Author Topic: EP396: Dead Merchandise  (Read 27365 times)

eytanz

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on: May 16, 2013, 11:16:42 AM
EP396: Dead Merchandise

By Ferrett Steinmetz

Read by Kathy Sherwood

--

The ad-faeries danced around Sheryl, flickering cartoon holograms with fluoride-white smiles. They told her the gasoline that sloshed in the red plastic canister she held was high-octane, perfect for any vehicle, did she want to go for a drive?
She did not. That gasoline was for burning. Sheryl patted her pockets to make sure the matches were still there and kept moving forward, blinking away the videostreams. Her legs ached.

She squinted past a flurry of hair-coloring ads (“Sheryl, wash your gray away today!”), scanning the neon roads to find the breast-shaped marble dome of River Edge’s central collation unit. River’s Edge had been a sleepy Midwestern town when she was a girl, a place just big enough for a diner and a department store. Now River’s Edge had been given a mall-over like every other town — every wall lit up with billboards, colorful buildings topped with projectors to burn logos into the clouds. She was grateful for the dark patches that marked where garish shop-fronts had been bombed into ash-streaked metal tangles.
The smoke gave her hope. Others were trying to bring it all down — and if they were succeeding, maybe no one was left to stop her.

Rotting bodies leered out at her through car windows, where computer-guided cars had smashed headlong into the collapsed shopfronts that had fallen into the road. Had the drivers been fleeing, or trying to destroy the collation unit? She had no idea.
The ad-faeries sang customized praises to each auto as she glanced at the cars, devising customized ditties about the ’59 Breezster’s speed. Sheryl needed speed; at her arthritic pace, walking through the women’s district might tempt her into submission.


Listen to this week’s Escape Pod!



silber

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Reply #1 on: May 16, 2013, 07:31:52 PM
Wow, nothing to say but GREAT STORY!  Escapepod has really been on a roll lately.



LarpingWombat

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Reply #2 on: May 16, 2013, 08:58:14 PM
What a great story. It took a little while to get going and left enough mystery as to what exactly was going on to really keep me tuned in and trying to puzzle things out as it went.

This story really made me think about what I enjoy most about science fiction: dreawing on elements of the world around the author and taking them to a logical (or even illogical) extreme as a case study of who we are and what we could, should, or want to be. The dystopian exploration that results from this type of extrapolation has always been a uniquely sci-fi element in my mind. It makes me think of classics like Heinlein's Starship Troopers, Miller's Canticle for Liebowitz, or the movie Gattica.

Furthermore, the ending was pure genius. The main character is so focused and driven to accomplish her goal that she is willing and able to fight the ad-faries where so many have ostensibly failed, only to find herself completely lost and unable to function without their input. It speaks to the way we let the world around us, especially the hyper-consumerism and advertising that is the focus of this story, subtly take over our lives without us even knowing about it.

Awesome!



micah_gideon

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Reply #3 on: May 16, 2013, 10:50:56 PM
I loved this story.

It took a while for it to draw me in and give me any hint that I might care (and maybe it was benefitting from initially low expectations), but once I was in, I learned that I did care. So much so, in fact, that I didn't see the end coming until after I'd read heard the last line. Nicely done.

It makes me wonder if this could have worked as well if I were reading it? Would I have kept reading if I had to be more actively involved or did this author use the fact that this is probably background for many of us to launch a stealth attack? There aren't many stories I've listened to that really seem to play to use the side effects of the modality as effectively as this one did for me and I wonder if there are authors that sort of write-for-audiobook?



Kaa

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Reply #4 on: May 16, 2013, 11:24:17 PM
I really liked this one. It's terrifyingly plausible.

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dpgates

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Reply #5 on: May 16, 2013, 11:36:48 PM
This was a terrific story!  It conjured connections with home shopping networks in my mind.  You know---the hosts' incessant wheedling, cajoling, and begging.  The way they dream up ridiculous situations where viewers "need" their product.  Part carnival barkers, part used car salesmen.  And the narrator's husband warehousing the mountains of stuff he bought and never used---brought to mind how I picture the trailers that QVC Frequent Buyers must live in.  This is one episode I intend to listen to at least one more time.



InfiniteMonkey

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Reply #6 on: May 17, 2013, 04:38:30 AM
I dread the day when SF authors get into arguments over who first came up with the feral ad.

I dread it, because I'm afraid it's going to happen (the feral ads, that is. The argument will happen no matter what)

It put in mind of all sorts of SF things, from the short "Advertising at the End of the World" through Star Trek:TNG (where a mind-linked Crusher realizes that Picard doesn't always know if a decision is right, he just makes one)



Dem

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Reply #7 on: May 17, 2013, 12:27:02 PM
Anyone else cancelling their advance order for Google Glasses?

Science is what you do when the funding panel thinks you know what you're doing. Fiction is the same only without the funding.


chemistryguy

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Reply #8 on: May 17, 2013, 12:51:19 PM
I've gotten used to avoiding the "real" commercials thanks to DVR, but branding and product placement is everywhere.  There should be a drinking game for the number of times the Apple logo shows up.

This world where advertizing is omnipresent, has the ability to tap into your emotional vulnerabilities and has not the soul to draw a line between good business sense and pure ghoulishness is a terrifying vision.

And yes, Alasdair, the last lines gave me chills.


matweller

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Reply #9 on: May 17, 2013, 01:27:10 PM
Anyone else cancelling their advance order for Google Glasses?
How long do you think it will be until Google sponsors a life-casting senator?



flintknapper

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Reply #10 on: May 17, 2013, 03:08:38 PM
The story was not subtle. It was almost a commercial against commercialization. However, that is not to say that I did not like the story. I found the world fascinating, not just the advertising, but the little bits and pieces of the greater landscape hinted at by the author.



Dem

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Reply #11 on: May 17, 2013, 03:32:32 PM
Anyone else cancelling their advance order for Google Glasses?
How long do you think it will be until Google sponsors a life-casting senator?

I'd be counting on most politicians to end up right royally screwing themselves in the manner of the UK MP Alisdair mentioned in his outro. I so want to know who that was!

Science is what you do when the funding panel thinks you know what you're doing. Fiction is the same only without the funding.


Cutter McKay

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Reply #12 on: May 17, 2013, 05:22:34 PM
Ferrett Steinmetz is the author of my favorite EP episode of all time, EP339: "Run," Bakri Says. So of course I was intrigued when I saw he was the author if this week's story. I was not disappointed.

This story is a fantastic exploration of where our country's, and planet's, over-commercialization is taking us. I loved the reference to the sponsor patches on the police uniforms as I find it completely feasible for government agencies to start accepting sponsorship from private companies as governments continue to cut budgets and reduce support. Loved it.

Also, the ending was brilliant. I've often wondered what will happen to our children who grow up on the internets if they're ever permanently cut off from that constant source of information and social connection. This story delivered an extreme, though viable, possible answer to that question.

This story prompted me to visit Ferrett's webpage and I was pleasantly surprised to find that Ferrett has had several other stories published on PseudoPod and PodCastle as well. I will be checking these out forthwith.  ;)

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Sgarre1

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Reply #13 on: May 17, 2013, 05:38:57 PM
Another coming to PSEUDOPOD very soon, in fact...



Cutter McKay

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Reply #14 on: May 17, 2013, 05:42:59 PM
Another coming to PSEUDOPOD very soon, in fact...
Sweeeeeeet.  ;D

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InfiniteMonkey

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Reply #15 on: May 18, 2013, 12:12:14 AM
There should be a drinking game for the number of times the Apple logo shows up.


There are a lot of shows and movies where that would leave players stumbling and slurring within the first 15 mins.



InfiniteMonkey

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Reply #16 on: May 18, 2013, 12:14:53 AM

Also, the ending was brilliant. I've often wondered what will happen to our children who grow up on the internets if they're ever permanently cut off from that constant source of information and social connection. This story delivered an extreme, though viable, possible answer to that question.


Then allow me to recommend Feed by M.T. Anderson; that's the theme of the book. Well, not our children. Our children's children. Who have in-skull internet 24/7....



Cutter McKay

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Reply #17 on: May 18, 2013, 12:33:22 AM

Also, the ending was brilliant. I've often wondered what will happen to our children who grow up on the internets if they're ever permanently cut off from that constant source of information and social connection. This story delivered an extreme, though viable, possible answer to that question.


Then allow me to recommend Feed by M.T. Anderson; that's the theme of the book. Well, not our children. Our children's children. Who have in-skull internet 24/7....

I'm all over that...

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Windup

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Reply #18 on: May 18, 2013, 03:36:31 AM
For me, the early part of this story was like the part of my morning before the first cup of coffee: existential confusion.  I kept trying to figure out what was happening to the world, what the "collation unit" was, what was real and what existed only in the narrator's mind, and so on. Just like morning, it was quite a while before a coherent picture finally emerged.

Once I got to that point, though, I was really engaged.  I agree that it's an appallingly plausible scenario -- a "consumer society" that finally becomes so efficient at manipulating its consumers that it destroys them, and thereby negates its existence.  I wonder what kind of barbarians emerge from the collapse.

And I agree with others on the last line: sheer, terrifying genius. 

« Last Edit: May 18, 2013, 03:56:31 AM by Windup »

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El Barto

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Reply #19 on: May 19, 2013, 05:07:08 PM
For the first half of this story I found myself thinking, "This is too much of a caricature - too over the top and cartoonish in its depiction of this clearly unbelievable dystopian world."

And somewhere around halfway I thought to myself, "Oh crap, this may be but a harbinger of an inevitable future."



Dem

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Reply #20 on: May 19, 2013, 06:34:31 PM
For the first half of this story I found myself thinking, "This is too much of a caricature - too over the top and cartoonish in its depiction of this clearly unbelievable dystopian world."

And somewhere around halfway I thought to myself, "Oh crap, this may be but a harbinger of an inevitable future."

That's about it. We're on our way and we're dancing to the edge with our eyes wide open.
Make that, eyes scanning the AR layers on our screens and the VR game we're fighting in our glasses. Memory implant and cloud storage? Oh, yes please ...

Science is what you do when the funding panel thinks you know what you're doing. Fiction is the same only without the funding.


JDoug

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Reply #21 on: May 19, 2013, 07:13:01 PM
This story was really well written and I certainly don't regret listening to it. But I wasn't so keen on the world building....

1) It's a mildly depressing thought, but I tend to believe that most corporate leaders are more intelligent than myself. (Hence why they're leaders in a very competitive market). They're also ruthlessly pragmatic. As such, I found it difficult to believe that they would just passively watch the world collapse, rather than turn off the ad fairies. Previously 'evil' companies like McDonald's are becoming more and more 'responsible' as time goes on. This is because a) If consumers think you're evil, they're less likely to buy you product (I would have thought the protests/boycotts/bombings would have started when Malls started brain scanning. This world seemed considerably more relaxed than the one I live in) and b) You resource/income base needs to be sustainable for long term profit - e.g it's a bad idea to kill off your consumers.
2) Where the hell did the money come from. These people are addicts, using credit to pay for goods. But credit card companies only profit when you pay them back, which tends not to happen when you die. I realise this was a world where essentially economic collapse had happened, as a result of the adverts. But even before the collapse, where on earth did the cash come from? I mean, a mall in every town requires some serious resources.....
3) Reflective lenses in your glasses. Bet ya $50 they're released two days after the ad-faeries.

I realise that this is essentially nit-picking and normally I hate those who do it. I mean, come on, most sci-fi requires some suspension of disbelief. But I thought I'd rain down on this parade, since everyone else seems to love this story. And as I stated at the start, I did enjoy it. And I'm pretty sure the 15 year old version of me would have loved it. But right now he thinks I'm a sellout and is refusing to talk to me, so I'm not certain.
« Last Edit: May 19, 2013, 07:17:48 PM by JDoug »



adrianh

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Reply #22 on: May 19, 2013, 07:32:07 PM
I enjoyed it, but no where near as much as "Run, Bakri Says" - which was one of my fave stories of the last year or so on EP.

The mind-reading/implanting ad-fairies were a lovely conceit (if implausible on the mind reading / implanting side ;-).  I enjoyed some little worldbuilding details - like the line about the legislation on how long they could spend at your focal point. But the rest of the time I felt like I was being hit with the +10 sledgehammer of consumerism-is-bad.

That's not a message I disagree with by any means - but it was delivered bluntly and loudly. I tend to prefer stories that are bit more of a sharp stiletto in the night ;-)

The world felt stacked to fail in this particular way. The baddies were too bad. The goodies were to blameless. The worldbuilding felt more like a Swiftian conceit to get the message across, rather than something that was thought through to it's fullest extent.

(We have the technology for arbitrary mind reading, emotional manipulation, forced recollection of memories, and something with a theory of mind smart enough to control the vast majority of humanity. Are feral marketing AIs really going to be our worst problem?)

The last few lines were a killer though ;-)




matweller

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Reply #23 on: May 20, 2013, 01:06:24 AM
1) It's a mildly depressing thought, but I tend to believe that most corporate leaders are more intelligent than myself. (Hence why they're leaders in a very competitive market). They're also ruthlessly pragmatic. As such, I found it difficult to believe that they would just passively watch the world collapse, rather than turn off the ad fairies

You mean, like the Wall Street bankers, government regulators, and policy makers that allowed a global economic collapse to happen in 2008 despite the fact that it's coming was plainly visible to someone with zero economic education five years earlier?

You only have to listen to marketers talk about how to exploit mobile devices for five minutes to realize that this future is not only possible, but that they will march us all into it with as much vigor as the aforementioned Wall Streeters, with just as little conscience.



TheArchivist

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Reply #24 on: May 20, 2013, 12:49:31 PM
I'm going to have to listen to this one again before making any longer comments, but for now... yay! This was great! It started well and just got better, until it reach one of the most poignant endings I've heard in some time.



Max e^{i pi}

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Reply #25 on: May 21, 2013, 06:46:01 AM
Apocalypse by advertising? Hell yeah! I am ready for this one.
I never buy anything that anybody is actively trying to sell me, I don't buy any products endorsed by a certain number of "celebrities" in commercials and I don't accept pieces of paper handed to me on the sidewalk outside business establishments. My browsers all have superb ad blocking plugins and I annoy the hell out of telephone salespersons.
Also, I'm a meticulous comparative shopper that borders on the obsessive. It took me longer to buy a new tablet than the average human pregnancy.

As for the story... it was pretty good. I liked the mystery of it all, and I liked how it was explained in little bits and pieces. Looking back on the story I realize that most of the story, a good 75% or so, was just information dump. But it didn't feel that way while I was listening. The ad faeries' ability to riffle through memories as a plot device worked extremely well.
The ending was particularly good. I was sort of hoping that she'd move on to the next town, maybe picking up a survivor or two on the way. Then after destroying the next collation center they'd find a couple more people and bicycles. Then the next city and the next... rolling The Stand fashion until RF was finally defeated. But this was better. Much better.

Was I the only one to notice that the collation center is breast shaped? How appropriate is that? It's where the ad faeries obtain their mother's milk of data and algorithm outputs, and it's where the human population are completely dependent on. Without it they couldn't function, not even the ones who didn't listen to the ad faeries. They just couldn't be weened off of the little voices in their heads.
« Last Edit: May 21, 2013, 06:50:33 AM by Max e^{i pi} »

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MacArthurBug

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Reply #26 on: May 21, 2013, 01:54:28 PM
Oooh my I really liked this story. Plausable. Creepy. Well written. I loved the flow. Listening on a night I was all jittered and full of too much caffine, however, was a VERY BAD IDEA! I had to listen to two other stories to chill out. Then I still had disquiteing dreams.


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koosie

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Reply #27 on: May 21, 2013, 10:57:38 PM
A masterpeice! It is often said that the best dystopias are exaggerated versions of the state of play at the time of writing: This story provides a wonderfully forbidding lengthened shadow of how this civilisation has developed in the decades I have lived. It is one where shocking abundance expressed as bewildering consumer choice for a privileged minority while services for all slowly deteriorate against a backdrop of questionable wars and venal leadership. Nobody planned or designed it that way and it was long ago beyond the power of anyone to stop.

On a lighter note....do people still use matches? I've not bought a box of matches for years. Thanks E-P!



bounceswoosh

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Reply #28 on: May 21, 2013, 11:27:22 PM
I enjoyed it, but no where near as much as "Run, Bakri Says" - which was one of my fave stories of the last year or so on EP.

I'm kind of shocked that these two stories were written by the same author.  I adored "Run, Bakri says."  "Dead Merchandise", in comparison, just didn't grab me by the heart.



Dem

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Reply #29 on: May 22, 2013, 08:50:59 AM
I enjoyed it, but no where near as much as "Run, Bakri Says" - which was one of my fave stories of the last year or so on EP.

I'm kind of shocked that these two stories were written by the same author.  I adored "Run, Bakri says."  "Dead Merchandise", in comparison, just didn't grab me by the heart.

And for me - completely the reverse. That's the talent of diversity :)

Science is what you do when the funding panel thinks you know what you're doing. Fiction is the same only without the funding.


bounceswoosh

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Reply #30 on: May 22, 2013, 01:40:47 PM
I enjoyed it, but no where near as much as "Run, Bakri Says" - which was one of my fave stories of the last year or so on EP.

I'm kind of shocked that these two stories were written by the same author.  I adored "Run, Bakri says."  "Dead Merchandise", in comparison, just didn't grab me by the heart.

And for me - completely the reverse. That's the talent of diversity :)

Yeah - life would be pretty boring if we all liked the same things!



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Reply #31 on: May 23, 2013, 01:15:24 AM
I probably don't have much new to add that hasn't been said already. That said, I like this episode quite a bit. In particular I liked the way that the protagonist's flashbacks were spaced out throughout the story, giving us more and more hints as to what happened and how things got so bad. I felt like the pacing wasn't as good towards the end; it seemed like the ending dragged on just a tad longer than it needed to. I didn't like the ending so much, it felt like an odd downer. If the character had ultimately succumb to the allure of the ad fairies, that would be one thing, but the kind of odd indecision gave me a puzzled frown.

Regardless, wonderful work. The narrator really did this story justice.



Devoted135

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Reply #32 on: May 23, 2013, 01:50:41 AM
Wow, this was terrifyingly plausible...

For me, it was all of the little details that really made the story. The children being manipulated into manipulating their parents' votes, the father chasing that perfect shrine to his kids, the ad fairies only being allowed to obstruct your view for 0.8 seconds. These gave life to the rather bleak world of this story, and made me root for her to accomplish her goal.

At the end I was on the edge of my seat, willing her to make a decision, any decision about which town to target next. I recently heard an interview with someone who studies multi-tasking. Evidently we are not very good at it, but those who multi-task a lot actually retrain their brain to the extent that they are no longer capable of doing just one thing at a time. It really gave me pause, and made me hope that I haven't lost my ability to concentrate on a single task.



TheArchivist

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Reply #33 on: May 23, 2013, 08:35:21 AM
I didn't like the ending so much, it felt like an odd downer. If the character had ultimately succumb to the allure of the ad fairies, that would be one thing, but the kind of odd indecision gave me a puzzled frown.
Yes, I can see that. In fact it felt a bit of a downer to me at first - I'd been rooting for her, looking forward to the explosion, almost a tad disappointed by the (far more realistic) slow burn - and then...

But that's the thing. The author could have done the explosion and only risked a few nitpickers pointing out that Hollywood hasn't a clue about the way petrol actually burns. Of course an explosion would have killed the protagonist but it would have been a glorious, satisfying self-sacrifice for a cause. And it would have been a little bit stock and predictable.

The author could have followed through the slow burn with our heroine setting out on a one-woman crusade to rid the world of collation centres, joined along the way by those she has freed from the evil ad-faeries. That would have been quite a lot stock and predictable, to be honest, and also not at all true to the character that had been so skillfully built up.

The ending we actually got - a woman crippled by indecision in the wash of victory - not only fits the ordinary-mum-driven-to-extremes motif far better, but also raises questions we can discuss here about the way we train our brains to work, either deliberately or unconciously. It was, to my mind, just the right ending for the story.



adrianh

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Reply #34 on: May 23, 2013, 08:52:13 AM
As for the story... it was pretty good. I liked the mystery of it all, and I liked how it was explained in little bits and pieces. Looking back on the story I realize that most of the story, a good 75% or so, was just information dump. But it didn't feel that way while I was listening.

Yeah - I think that was what made it less enjoyable from my perspective. We spent so much time being told how the world worked, rather than being shown. It did feel a bit info-dumpy to me. Well handled info-dumps mind ;-)



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Reply #35 on: May 23, 2013, 09:12:04 AM
Great story. I don't get to listen and post comments as fast as others so much of what I would have said has been said. Terrifyingly plausible, terrific ending. Loved it!

Put me in mind of a J G Ballard short story with subliminal roadside advertising hoardings forcing the main character to pull off the road and buy cigarettes, which ended up in the glove box with many other packets as he didn't smoke!



Listener

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Reply #36 on: May 23, 2013, 12:39:56 PM
I work in advertising. We're constantly trying to find ways to incorporate ads into content, because people don't see ads anymore. Not really. Of course, I work for one of the 10 biggest sites on the 'net, so we have a lot of, shall we say, "non-expert" users who don't know how to block ads.

This story is plausible and a little scary, but I would've liked to see it framed a little differently than "woman whose family was killed tries to burn down datacenter".

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Reply #37 on: May 24, 2013, 12:34:55 PM
Wow. I hate it when "this should have been in Pseudopod" pops up, but this story terrified me more than most stories that run there.



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Reply #38 on: May 24, 2013, 08:09:42 PM
Wow, I also liked this one a lot.  I did feel it was unlikely collective humanity would allow ourselves to degrade to that point, but still... who knows.

For some reason the idea of Sheryl's friend broiling herself in the oven sent my mind spinning.  I tried to imagine myself enduring such a horror and the details invoked truly disturbed me.  Just one of the many things that sparked my imagination into vivid overdrive while listening, I love that.



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Reply #39 on: May 25, 2013, 07:32:04 PM
The only way I can go out into many so-called "public spaces" any more is if I wear my noise cancelling headphones. In the future we'll be trying to find ways to keep our thoughts clear the same way we now avoid physical dangers, like say crime, noise, pollution, etc. This story is about a mentally polluted environment.



Lisa3737

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Reply #40 on: May 26, 2013, 12:09:31 AM
I enjoyed this story; it is also certainly a cautionary tale.



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Reply #41 on: May 28, 2013, 01:28:57 PM
Was I the only one to notice that the collation center is breast shaped? How appropriate is that? It's where the ad faeries obtain their mother's milk of data and algorithm outputs, and it's where the human population are completely dependent on. Without it they couldn't function, not even the ones who didn't listen to the ad faeries. They just couldn't be weened off of the little voices in their heads.

You weren't the only one to notice, if only because the story itself referred to it as breast-shaped.  I didn't read anything metaphorical from it, though.  I just thought "Oh, so it looks like your typical capital building or Cathedral dome", which often do look like breasts if you swap out the nipple for a crucifix.



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Reply #42 on: May 28, 2013, 01:58:59 PM
Was I the only one to notice that the collation center is breast shaped? How appropriate is that? It's where the ad faeries obtain their mother's milk of data and algorithm outputs, and it's where the human population are completely dependent on. Without it they couldn't function, not even the ones who didn't listen to the ad faeries. They just couldn't be weened off of the little voices in their heads.

You weren't the only one to notice, if only because the story itself referred to it as breast-shaped.  I didn't read anything metaphorical from it, though.  I just thought "Oh, so it looks like your typical capital building or Cathedral dome", which often do look like breasts if you swap out the nipple for a crucifix.

Got to love the images this conjures.


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Reply #43 on: May 28, 2013, 03:49:25 PM
Was I the only one to notice that the collation center is breast shaped? How appropriate is that? It's where the ad faeries obtain their mother's milk of data and algorithm outputs, and it's where the human population are completely dependent on. Without it they couldn't function, not even the ones who didn't listen to the ad faeries. They just couldn't be weened off of the little voices in their heads.

You weren't the only one to notice, if only because the story itself referred to it as breast-shaped.  I didn't read anything metaphorical from it, though.  I just thought "Oh, so it looks like your typical capital building or Cathedral dome", which often do look like breasts if you swap out the nipple for a crucifix.

Somehow I interpreted this as "breast shaped when viewed from above" and envisioned a pair of them so that I ended up with sort of a heart shape ...



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Reply #44 on: May 29, 2013, 12:55:25 PM
Dammit, Ferrett, you've done it again.  

With the solid showings he's had on the pods in the last year or two I think Ferrett Steinmetz may be jockeying with Tim Pratt for the rank of my favorite short story author.

Ads generally don't do a lot to sway my interest.  At Christmas my family often gets annoyed at me because I don't want them to buy me anything.  What's the point in buying me crap that I have to find someplace to store when I can be so easily entertained with a pen-and-paper or a word processor?  For me to actually want something it's utility has to be pretty clearly demonstrated.  Except for food, I'm a sucker for food ads, and I don't have to figure out where to store it--that's what my body fat is for.  But these ad fairies scare the bejeezus out of me, I have no doubt I'd be buying as much as anyone else once they got hooks in my brain.

I liked Alasdair's wording to describe the ad fairies "feral advertising" is a very accurate descriptor for this, and I find it all too plausible.  It's entirely too believable that corporations in the free market would destroy society with some poorly made decisions.  And that the legislature would lag just far enough behind the new technology so as to be completely useless as a deterrent.

When she destroyed the collation center I thought the story would go along a more obvious but still serviceable route, either her dying in the destruction of the center, or crusading on to the next one.  But this ending was so perfect.  Throughout the story it appeared that she was one of the rare few who could not be manipulated by the ad fairies, but in the end she was controlled just as much by them as everyone else was.  The difference was that she ran in the opposite direction of where they told her to go.  They (apparently) tried to keep her away from the collation center which only drove her toward it more.  But the ending shows that she was just reacting to that immediate stimulus, and once the stimulus was gone she has lost all motivation, and will probably just die there.  

I say that the ad fairies "apparently" try to keep her away because I find it hard to believe with their mindreading and emotional manipulation skills that they were not aware that they were just egging her on.  Why did they do it then?  I don't know, maybe because they were finally starting to realize that there was no money left in the world from which to profit.  Without the human institution of money, there are still things of value, among those things are energy which the collation center must be using in spades to keep up its work--so for the collation center to commit suicide at this point would be its best move to stop bleeding valued energy.

The result of this story goes to show how destructive a capitalist environment can be when it is only focused on short-term gains.  Presumably the ad fairies' behavior is based on a utility function that tells them to seek whatever path gives them more money at this moment.  I can totally see a CEO demanding that behavior without consideration of its long-term consequences.  Any self-respecting software engineer should see the flaws in this with some consideration, but the CEO would no doubt then fire that self-respecting software engineer and find someone else who will do the work.  

The utility function doesn't have a pre-set reaction for the situation of the story where everyone is dead or broken or broke.  Why not?  Because it's not profitable (in terms of dollars in the short term) to make the ad fairies flexible enough to react to that scenario.  What is profitable (in the short term) is exploiting addiction (look at casinos) and mental illness, and to create new addictions and new mental illnesses to exploit.  These poor people never have a chance to heal, to grieve, just relentless emotional assault until you die one way or the other.  This story is haunting, terrifying, and way to F-ing plausible.  There are so many images to back up the idea; I think the most scary for me is the men's district with the emaciated men in the broken wasteland of a city still trying to flex their muscles and impress her.  Because, dammit, sex sells.

Now, if the corporation had long-term outlook, they'd have some kind of algorithm that took the survival of the capitalist society in which it thrives as part of its utility.  After all, it can't make money if everyone is dead and the concept of money no longer exists.  What do you call a corporation that would dial back short-term profits to avoid destroying the world?  Bankrupt.  Because another corporation would undoubtedly step forward and do the same thing unless something outside of the natural selection capitalist environment stopped them, such as legislation.  Which are also often swayed by money, and in any case move at the pace of an indecisive snail.

Well done, Mr. Steinmetz, well done.
« Last Edit: May 29, 2013, 12:58:17 PM by Unblinking »



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Reply #45 on: May 29, 2013, 01:13:11 PM
Dammit, Ferrett, you've done it again.  

With the solid showings he's had on the pods in the last year or two I think Ferrett Steinmetz may be jockeying with Tim Pratt for the rank of my favorite short story author.

Ads generally don't do a lot to sway my interest.  At Christmas my family often gets annoyed at me because I don't want them to buy me anything.  What's the point in buying me crap that I have to find someplace to store when I can be so easily entertained with a pen-and-paper or a word processor?  For me to actually want something it's utility has to be pretty clearly demonstrated.  Except for food, I'm a sucker for food ads, and I don't have to figure out where to store it--that's what my body fat is for.  But these ad fairies scare the bejeezus out of me, I have no doubt I'd be buying as much as anyone else once they got hooks in my brain.

I liked Alasdair's wording to describe the ad fairies "feral advertising" is a very accurate descriptor for this, and I find it all too plausible.  It's entirely too believable that corporations in the free market would destroy society with some poorly made decisions.  And that the legislature would lag just far enough behind the new technology so as to be completely useless as a deterrent.

When she destroyed the collation center I thought the story would go along a more obvious but still serviceable route, either her dying in the destruction of the center, or crusading on to the next one.  But this ending was so perfect.  Throughout the story it appeared that she was one of the rare few who could not be manipulated by the ad fairies, but in the end she was controlled just as much by them as everyone else was.  The difference was that she ran in the opposite direction of where they told her to go.  They (apparently) tried to keep her away from the collation center which only drove her toward it more.  But the ending shows that she was just reacting to that immediate stimulus, and once the stimulus was gone she has lost all motivation, and will probably just die there.  

I say that the ad fairies "apparently" try to keep her away because I find it hard to believe with their mindreading and emotional manipulation skills that they were not aware that they were just egging her on.  Why did they do it then?  I don't know, maybe because they were finally starting to realize that there was no money left in the world from which to profit.  Without the human institution of money, there are still things of value, among those things are energy which the collation center must be using in spades to keep up its work--so for the collation center to commit suicide at this point would be its best move to stop bleeding valued energy.

The result of this story goes to show how destructive a capitalist environment can be when it is only focused on short-term gains.  Presumably the ad fairies' behavior is based on a utility function that tells them to seek whatever path gives them more money at this moment.  I can totally see a CEO demanding that behavior without consideration of its long-term consequences.  Any self-respecting software engineer should see the flaws in this with some consideration, but the CEO would no doubt then fire that self-respecting software engineer and find someone else who will do the work.  

The utility function doesn't have a pre-set reaction for the situation of the story where everyone is dead or broken or broke.  Why not?  Because it's not profitable (in terms of dollars in the short term) to make the ad fairies flexible enough to react to that scenario.  What is profitable (in the short term) is exploiting addiction (look at casinos) and mental illness, and to create new addictions and new mental illnesses to exploit.  These poor people never have a chance to heal, to grieve, just relentless emotional assault until you die one way or the other.  This story is haunting, terrifying, and way to F-ing plausible.  There are so many images to back up the idea; I think the most scary for me is the men's district with the emaciated men in the broken wasteland of a city still trying to flex their muscles and impress her.  Because, dammit, sex sells.

Now, if the corporation had long-term outlook, they'd have some kind of algorithm that took the survival of the capitalist society in which it thrives as part of its utility.  After all, it can't make money if everyone is dead and the concept of money no longer exists.  What do you call a corporation that would dial back short-term profits to avoid destroying the world?  Bankrupt.  Because another corporation would undoubtedly step forward and do the same thing unless something outside of the natural selection capitalist environment stopped them, such as legislation.  Which are also often swayed by money, and in any case move at the pace of an indecisive snail.

Well done, Mr. Steinmetz, well done.


I vote this for the feedback slot. Might need its own podcast though :)

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Reply #46 on: May 29, 2013, 01:40:37 PM
When she destroyed the collation center I thought the story would go along a more obvious but still serviceable route, either her dying in the destruction of the center, or crusading on to the next one.  But this ending was so perfect.  Throughout the story it appeared that she was one of the rare few who could not be manipulated by the ad fairies, but in the end she was controlled just as much by them as everyone else was.  The difference was that she ran in the opposite direction of where they told her to go.  They (apparently) tried to keep her away from the collation center which only drove her toward it more.  But the ending shows that she was just reacting to that immediate stimulus, and once the stimulus was gone she has lost all motivation, and will probably just die there.  

I thought this was great too. I love the suggestion that there are many layers of thought and while we may be able to focus with one, there are others running in the background, and when those subconscious layers become the focus, something wholly different may result. I think this is closer to our true nature than many of us may suspect.

I say that the ad fairies "apparently" try to keep her away because I find it hard to believe with their mindreading and emotional manipulation skills that they were not aware that they were just egging her on.  Why did they do it then?  I don't know, maybe because they were finally starting to realize that there was no money left in the world from which to profit.  Without the human institution of money, there are still things of value, among those things are energy which the collation center must be using in spades to keep up its work--so for the collation center to commit suicide at this point would be its best move to stop bleeding valued energy.

I don't think the fairies' motivation was money as much as attention. They were winning with every distraction, I think that was the motivation to lie to divert her even more than their own self preservation -- zombify first, then sell.



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Reply #47 on: May 29, 2013, 02:30:32 PM
I say that the ad fairies "apparently" try to keep her away because I find it hard to believe with their mindreading and emotional manipulation skills that they were not aware that they were just egging her on.  Why did they do it then?  I don't know, maybe because they were finally starting to realize that there was no money left in the world from which to profit.  Without the human institution of money, there are still things of value, among those things are energy which the collation center must be using in spades to keep up its work--so for the collation center to commit suicide at this point would be its best move to stop bleeding valued energy.

I don't think the fairies' motivation was money as much as attention. They were winning with every distraction, I think that was the motivation to lie to divert her even more than their own self preservation -- zombify first, then sell.
Yes, that was where I felt Unblinking's otherwise excellent summary fell a bit short. Their apparent mind-reading ability is actually clearly flawed, as we can see from the way they misinterpret the protagonist's intentions for the petrol, right at the start. The collation centre, the Ad-Faerie technology, is all based on numbers and probabilities. That's all it needs to be - no corporation really feels the need to score a 100% hit rate, let alone 100% market share. Not even Microsoft. After all, what do you call a corporation that hits 100% saturation? Stuck, that's what. And a corporation that gets stuck soon turns into a corporation in decline.
So no, the Ad-Faeries don't need to be perfect mind-readers, and they certainly don't need to be perfect psychological manipulators. What they need is to score better than 50% at getting it right. How much better depends enormously on their cost.
Take the email spam issue : corporate junk mail of the paper variety costs a few cents per potential customer, and has a tiny success rate. That makes it inefficient, costly, and rare. Junk mail sent over the Internet has an even smaller success rate, but the cost is so close to zero that it's worth being an evil scumsucker despite that.
So, if operating cost of the Ad-Faeries is low (discounting the infrastructure and set-up costs, because they're one-off) then a benefit ratio of 51% - only 2% more people encouraged than turned off - is enough. Judging by the scenario painted in this story I'd guess the not-quite-so-scrupulous software developers managed a very high benefit ratio, but not 100%, and thus a few - a very few - people react against them, either instinctively or as a learned behaviour that the software can't cope with. Because, presumably, the people employed to keep the software in step with the latest developments... are no longer working.



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Reply #48 on: May 30, 2013, 12:50:20 AM
Just yesterday, I watched a TED talk on "How to make choosing easier" by Sheena Iyengar (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pq5jnM1C-A). As a result, the theme of choosing in this story stood out very strongly in my mind. How the ad-fairies tried to present, dress up, and manipulate the choices people made was very interesting - and yes, I do think it is happening at some level right now.

Like Max e^{i pi}, I am also a compulsive comparative shopper...
I'm a meticulous comparative shopper that borders on the obsessive. It took me longer to buy a new tablet than the average human pregnancy.
And I agree wholeheartedly with Unblinking's take on gifts ...
At Christmas my family often gets annoyed at me because I don't want them to buy me anything.  What's the point in buying me crap that I have to find someplace to store ...
(My grandmother taught me: if you really needed it, you would have bought it for yourself, and if you don't need it, well than you don't need it.)
So, I really wonder how people like me would have fared in this story's society.

I also expect there would be entire off-grid colonies established just to get away from this level of advertising. We have people who choose to live off-grid now, and the advertising and electronic intrusion is no-where near as bad.



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Reply #49 on: May 30, 2013, 02:46:15 PM
Judging by the scenario painted in this story I'd guess the not-quite-so-scrupulous software developers managed a very high benefit ratio, but not 100%, and thus a few - a very few - people react against them, either instinctively or as a learned behaviour that the software can't cope with.

I sent the big comment I posted here to Ferrett, because I figured some positive feedback might make his day a little brighter.  He did mention, as part of his reply, that his intent was more along the lines of what you read into the story than what I did.

I think that my interpretation is not contradicted by the text, but it's also not hinted at by the text, so I was probably just having fun trying to read alternate interpretations into it.  Since I'm both a software engineer and a writer, I probably have way too much fun trying to debug fictional software.  :)

I also expect there would be entire off-grid colonies established just to get away from this level of advertising. We have people who choose to live off-grid now, and the advertising and electronic intrusion is no-where near as bad.

I think that you're right about that.  So I'd find it entirely plausible that the ENTIRE human race hasn't been ripped apart, that these communes can still have a chance to thrive at least, and maybe can even re-take some of the past territory when unmaintained power stations break down and knock out the collation centers.



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Reply #50 on: May 30, 2013, 03:07:50 PM
Since I'm both a software engineer and a writer, I probably have way too much fun trying to debug fictional software.  :)

Oh, good. I'm not the only one. :)

So I'd find it entirely plausible that the ENTIRE human race hasn't been ripped apart, that these communes can still have a chance to thrive at least. . .

Didn't we have a story a while back . . . I don't remember the name of it, the author, or which of the three podcasts it was even on, although I suspect this one . . . where there was a similar scenario? A woman living in the middle of nowhere trying to escape the relentless onslaught of ad . . . I think it was ad-robots or ad-clones in that case. And one of them had the form of her dead husband? And once one of them found her, they all figured out where she was and she started to get waves and waves of them coming to her. . .

Ring a bell with anyone?

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matweller

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Reply #51 on: May 30, 2013, 03:21:59 PM
Since I'm both a software engineer and a writer, I probably have way too much fun trying to debug fictional software.  :)

Oh, good. I'm not the only one. :)

So I'd find it entirely plausible that the ENTIRE human race hasn't been ripped apart, that these communes can still have a chance to thrive at least. . .

Didn't we have a story a while back . . . I don't remember the name of it, the author, or which of the three podcasts it was even on, although I suspect this one . . . where there was a similar scenario? A woman living in the middle of nowhere trying to escape the relentless onslaught of ad . . . I think it was ad-robots or ad-clones in that case. And one of them had the form of her dead husband? And once one of them found her, they all figured out where she was and she started to get waves and waves of them coming to her. . .

Ring a bell with anyone?

Keffy -- http://escapepod.org/2010/12/09/ep270-advertising-at-the-end-of-the-world/



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Reply #52 on: May 31, 2013, 08:20:28 AM
Since I'm both a software engineer and a writer, I probably have way too much fun trying to debug fictional software.  :)

Oh, good. I'm not the only one. :)
No, me too  ;)  (though very much on the amateur end of the scale as a writer)



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Reply #53 on: May 31, 2013, 01:42:38 PM
Since I'm both a software engineer and a writer, I probably have way too much fun trying to debug fictional software.  :)

Oh, good. I'm not the only one. :)
No, me too  ;)  (though very much on the amateur end of the scale as a writer)

Very few writers are not amateur.



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Reply #54 on: May 31, 2013, 06:07:47 PM
Since I'm both a software engineer and a writer, I probably have way too much fun trying to debug fictional software.  :)

Oh, good. I'm not the only one. :)
No, me too  ;)  (though very much on the amateur end of the scale as a writer)

Very few writers are not amateur.

Oh god, there goes another delusion :)

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Reply #55 on: June 05, 2013, 03:01:19 AM
some help me out, i think i missed something
the civilization in this story looked like it had already collapsed
so what was the protagonist trying to destroy?
wasn't everything already trashed?




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Reply #56 on: June 05, 2013, 03:45:56 AM
some help me out, i think i missed something
the civilization in this story looked like it had already collapsed
so what was the protagonist trying to destroy?
wasn't everything already trashed?

She destroyed what was essentially the central processing unit of the Ad-Faeries, basically killing them off for that particular mall-city. But each city has its own collation center, so, though she succeeded in destroying hers, there are hundreds to thousands more out there. She won the battle, but was still far from winning the war. And then her actions destroyed the very Ad-Faeries that drove her. Without them, she couldn't make a single decision on her own...

Point and match.

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Reply #57 on: June 05, 2013, 08:21:17 AM
the civilization in this story looked like it had already collapsed
so what was the protagonist trying to destroy?
The civilisation was definitely collapsed but the protagonist believed the ad-faeries were to blame and set out to destroy them. The implication is that she hoped, by eliminating the cause of civilisation's demise, to create an environment in which the civilisation could reassert itself, rebuild itself. Ultimately, though, her inability to function once they were gone shows that the collapse was more than skin deep. Although she won the battle, the war had been lost for a long time.



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Reply #58 on: June 05, 2013, 12:12:51 PM
the civilization in this story looked like it had already collapsed
so what was the protagonist trying to destroy?
The civilisation was definitely collapsed but the protagonist believed the ad-faeries were to blame and set out to destroy them. The implication is that she hoped, by eliminating the cause of civilisation's demise, to create an environment in which the civilisation could reassert itself, rebuild itself. Ultimately, though, her inability to function once they were gone shows that the collapse was more than skin deep. Although she won the battle, the war had been lost for a long time.

I didn't get the impression she had any illusions about the effectiveness of her gesture in the world.  However, I think she figured that for society to come back these needed to be taken down.  She hoped that she wasn't the only one who had the drive to do such things, and hoped to take down some more before she died.  The latter appears to have been in vain, no indication yet of the truth of the former.



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Reply #59 on: June 05, 2013, 01:34:58 PM
It was rater like one country surrendering and then starting guerilla battles with the invading troops as they march back to their transports home. They already won. They took all the money. They impoverished the country. They killed your family. You've got nothing to live for. Might as well kill off as many of them as you can on the way out.



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Reply #60 on: June 20, 2013, 01:33:49 PM
There was a certain terrifying plausibility to this story, as others have said.  BUT, I think it was missing one thing:  A counter-product.  Advertising has this weird life cycle of adaptation and countermeasures, and counter-countermeasures, always escalating to gain the consumer dollar.  Usually the countermeasures are created by people who dislike that particular type of advertising, and eventually, that countermeasure either gets monetized itself, or rendered useless by further advances.  The advancement of online advertising has seen this cycle go through many more iterations, simply because mass advertising is so cheap to make on the internet, relatively speaking.  First there were spam email, then came side bars, then pop ups, pop unders, pop overs, intro videos, outro videos, pay walls, ad walls, etc. etc.  And all have been or soon will be avoided by various other plugins and gadgets and doodads. 

Personally, I run my adblockers open for most sites that I visit often and enjoy.  I know that many web sites rely on ad revenue, and unless they are truly atrocious, I let the ads do their thing on the periphery. If the article, web comic, blog post, or whatever I am looking at is especially pleasing to me, I'll even click on an ad to reward them further. 

My big gripe with tailored advertising is I wish I could tell places that I'm shopping for a gift, not for myself.  When I looked at basketballs on Amazon for my nephew, I was bombarded by basketball and basketball-related ads for weeks.

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matweller

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Reply #61 on: June 20, 2013, 01:42:04 PM
There was a certain terrifying plausibility to this story, as others have said.  BUT, I think it was missing one thing:  A counter-product.  Advertising has this weird life cycle of adaptation and countermeasures, and counter-countermeasures, always escalating to gain the consumer dollar.  Usually the countermeasures are created by people who dislike that particular type of advertising, and eventually, that countermeasure either gets monetized itself, or rendered useless by further advances.  The advancement of online advertising has seen this cycle go through many more iterations, simply because mass advertising is so cheap to make on the internet, relatively speaking.  First there were spam email, then came side bars, then pop ups, pop unders, pop overs, intro videos, outro videos, pay walls, ad walls, etc. etc.  And all have been or soon will be avoided by various other plugins and gadgets and doodads. 

Personally, I run my adblockers open for most sites that I visit often and enjoy.  I know that many web sites rely on ad revenue, and unless they are truly atrocious, I let the ads do their thing on the periphery. If the article, web comic, blog post, or whatever I am looking at is especially pleasing to me, I'll even click on an ad to reward them further. 

My big gripe with tailored advertising is I wish I could tell places that I'm shopping for a gift, not for myself.  When I looked at basketballs on Amazon for my nephew, I was bombarded by basketball and basketball-related ads for weeks.
Seriously -- you should pitch that to Steinmetz for a second short story. Could you imagine? Maybe as the apocalypse reaches it's height, a dying ad programer launches "ad fairies 2.0" or "SalesColossus" and right as Americans are on the brink of total annihilation, the whole thing pauses while the Fairies fight the colossus. The potential for the social commentary built into that could be awesome...



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Reply #62 on: June 20, 2013, 02:35:54 PM
My big gripe with tailored advertising is I wish I could tell places that I'm shopping for a gift, not for myself.  When I looked at basketballs on Amazon for my nephew, I was bombarded by basketball and basketball-related ads for weeks.

And this is why we use safety precautions when purchasing online.
Do NOT remained permanently signed in to any website.
Use a search engine that does not track your behavior (DuckDuckGo).
When making an actual purchase use a service like PayPal which keeps your purchases as anonymous as possible. You don't need to get email from the site you bought from, from your credit card company AND from anybody who advertised on any of those sites. This way you get emails from Paypal and PayPal only.

Cogito ergo surf - I think therefore I network

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Reply #63 on: July 06, 2013, 09:41:47 PM
"she crawled inside her oven and set it to clean"
this one is going to stay with me a while.



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Reply #64 on: July 22, 2013, 02:44:11 PM
It's http://www.cosmeticsdesign-europe.com/Formulation-Science/Cosmetic-company-invests-in-emotion-reading-checkouts#.Ud8JJT7FSCA.

"Cosmetic company invests in emotion-reading checkouts
The future is here: Russian cosmetics chain Ulybka Radugi chain is joining forces with marketing tech firm Synqera to release checkouts capable of recognizing customers’ faces and even detecting their emotional state.”
« Last Edit: July 22, 2013, 02:45:42 PM by lisavilisa »



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Reply #65 on: July 22, 2013, 09:57:23 PM
I came *this close* to instinctively deleting your comment, lisavilisa.  ;-)  Russian + cosmetics + long link text viscerally summons the sensation of SPAMBOT to my mind.



matweller

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Reply #66 on: July 23, 2013, 01:45:16 PM
Yeah, we're already almost there, no doubt. There's no shortage of examples.

http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/are-mini-s-billboards-bit-too-personal-17812
And a lot of stores are currently testing systems to automatically deliver coupons to your phone when you're in the store.
And Apple stores are supposed to soon all be equipped with systems to automatically charge you for whatever you walk out of the store with, no checkout needed.

Even these things are/were a sign of things moving that way to a degree:



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Reply #67 on: July 23, 2013, 02:28:33 PM
Even these things are/were a sign of things moving that way to a degree:
<image snipped>

At least those are opt-IN. You don't have to take one, and you can ignore their presence. If advertisers had their way . . . well, it would be a lot more like this story, I think.

Remember a few years back (2002) when then-TBS chairman Jamie Kellmer claimed that not watching commercials--as in, going to the bathroom or to the kitchen while they're on, or skipping over them during play-back on TiVo--is theft?

Last year, networks filed a lawsuit against DISH network for allowing their customers to skip commercials on delayed playback. If they could cram it into our brains, they would do it without hesitation, in my opinion.

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matweller

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Reply #68 on: July 23, 2013, 03:48:20 PM
Oh, I agree. I was just giving more examples of how the technology is already moving in that direction.

NOTE: at this point my comment turned into a political rant, and I apologize. I'm leaving it below, but offer this warning that you read at your own peril.

And anybody who thinks our elected officials won't pass laws to make a situation like like the one posed in this story a reality regardless of public opinion or public safety needs to look a little more closely at the world around them.

How many cities have put building new stadiums to a vote, had the public vote overwhelmingly against it and then built anyway? I know of three within the past 10 years (Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Minneapolis) and I don't even watch sports.

How many states allow natural gas fracking (usually on a tax-free to the company basis) despite there never being a documented case of that being done without poisoning the ground water and turning the surrounding area into a wasteland?

Did you know the US Congress passed a law allowing the RIAA to demand royalties on behalf of bands that aren't even signed with them? That means you can have a band, put a song online for free to promote your band, and if the RIAA feels like it, they can sue all of your fans for royalties that you won't even receive unless you sign your band up with the RIAA.

They cleared Comcast to buy NBC, despite the fact that such a situation has been illegal for almost as long as mass media has existed for very important and obvious reasons.

Too many instances to mention...



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Reply #69 on: July 24, 2013, 04:47:14 AM

How many cities have put building new stadiums to a vote, had the public vote overwhelmingly against it and then built anyway? I know of three within the past 10 years (Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Minneapolis) and I don't even watch sports.


You can add Seattle to that. We voted against a stadium and wound up with two. With a possible third on the way....



lisavilisa

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Reply #70 on: July 25, 2013, 11:12:19 AM
I came *this close* to instinctively deleting your comment, lisavilisa.  ;-)  Russian + cosmetics + long link text viscerally summons the sensation of SPAMBOT to my mind.

Yeah, they wouldn't let me copy and paste the actual quote that was relevant. They just pinged me a message about copy right and told me to include the link and the quote. :/



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Reply #71 on: July 25, 2013, 11:49:01 AM
I came *this close* to instinctively deleting your comment, lisavilisa.  ;-)  Russian + cosmetics + long link text viscerally summons the sensation of SPAMBOT to my mind.

Yeah, they wouldn't let me copy and paste the actual quote that was relevant. They just pinged me a message about copy right and told me to include the link and the quote. :/

How dare you give them clickthroughs. That's so bizarre.

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lisavilisa

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Reply #72 on: July 26, 2013, 11:25:41 AM

How dare you give them clickthroughs. That's so bizarre.

I know, it's like they don't understand how going viral works...



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Reply #73 on: December 17, 2013, 02:13:30 PM
Good story, and yes, the ending was a huge part of what made it work. Not that I see this as a particular plausible scenario, more of a dark satire of where certain trends would take us if we interpolate them. But a lot of my favorite sci-fi works like that, so it's a good thing.



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Reply #74 on: July 08, 2014, 10:18:09 PM
Named this story #10 on my Best Podcast Fiction of All Time List:
http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2014/07/the-best-podcast-fiction-of-all-time-the-complete-list/