I think this highlights the most important bit that is missing from most checklists... the why.
Yes we have a list of things to do, and we know that if we don't do all those things then bad things can happen, but the most important thing is to know why we are doing those things... Because when bad things start to happen despite following the list, you need to know why you are doing those things so that you have some hope of making it better.
I suppose raises the question, is the spending of mega bucks on advertising (regardless of effectiveness) a net benefit for society?
As commenters have already raised, we'd have no Google, Facebook, Twitter (sorry 'X') or many other entities and the products they create without the money spent on advertising. Is this all just happening because people are too scared to look under the curtain and find that it's all just a sham?
We had advertising long before the internet came along, and from my personal memory most of the most aggressive advertising was for things that were either useless (magic snake oil remedies) or actually dangerous (tobacco products), not to mention all the "as seen on TV" junk that was "promoted" on morning television.
Is what we have now is more intrusive? It used to be that you could duck to the toilet during the adds on TV or flip the page in the newspaper or magazine, but now they are taking our cpu cycles, making web pages unreadable and that is not to mention the more intrusive ways of really getting in our heads.
I'd argue that we've always had (even if just the shop keeper recommending a product) and always will have advertising. There have always been products that are not needed or wanted by the majority, and advertising is the way that the producer of that product gets their product sold. I would be nice if there were not so much dodgy practice involved.
Is it possible that the cause is people are sitting the tests who would not have previously?
The “need” for a collage degree just to get a job, it is inevitable that more people would want to go down that path regardless how suited they are to it.
So how much does the "ugly" factor into your purchase decisions?
for me functionality and ergonomics decide the purchase, if the device is "pretty" is very much down the list. I'm aways surprised by people who purchase computers for work worrying about what colour they are. Who cares, you're looking at the screen and keyboard, not the case when you are using it.
Do I have to use something that is ugly when I pay a lot for it? Nope, they can keep it. I detest the control freaks who deliberately gimp certain parts of the notebook, just, because, they can or just simply doesn't have the eye for it, because they are so cheapskates to hire an industrial designer and/or their standards are subpar.
For example who thought that for EU keyboards the left shift should be short, gimped? And put the slash right next to it. WHY? Why crowd the keyboard keys together? Why fuck up the arrangement of the arrow keys? Why reorder or remove basic keys? Leave the keyboard the fuck alone, just do not try to innovate there. Leave the keyboard fonts alone too, just copy what macbook or thinkpad uses. Or hire someone who worked with fonts to recommend something similar.
Sometimes they also fuck up how your palm rests on the keyboard, by not giving enough space. Or make the touchpad off center. Add idiotic things to the touchpad, like a calculator (asus), or a scroll area. These are all factors that are letdowns.
Why put a 70% or so srgb shitty screen into a 1000+ USD notebook?
And the list goes on.
So if it's ugly (see above) I'm not buying it, so easy.
Did you happen to find if the same drug is available as a generic?
I use a daily medication. Every time I got to get t he script filled I get asked if I want the brand name or the generic. There is a two or three times price difference, why would I ever get the brand name?
Yeah. This is regulatory arbitrage. It costs a lot to get certified to produce a medication (which is necessary, or else some company will cut corners and produce a contaminated drug). For drugs with small patient populations, it doesn't make sense to pay for that certification and then sell it cheaply. So the drug ends up being made by only a few manufacturers and the price stays high even though it's a generic. I don't know what a better solution is.
I’d buy that argument if their balance sheet didn’t show the vast majority of their budget going to advertising and if companies like CostPlusDrugs weren’t able to do it for pennies.
In my experience you will get as many different reactions to your interactions as humans you interact with with a very wide range, some of which I would consider "not conscious" if not obviously coming from a living breathing human body.
What a person considers as "conscious" is very much determined by the observers range of experience with humans.
Yes we have a list of things to do, and we know that if we don't do all those things then bad things can happen, but the most important thing is to know why we are doing those things... Because when bad things start to happen despite following the list, you need to know why you are doing those things so that you have some hope of making it better.