that we're being made to want through some unknown means. To explain, your claim that corps go out and invest in mass mind manipulation means that it is necessary to sell their products, implying that you think that what we are getting is worthless. The assumption that what we are getting is worthless leads to the asusmption that we achieved everything of worth in the past and now we are churning endlessly with no improvements, just more manipulation and pointless growth.

Counterculture is simply the result of being told that you are a unique and special snowflake, rebellion against the dominant culture suffused in self-righteousness. It's not wrong to be a member of counterculture, though, people need to be free to choose. I just hate the amount of self-gratifying bullshit thrown around by the counterculture, believing themselves superior to everyone because they're rejecting the habits of the masses, en masse.

Though it is important to remember that the world standard currency is controlled by the ZOG Bank, an organization owned by the Big Ten megacorporations. And that distribution of that wealth down to the consumer level is often distinctly and intentionally unfair (corp scrip, for example).

Every piece of corp scrip you own entitles you to some of that corps wealth. If they refuse to honour that entitlement to its full value then you can refuse to work for them. Part of the wealth of the corp is invested in its capacity to provide security to you and your family, which they provide automatically for their employees and the price of this is factored into the pay differential between working for a mega and working an equivalent position in a corp that does not provide these benefits. Other ways the corp pays its employees include their work environment, the educational oppurtunities it gives their children, the people that the corp attracts and many other details. People choose the package because the summation of the value of its components are more valuable to them than the pay difference.

The assumption that corps are all evil, conniving gits that somehow manage to trick their employees into working for them when much better options exist destroys any verisimilitude the setting has. I refuse to accept such a setting and would immediately and subconsciously rewrite such a setting into something that makes sense.

[Snow_Fox]

I didn´t - otherwise I would have said that.

I´m not contesting the quality of his information on the soviet secret service. It´s the world-domination part were I have issues. Stalin was a proponent of "socialism in one country", and quite a few Russian activities - in war and afterwards - can be explained as reactions to international politics.

like invading Hungary? Seriously I know it can be 'justified' the Berlin wall was to keep out corruption-but in fact it was to prevent defection but that was exactly the sort of thing I was considering. AZT is seen as the most ruthless of the AAA's, probably by virtue of their embracing blood magic. They can justify what they do as relation to the rest of the world, so where are they going?

[Sweaty Hippo]

The corps don't really want to get more money. They print the money. The money is just an abstraction, and always has been. Electronic numbers, pieces of paper, even gold have no real value. They are just set as part of the social contract as things that people will exchange for goods and services. And those do have real value because they take real resources to produce.

The corps ultimately want to control things. They want to control resources, they want to control territory, they want to control people, they want to control discourse. They don't honestly care about putting their flag on things (except Shiawase and Ares, who actually do), only about controlling things. They want to be the ones who sell you your commlink, because then they control your commlink. They want to be the ones who sell you your food because then they control your food.

The megacorps have established an international currency as a means of keeping score. Who controls the nuyen, controls the wealth, controls the world. All of the big guys will continue expanding until they are destroyed or take over the entire planet. Once they've done that, they'll run the world as a panned economy with very rich and powerful shady dudes running everything. So basically it's exactly like the Soviet Union except that they don't even bother pretending to have the interests of the little guy at heart.

-Frank

Sorry, Frank, but although I can understand that you put a lot of thought into what you said, what you just said seems to be extremely simple and obvious at it's core (big business wants to control things). What's the point of being rich if you can't gain power and prestige?

[FrankTrollman]

like invading Hungary? Seriously I know it can be 'justified' the Berlin wall was to keep out corruption-but in fact it was to prevent defection but that was exactly the sort of thing I was considering. AZT is seen as the most ruthless of the AAA's, probably by virtue of their embracing blood magic. They can justify what they do as relation to the rest of the world, so where are they going?

Honestly, I live in the Czech Republic. The Soviet invasions here had purpose, often to prevent defections from within the empire as much as to accomplish any particular world conquest goals. The crushing of Prague Spring was not about expanding the Soviet territory, it was about showing people in the Soviet Empire that refusing orders from the central committee was not allowed. Like how the US sent troops to Chile or El Salvador when they decided to have free elections.

The myth that the US was good and shiny while the Soviets were evil and soul crushing is good for propaganda, but honestly the US didn't universally have the moral high ground at any point. Both empires are kind of dicks. History books tell happy stories of the American cold war victory because they are written by the winners. For every Soviet Gulag you can name an American support for UNITA. It's really a very dark in world history and there are no good guys.

Sorry, Frank, but although I can understand that you put a lot of thought into what you said, what you just said seems to be extremely simple and obvious at it's core (big business wants to control things). What's the point of being rich if you can't gain power and prestige?

What does that have to do with anything?

Being "rich" is meaningless. It's just a number. Power and Prestige are the currencies of the Earth. Hell, the United States lost a bunch of power and prestige over its failed war and financial fiascos over the last few years and the Dollar lost a third of its value. Literally a third of the wealth of the United States simply ceased to be. In a year. You could make 50% more money and you'd still be losing ground if you lost the prestige.

While the corporations of the world pretend to trade back and forth in Nuyen, they are actually amassing power and control. Because that's the real currency that makes their Nuyen "worth" anything.

-Frank

[WeaverMount]

Can A shape B's thoughts and desires? Really, can you think of any way that a corp can shape people's wants? It's far more cost effective for a corp to fulfill the desires of the population and make known the fact that they can do so. This is not shaping anyone, it's satisfying them.

OK I'll shoot. Ford bought tons of public transportation infrastructure and tore it out to create demand. Microsoft uses it's clout to forcibly maintain global conditions where it's inferior operating system is the best choice in the context of the real world. The reason corps use these tactics is because it can be far more cost effective to increase demand for an existing product by influencing the market rather one improving a product would show marginal gain. It's almost always cheaper to influance the market rather than enter a whole new one as well. These kinds of maneuvers are never an opening strategy. Ford couldn't have gotten people using unicycles by taking out rail cars. Windows is fully capable of running enterprise class solutions, etc. That said once you have a SOTA product, manipulating the market is usually a better buy.

You are saying that we had all we needed yesterday and that what we are getting today is worthless junk that we're being made to want through some unknown means. To explain, your claim that corps go out and invest in mass mind manipulation means that it is necessary to sell their products, implying that you think that what we are getting is worthless. The assumption that what we are getting is worthless leads to the asusmption that we achieved everything of worth in the past and now we are churning endlessly with no improvements, just more manipulation and pointless growth.

Please try harder than a black and white read. Both factors are at work. Cars work just fine. The car industry invest heavily in make sure people want this years cars. Both so they can sell more cars, and so they can don't have to make cars to last. Very cost effective. There are billions of dollars worth of injection molded drek stamped out in china no one needs, and would not have a market if it wasn't for advertising. It cost MacDonal's basically nothing but the license to put Yu-Gi-Oh crap in there happy meals, which will make them sell more; real product ("food") + worthless crap = money.

Counterculture is simply the result of being told that you are a unique and special snowflake, rebellion against the dominant culture suffused in self-righteousness. It's not wrong to be a member of counterculture, though, people need to be free to choose. I just hate the amount of self-gratifying bullshit thrown around by the counterculture, believing themselves superior to everyone because they're rejecting the habits of the masses, en masse.

Eh, I place value on conscious critical choice. Not every in a counter culture has done that; not everyone in the dominate culture is a drone. You will see a higher consintrations of drones any dominate culture by definition. But seriously people need to knock off the wholly-than-tho attitude, especially if the culture has evangelical aspirations.

Every piece of corp scrip you own entitles you to some of that corps wealth. If they refuse to honour that entitlement to its full value then you can refuse to work for them. Part of the wealth of the corp is invested in its capacity to provide security to you and your family, which they provide automatically for their employees and the price of this is factored into the pay differential (adjusting for real exchange rates) between working for a mega and working an equivalent position in a corp that does not provide these benefits. Other ways the corp pays its employees include their work environment, the educational oppurtunities it gives their children, the people that the corp attracts and many other details. People choose the package because the summation of the value of its components are more valuable to them than the pay difference.

yup

The assumption that corps are all evil, conniving gits that somehow manage to trick their employees into working for them when much better options exist destroys any verisimilitude the setting has. I refuse to accept such a setting and would immediately and subconsciously rewrite such a setting into something that makes sense.

You are right in that people will on average take the best employment they can find. The thing is no trick involved. The world really does suck that much that corps can get away with treating people like that because it is still there best option.
On a side note I believe the best and only real protection for minimum wage is the quality of life the wageless. You can't pay people less than what farm forage and hunt. You can't bandy this into a pretty powerful pro gun argument against very liberal people.

[Ryu]

I think Aztlan as representative of Aztechnology is way more aggressive than Russia was at that time. If we count their investment into local consumer markets, in combination with the troop concentration on their northern border, they are clearly going to be a major player in the north american theater. War efforts are severely hampered if your population suffers "war-induced" price hikes and shortages, and your troops are outnumbered to boot.

A certain dragon has old europe in its golden paws. That one might well go for world domination in the long run, but stability and control is even more to him than any of the traditional zaibatsus. The new european restauration is done for the same reasons as the old ERP.

In terms of evil, Horizon is my clear winner. Employees suffer from a total loss of control over their personal network, constant supervision and evaluation, and steady viral marketing. You cease to be if you fail in the eyes of the corp. And the corp is young. Considers what happens if they grow, as consequence of that culture? Insect hosts will at least not feel the pain.

[PlatonicPimp]

Can A shape B's thoughts and desires? Really, can you think of any way that a corp can shape people's wants? It's far more cost effective for a corp to fulfill the desires of the population and make known the fact that they can do so. This is not shaping anyone, it's satisfying them.

You are familiar with Marketing, aren't you? The profession that exists for the exact purpose of manipulating people's desires into a need for a specific product? It's all about shaping the thoughts and desires of the consumer, and thats not counterculture ranting or leftist propaganda, that is the Self-admitted goal of the people in the field.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays
Edward Bernays, father of modern public relations, nephew of Freud, made his career by using the psychology techniques of the day to convince people they needed the products or services of the company. He believed that in a democracy, the public mind HAD to be manipulated, otherwise anarchy would ensue. His greatest success was in overthrowing the government of guatemala on behalf of united fruit company.

There's a modern marketer who's name I can't recall enough to find on google. He's most famous for working with Plymouth cars on that hot-rod looking thing around the millenium. He would constantly say "the reptile brain always wins", meanting that no amount of logical thinking about how to best meet your desires could overcome adverts that told you a product would make you richer, stronger or sexier. I hope someone else with better seacrh-fu will find his name.

Companies use the strongest mind-manipulation techniques available to control consumers. That's not conspiracy, that's open, stated fact. Ask anyone in marketing. They don't need to hide it, because it works.

[Heath Robinson]

OK I'll shoot. Ford bought tons of public transportation infrastructure and tore it out to create demand. Microsoft uses it's clout to forcibly maintain global conditions where it's inferior operating system is the best choice in the context of the real world. The reason corps use these tactics is because it can be far more cost effective to increase demand for an existing product by influencing the market rather one improving a product would show marginal gain. It's almost always cheaper to influance the market rather than enter a whole new one as well. These kinds of maneuvers are never an opening strategy. Ford couldn't have gotten people using unicycles by taking out rail cars. Windows is fully capable of running enterprise class solutions, etc. That said once you have a SOTA product, manipulating the market is usually a better buy.

I'm interested as to why you think that Microsoft products are inferior; Mac fanboy, or Linux/Unix fanboy? Macs are cool, except for the stupid arrogance of its users and their inability to handle a second mouse button, not to mention the seething hypocrisy of Apple. Oh, and it doesn't "just work" as well as Plan 9. I want an Air so I can install Zenwalk on it. Linux/Unix is alright, but I don't want to bother reading 20 man pages before I understand how to turn on my wireless connection.

Windows is actually rather good, quite user friendly most of the time (which was sort of its purpose). Most people, contrary to popular opinion, do not care all that much about what the experts call "indicators of quality", only experts care about those.

Okay, so that was kind of a dick move on Ford's part. There are reasons most countries have legislation that allows people to sue for being an asshole monopoly. I partially concede, one can eliminate one's competitors to manipulate the amount of choice in the market.

Please try harder than a black and white read. Both factors are at work. Cars work just fine. The car industry invest heavily in make sure people want this years cars. Both so they can sell more cars, and so they can don't have to make cars to last. Very cost effective. There are billions of dollars worth of injection molded drek stamped out in china no one needs, and would not have a market if it wasn't for advertising. It cost MacDonal's basically nothing but the license to put Yu-Gi-Oh crap in there happy meals, which will make them sell more; real product ("food") + worthless crap = money.

That "worthless crap" is a value adder. Some people like those pieces of worthless crap! I like some pieces of worthless crap! Seriously, something small may tip the value of the happy meal from not worth it to barely worth it. It's not worthless crap if someone wants it, anyway, all prices are measures of how much most people would pay to be in possession of the item in question.

It's surprising how many people believe that things should be priced at some some relatively fixed multiplier of the current price of the materials that went into making the item. Totally bizarre, that. Especially given that most of them wouldn't rant about the evil or pointlessness of auctioneers.

You are familiar with Marketing, aren't you? The profession that exists for the exact purpose of manipulating people's desires into a need for a specific product? It's all about shaping the thoughts and desires of the consumer, and thats not counterculture ranting or leftist propaganda, that is the Self-admitted goal of the people in the field.
...

Marketing, I believe, generally forms associations more than performing full blown mind control.

A man once bought shares in Grolsch because a lot of beer mats in a city hosting a major shareholder's meeting bore their name, he didn't think that it meant Grolsch was going to do well - he just through that a lot of other people would think that and would also buy shares. If people think that other people are going to think something looks cool and they like looking cool, even if that image is all manufactured by advertising, that's still a rationally evaluated benefit from purchasing the item. Image is a product as valuable to those who buy it as taste is to those who eat for pleasure. Someone goes to the trouble of creating an image so that people can buy that image. Image is actually an industry with a fast product turnover.

You can think people are idiots, but remember that you're just as stupid next time you feel good for dressing well or enjoying a fine meal.

[PlatonicPimp]

So your world view remains consistent by assuming that the illusion is as valuable as the real thing. The problem is that consumers are not rational decision makers. They never have been and they never will be. It's not that I think people are idiots. It's that I think marketers are evil, and are hijacking the way the brain works for their own ends.

Bad computer metaphor: A dll injector is a piece of code that intercepts messages sent to a specific dll and either copies or redirects it. They have many legitimate uses, but are also very valuable for malware. So when the computer is trying to perform a normal operation, instead it gets redirected to run your code instead.

Point is, the advertising gets in there and redirects your perfectly natural urge to find a mate or security and instead directs it to purchasing products. And while there may be legitimate uses for such programming (subverting the natural urge to fight into other forms of competition, perhaps), it is mostly valuable for convincing people to do things to their detriment.

I don't think you can blame the consumer for purchasing based on that image. Thats how human beings think. Maybe after a few more generations of exposure we'll have built up a tolerance (this may already be happening), much like a virus. But really, the moral responsibility lies in not misusing the knowledge of how the mind works.

And you can rationalize it all as being OK or even how things should work, but you are still just as much a victim of it everytime you choose image over reality.

[kzt]

Like how the US sent troops to Chile

And that was precisely when?

[Ryu]

So your world view remains consistent by assuming that the illusion is as valuable as the real thing. The problem is that consumers are not rational decision makers. They never have been and they never will be. It's not that I think people are idiots. It's that I think marketers are evil, and are hijacking the way the brain works for their own ends.

Illusion is as valuable as the real thing because consumers are not rational decision makers. In effect, all those adds about the cool new mercury comet are advertisings for your social status because your neighbors know that you own the car. One part of marketing is product information (the percentage depends on the country), and therefore not all marketing is evil. Even if some forms of image enhancements are IMO crossing the line even today. It is a superficial world if you like to pay for status symbols, but there is a rational value associated with that.

But where is the loss of value to the customer? Rational utility functions allow you to conclude that he would have been better off with a car and some money than just a car. But the customer will likely never learn, because all customers are gauged equally, and perceive a higher value of said car.

The marketeers are worse on the internal side. They specify the life expectancy of the corps products, because making a product last forever is often possible, with modern tech even easy, but costs too much future profits.

[Sweaty Hippo]

What does that have to do with anything?

Nothing. Just my opinion, and nothing more. Try not to look too deeply into the words of a poster named "sweaty hippo."

Oh, and I have to disagree with being rich is meaningless. Ever seen American celebrities and the legions of fanatic followers? All said celebrities ever did is amass a big pile of cash, and look at the hordes of goggle-eyed goons screaming on TV when Paris Hilton steps out of a limo.

If you ever wanted an army of "sheeple," being a rich celebrity is the way to go.

[WeaverMount]

A little refresher, my contention with your position is that yo said controlling people isn't worth the money. It is. As evidance I point to Disney, Microsoft, and Ford doing this and assume that they act profitably because they are really big.

I'm interested as to why you think that Microsoft products are inferior; Mac fanboy, or Linux/Unix fanboy?

I'm not a rabid Microsoft hater. I didn't say all MS products are bad I even mentioned they have some of the best enterprise solutions out there. Vista is a POS SO though. Microsoft itself copped to this as much as a cooperation can afford to. My point is that they use tactics other producing quality product that meets real need to make sales. You claimed earlier that it is not profitable to do anything but meet existing needs.

That "worthless crap" is a value adder. Some people like those pieces of worthless crap! I like some pieces of worthless crap! Seriously, something small may tip the value of the happy meal from not worth it to barely worth it. It's not worthless crap if someone wants it, anyway, all prices are measures of how much most people would pay to be in possession of the item in question.

Yes, people do loves them worthless crap, and will pay for it giving it a real exchange value. Here is the thing kids like toys. So Disney creates a specific desire with a move so it can get away with selling its physical wares for a much larger mark up. They created desire for the express purpose of sell stuff meet that new need.

[Heath Robinson]

I didn't say all MS products are bad I even mentioned they have some of the best enterprise solutions out there. Vista is a POS SO though. Microsoft itself copped to this as much as a cooperation can afford to. My point is that they use tactics other producing quality product that meets real need to make sales. You claimed earlier that it is not profitable to do anything but meet existing needs.

Microsoft has also been forced by market forces to slow their normal transition plan until Vista stops sucking. However, their sales model that relies on provision as standard on most new computers is satisfying a need; a computer is not all that useful without an OS, OSes and computers are extremely complementary. We should expect them to be sold together, it's of benefit to the consumer that way since they don't have to expend time and effort searching for a compatible OS. You can claim that it's unfair, but it does serve the consumer.

Yes, people do loves them worthless crap, and will pay for it giving it a real exchange value. Here is the thing kids like toys. So Disney creates a specific desire with a move so it can get away with selling its physical wares for a much larger mark up. They created desire for the express purpose of sell stuff meet that new need.

Yes, but people enjoy it and merchandising simply expands the degree to which people enjoy a property. It's not like Disney force you to want a particular media property, they simply try to maximise the degree to which you enjoy their products (and therefore purchase complementary materials). This is beneficial for both you and Disney. You enjoy life more for experiencing their products and they get your money (but less money than the aggregate of all the experiences worth to you), mutually beneficial exchanges since you both want what the other has more than they want it. Movies don't create a desire to own a likeness of a particular character; they simply introduce the design to you and associate some basic character traits with the design, and being seen to appreciate a Disney character with certain characterisation may be a product that you'd like to purchase just as much as a peculiar and unlikely arrangement of organic molecules (food!).

The products sold can be much more ephemeral and subjective than you might think.

So your world view remains consistent by assuming that the illusion is as valuable as the real thing. The problem is that consumers are not rational decision makers. They never have been and they never will be. It's not that I think people are idiots. It's that I think marketers are evil, and are hijacking the way the brain works for their own ends.

Point is, the advertising gets in there and redirects your perfectly natural urge to find a mate or security and instead directs it to purchasing products. And while there may be legitimate uses for such programming (subverting the natural urge to fight into other forms of competition, perhaps), it is mostly valuable for convincing people to do things to their detriment.

And you can rationalize it all as being OK or even how things should work, but you are still just as much a victim of it everytime you choose image over reality.

The requirements for being a rational decision maker are rather low. I'm no expert (I sucked at macroeconomics in my first year, but I was always going to be a CompSci student), but rationality is pretty much being able to order your preferences between choices in a non-circular manner. You must be able to attribute relative worth to the choices facing them.

The illusion for yourself is not necessarily what I'm talking about here, the illusions of others may make it worthwhile to purchase a product that does not rate highly in other aspects; skateboarding shoes are cool with certain crowds, so buying skateboarding shoes is good if you want to attract people from that crowd. Is this bad or stupid? For you to decide, I would have agreed with you some time ago but my opinions have changed in the past few years.

A product associated with being successful with women may be valuable if the advertising also manages to persuade women that people using it are good lovers. The product may be completely superfluous to achieving this goal physically, but the fact that it helps attract lovers makes it valuable because of illusions inspired by marketing. Marketers make people believe in illusions, but if those illusions are quite universally shared they're not necessarily bad. Giving people the oppurtunity to express their desire to seek mates and the strength of their desire is not a fundamentally bad thing, right?

Nobody engineered the association between suits and success, but people now buy suits to look successful. Is it an evil of the world that suits and ties are universally considered to look good and be signs of success? Why should we object to marketers creating new universal associations for us to use and taking, as payment for the new tool they've given us for social interaction, profits from sales over some competing image-related product.

[FrankTrollman]

And that was precisely when?

That would be Project FUBELT in 1973 for five hundred dollars.

-Frank

[Riley37]

Digressing on FUBELT: the Wikipedia article does not specify the US sending uniformed armed forces to Chile. So on one hand Frank's overall point is clear that the USA's respect for Chilean autonomy is roughly parallel to USSR's respect for Czech autonomy. On another hand, the more specific statement that the USA sent troops seems debatable. <shrug> I'll leave that question for another forum... one could argue that there's a moral difference, or one could call it just a style choice of how to maintain one's empire.

A corp can have overall goals, and indeed most probably have a Mission Statement written by a committee, which mentions shareholder revenue along with making the world a better place by providing goods and services. Saeder-Krupp has a single main player, and so what the dragon wants is pretty much what the corp wants, but the difference between the motives of, say, Lofwyr, and what the head of S-K R&D, and Mr. Johnson (hired by assistant to head of R&D)... the friction between those motives can be the source of a good story. They all want S-K to have the best, shiniest new tech, but it's quite plausible that Lofwyr is working on a timetable with deferred gratification over multiple human generations, and maybe the assistant happens to want to set up the head for an embarrassing failure and then suddenly show up with a pre-planned rescue (in hopes of getting the head fired and taking the head's place), and meanwhile, Mr. Johnson is mostly hoping to make enough off the deal that he can pay off some debts, which is why he's also cutting a side deal with the Vory...

With any other corp, the constellation of individuals with variously well-aligned or mis-aligned motives, is even more complex, from top to bottom.

The association between a corp and a national government (or two) varies interestingly. Aztech and Aztlan are closely intertwined, with nahuallis to complete the triangle of government, business and religion; presumably there are bloody internal politics; if UCAS and CAS were willing and able to invade and conquer all the way to the Panama Canal, Aztech would lose a lot of its power base. The Japanese corps may have received preferential treatment in expanding their San Francisco operations, during the time that JIS marines were "restoring order" in San Francisco. Which corps, if any, don't have a significant national affiliation, and could relocate at will?

[Ryu]

Define "relocation". The broad investments of a true mega make the location of ones HQ a secondary concern. Evo still has loads of assets in Japan. Horizon could move its HQ gracefully, because the workforce would OF COURSE be happy to comply, and physical assets are low anyway.

If two nations go to war, a true mega is usually sitting on both sides of the border. Should put a stop to WW2s city annihilation tactics. You shall not harm the bottom line, so war is a national issue that ends up in corporate politics.

[FrankTrollman]

Which corps, if any, don't have a significant national affiliation, and could relocate at will?

EVO, NeoNET, Horizon.

-Frank

[PlatonicPimp]

Giving people the oppurtunity to express their desire to seek mates and the strength of their desire is not a fundamentally bad thing, right?

Nobody engineered the association between suits and success, but people now buy suits to look successful. Is it an evil of the world that suits and ties are universally considered to look good and be signs of success? Why should we object to marketers creating new universal associations for us to use and taking, as payment for the new tool they've given us for social interaction, profits from sales over some competing image-related product.

Right, because without marketers people would have NO WAY to express their desire for a mate. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sarcastic.gif)

I think that anyone who beleives in a right to self-determination would object to having someone create an association in your mind. Especially an association that causes you to behave in a wya that benifits them. Associating basic needs with their products. Especially when the associated product does does nothing to meet the need, or even makes the need worse (hummers were sold as "safe" vehicles, were infact horribly unsafe. Carbonated beverages do not releive thirst, they make it worse.) Especially because they are specifically crafted to prevent you from ever fufilling the desires they hijacked, because if you were fufilled you'd stop buying.

Associations themselves aren't bad, just like in my terrible metaphor dll injectors aren't bad. There are bad ways to use both, however. My point is and remains that corporations DO have the tools, in the real world as well as in SR, to shape public beleif and outright create desire for their products wholecloth. That was the origional question (in what way can a corporation make someone want their product), and regardless of if you think marketing is good, bad or indifferent, I think the point is proven.

[Heath Robinson]

Right, because without marketers people would have NO WAY to express their desire for a mate. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sarcastic.gif)

Not as many, and with nowhere near as many gradiations and nuances. The extra resolution is worth it, in my humble opinion.

I think that anyone who beleives in a right to self-determination would object to having someone create an association in your mind. Especially an association that causes you to behave in a wya that benifits them. Associating basic needs with their products. Especially when the associated product does does nothing to meet the need, or even makes the need worse (hummers were sold as "safe" vehicles, were infact horribly unsafe. Carbonated beverages do not releive thirst, they make it worse.) Especially because they are specifically crafted to prevent you from ever fufilling the desires they hijacked, because if you were fufilled you'd stop buying.

I'd say it's pretty difficult to object to all the cases of someone creating an association in your mind with the expectation of benefits; you'd have to begrudge your parents, society, and a huge number of people otherwise. Parents get benefits from making you believe that lying is fundamentally wrong, or making you associate taking other peoples' things with some negative feeling. Objecting to a corp making you and others associate a particular brand of aftershave with attracting hot women, on the stated grounds that inducing associations in your mind to their advantage is evil, when your parents instill guilt associations in your mind from an early age (or should've, if they'd not) is not exactly an exemplar of intellectual integrity.

Now, if what you mean is "I object to certain people, who I have a stated disrespect for, creating associations in my mind", then you should state it out loud instead of arguing a more universal position. I am a tolerant person, I can accept mercenary ethics that allow you to forgive the evil perpetrated to you by your parents because that evil had good outcomes, or merely addictive ones. A definition of evil based on your reaction to marketers creating associations in your mind, by the way, nothing to do with my definitions of evil.

People are creating associations in your mind every day; an offhand comment from a source you trust about, say, corps raping the land or stealing your money with useless products will make you associate corps with bad things. That the comment originates from someone who has an objective in mind and expects to benefit from the increased public sentiment against corporations would make it evil, yet I'm pretty sure you want to say that it's not an evil thing to do because of it's agreement with your sentiments.


Lies are something I do object to, and advertising standards need to be enforced frequently and strongly enough that it is a significant disincentive. Still, factually true statements in advertising that are misleading are a problem that requires a lot more analysis, thought, and expertise than I can bring to bear on the subject. I'll admit that I can't commit myself to a position on everything about truth when I still have doubts and inquiries.

Associations themselves aren't bad, just like in my terrible metaphor dll injectors aren't bad. There are bad ways to use both, however. My point is and remains that corporations DO have the tools, in the real world as well as in SR, to shape public beleif and outright create desire for their products wholecloth. That was the origional question (in what way can a corporation make someone want their product), and regardless of if you think marketing is good, bad or indifferent, I think the point is proven.

They're really selling a different (and more attractive) product that just happens to look remarkably similar to an old product, but I'm assuming you're going to claim that's bullshit. You seem to be a materialist kind of guy, based on the statement that bits of shaped plastic shouldn't be worth so much.

You win in your opinion, in my opinion you're wrong. Let's agree to disagree, I've gotten a lot out of this discussion but it's probably going to be inevitably fruitless. I must thank you for your opposition, it's helped me develop my opinions that much further (it seems I can only grow in the face of adversity).

[kzt]

That would be Project FUBELT in 1973 for five hundred dollars.

Well, I can see how you might think that expressing a general hostility and talking about how you should do something about a hostile government is exactly the same as sending 150,000 of your troops into a country to overthrow the government, kill or wound 15,000, and destroy most of the capital in the process using tanks, artillery and air strikes. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif)

[Riley37]

kzt: that's not exactly the same as, but substantially closer to, Operation Just Cause, aka Just 'Cuz.

The methods are different; do you see a *moral* difference between a brute force invasion, and manipulating and/or funding locals into a coup d'etat? Would you oppose the former if it happened to your homeland, and accept the latter as OK? If you were a Chilean citizen and came across the FUBELT documents, would you say "oh, that's harmless talk"?

Do you perhaps have a larger point to make, on the scale of Frank's assertion that the USA and the USSR both maintained empires and were both ruthless in doing so? If you want to assert that the USA's Cold War policy is not only more sophisticated than the USSR's (almost anything done by the USSR was clumsy by American standards), but actually more respectful of other nation's right to self-determination, then do so on 4th of July weekend!