Ad Nauseam Parts 3 and 4, Is Google Making us Smarter?, and The Persuaders...

Ad Nauseam:Parts 3 and 4
What struck me as quite interesting was a the chapter in section 3 titled Shopping for Cancer. Part of this chapter talked about the flu season and what the book referred to as the flu economy. It blows my mind that the CEO of Walgreens told some of the people attending a meeting that if they were sick, they should go to highly populated areas to spread their germs. What is this world coming to where companies go out and infect the masses to make a profit? I understand the economics behind it all and if no one is sick chances are, people aren't buying cold medicines, but honestly where is the moral compass? Its bad enough that other forms of advertising work to create conflict in people so they will go out and buy products, but actually trying to spread sickness to force people to purchase products, thats a new all-time low.
In Part 4, I found the Shopping Spies chapter to be kind of creepy. It reminded me of the film Consuming Kids where children were studied in every aspect of their lives to the point where it was just inappropriate, so that advertising agencies could better target the children. You don't grow out of this stage apparently because researchers are now targeting adults in grocery stores. This is just plain creepy. Companies are now essentially stalking their target audiences. It also reminded me of in the Persuaders film where the man was being asked about how he felt when he was eating the bread. Granted, he was fully aware he was being studied, but the questions the researcher was asking just made no sense. "Do you feel lonely while eating white bread?" And this whole stalking method of research just makes no sense either. Let people do their grocery shopping in peace. Nobody wants a researcher trying to get inside their head without their permission as they casually stroll through the grocery store. It's just weird and unnecessary.

Is Google Making Us Smarter:
1. Thesis: Increasing technology will only serve to continue to augment our intelligence and make us smarter as humans, just as it has done throughout history.

2. Agree:
I agree that humans, evolutionarily speaking, have coped by becoming smarter. Our brains have "...changed to meet the challenge..." If there was an obstacle, our brains changed to overcome it, and as a result we have such things as written and spoken language, foresight, long-term planning, the telephone, and the automoblile. All of which have helped our species come to be what we know it is today.
I also agree that the "...age of the cyborg and the suoer-genius has already arrived." Everyone has all types of gadgets that they just take for granted. Were someone from 150 years ago to see the technology that we have now, they would be blown away. We have instant access to all kinds of information with just the touch of a button.
Disagree:
I disagree with the fact idea that we have been augmenting our intelligence for years and it hasn't proved to be a hazard so now shouldn't be any different. I believe that everything has a breaking point, and just because something hasn't caused problems in the past, doesn't mean it wont in the future. I think this rapid advance in external intelligences is not good for the human brain. I think it is making us dumber and not smarter. Everything in moderation;but we are not handling media and technology in moderation in the least sense of the word, and I do believe this will have adverse affects.
I also disagree that these reliances on certain drugs helps to increase our intelligence as well. I don't believe it does. I personally think that intelligence is something that comes from within the mind and cannot be falsely mimicked by way of a particular drug. This sort of drug-induced intelligence is not the kind of thing our brains need to cope with and change according to new challenges that arise. We cannot rely on a substance or technology to to our evolutionary adjusting for us.

The Persuaders:
1. "What advertising has always wanted to do is not simply to suffuse the atmosphere but to become the atmosphere and wants us not to be able to find a way outside the world that it creates for us." Essentially, advertisement agencies are trying to pin us, the consumers, into a world where we cannot escape their ads.
2. Brands started to try to forge an emotional bond with the consumer america, a concept known as emotional branding. With emotional branding, "...brands become more than just a mark of quality , they become an invitation to a longed for lifestyle, a ready made identity." It plays on something beyond human logic and reason.
3. There are agencies who go through every script and look for places where they can insert different products into programs.
4. People are watching fewer adds by either ignoring them or Tivo-ing them out, so advertisers are trying to place advertisements in places where people can't ignore them, such as in the shows themselves. And here we have what is known as product placement, although advertising agencies prefer to call it the "...seam-less integration of merchandise and narrative." But really its all the same.
5. There are certain codes that correspond with products and ideas that help to advertise it to the masses. Focus groups are done to find out how people react to certain words or codes.(Reptilian actions)