Cruel optimism, social media and big tech

I recently read “The Optimists Ended up in Auschwitz.” As you can infer from the title, the people who looked on the bright side didn’t flee Germany in the 1930s, and the people who were less convinced of the goodness of the mob ran, survived, and passed on their genes. Optimism is often but not always warranted, and pessimism exists because bad... See more

if it's a well-thought out, well targeted, well positioned campaign then it's not really a hindrance to anybody. If I'm a DIY enthusiast genuinely needing to buy some new plyers, and I come across an advert for some new fancy plyers, that's a good thing.

> How do you scale something fast enough through just word of mouth to get out of the red?

Don't choose a business model that needs to scale fast.

> If I open a new bakery, is it predatory to send a pamphlet to the nearby houses? Should I just sit quietly and hope that enough people notice?

I have never once gone to a physical store because they... See more

How does one start a new business or sell a product in a world without advertising?

How do you scale something fast enough through just word of mouth to get out of the red?

If I open a new bakery, is it predatory to send a pamphlet to the nearby houses? Should I just sit quietly and hope that enough people notice?

advertising is a kind of cancer of modern society. One obvious consequence of advertising is the worsening of climate change.

I've seen a more direct consequence of advertising on fragile members of the society. Someone close to me has been working with orphans as they reach adulthood. Most have a job (can't make long studies when you have no family... See more

I am a marketer, I sell tin foil to people who wear tin foil hats.

The marketers are along for the ride for a bunch of reasons but also because the methods of content aggregation and sharing while maintain control and more than their fair share of the revenue made so many of the other places people used to advertise spiral into irrelevance.