They're Stealing Your Attention

a reply to: SirHardHarry

my tshirts are designed/made by me.

I buy quality, not brand name. So the Sperry shoes, i buy because they last for years. The $100 is worth it in the long term.

Same with Oakley sunglasses. By spending a little more i take better care of them. So i don't lose sunglasses every month (with the nominal replacement fee) and it results in me using an actually superior product.

I don't mind wearing a label if it makes sense. I won't do it just to satisfy groupthink.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

I mentioned earlier my strategy for dealing with a world set to distract me from what matters at that moment: my thoughts. Believe it or not, i think constantly.

So do most people. River of thought, the thought stream, likened to a river. Question is are we aware of our surroundings as we entertain these thoughts? How immersed are we, do we fall in our river, get carried along, clutching at straw, getting caught in whirlpools? Or do we sit on the river and and watch the river flow by, only choosing what we want to?

Which vantage point is best, carried away by the river or sitting on the bank?

a reply to: intrptr

I can't help but be carried away by the river.

I find that when my attention returns to purposeful action, my subconscious mind has been handling things for me. Works great while driving long distances on highways. Not so great when you're wife is telling you about her day.

For what i do for a living, the "carried away" works. Im paid for creative thinking.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: intrptr

I can't help but be carried away by the river.

I find that when my attention returns to purposeful action, my subconscious mind has been handling things for me. Works great while driving long distances on highways. Not so great when you're wife is telling you about her day.

For what i do for a living, the "carried away" works. Im paid for creative thinking.

Can I walk up and surprise you from behind when you're 'lost in thought'?

a reply to: intrptr

Not too easily, but it can happen. Much easier at home.

I have a number of years of martial arts and survival training which helps me with "situational awareness". But we are talking childhood stuff, so its not like any of it is really fresh. Only the "high points" stuck. That and muscle memory stuff.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

Practice the X and O game.

If a family member can sneak up and touch you, they get an x and you get a zero. if you spot them, you get the X and they get a O.

We condition ourselves, especially thru entertainment (like TV and gaming) to be unawares though.

Good luck...

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

Although important to point out to others, this is not new to myself. Clearly we are all subject to adverts and propaganda everytime we walk outside. That is, if we are walking outside in a city type area. The idea is, if you ease of access and everything on your doorstep, you already signed the agreement to bombard your life with adverts controlling everything you think was free choice that is now part of your choice. As I say, this is the signed agreement everyone makes when they sign to live in the city. Regardless, you could say driving down a country highway is the same, billboards this isnt the city. Well, it is. Those highways are built to draw people into cities and thus, promote what they sell. As the saying goes, a sucker is born everyday. Which is true and most of those suckers grow up to be sucker old men and women. Conditioned.

This is not new.

To know that some governments tests have played on the fact of controlling your memories and thoughts. For instance, low vibrational tests, that when we sleep our brains work on a specific frequency. They vibrate the same way and create vivid dreams that when you wake, you choose to do something that day you would have otherwise not done.

These things are happening.... Hence you wonder why certain votes go certain ways.

I read somewhere (psychology textbook I believe) that TV literally hypnotizes people on a very real level.

In fact in the book I'm reading right now, Social Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, he references the first time an audience watched film in the theater. It was of a train coming towards the camera and the audience jumped out of their seats and ran out of the way in terror... this is indicative that the brain takes whatever is going on in the screen literally, and on a subconscious level (or the "low road") the brain can not distinguish between illusion and reality whenever any of the senses are so powerfully engaged.

Nowadays we can tell ourselves through "high road" consciousness that it's just TV and it's not real... but the low road part of our brain which is ever present is still being tricked. We are just bypassing its instinctive reaction to flee from a scary scene with our high road processing.

There are backdoors into peoples minds whether or not people want to believe it.

Thank you OP for the great thread.

Also as I read the responses... I remembered reading about how schizophrenic people are less likely to be tricked by illusions.

There's the famous YouTube video illusion of a mask spinning, the average brain is going to see the face pop out and not be able to distinguish the back concave part of the mask (you will see the face as if it is facing you no matter what on each side). It is said that the schizophrenic will see the concave part and not be tricked.

There is also evidence that indicates a schizophrenics brain is shrinking in a sense- a kind of brain defect/brain damage.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: SirHardHarry

my tshirts are designed/made by me.

I buy quality, not brand name. So the Sperry shoes, i buy because they last for years. The $100 is worth it in the long term.

Same with Oakley sunglasses. By spending a little more i take better care of them. So i don't lose sunglasses every month (with the nominal replacement fee) and it results in me using an actually superior product.

I don't mind wearing a label if it makes sense. I won't do it just to satisfy groupthink.

I agree.

Some things you pay a decent amount of money for for a reason (such as my Corcoran Jump boots. $150 but they last forever, and they don't have a label emblazoned upon them). I always bought cheap sunglasses which I would end up accidentally destroying; then I bought a pair of ray bans, and I've had them 10 years and bought several more (and even though they have a logo/brand name, it's not emblazoned).

I do have a North Face jacket I wear for work, but the logo is small and on the breast; it's not a T shirt with a huge north face logo on it. Point being, why buy a simply cotton shirt with a brand name emblazoned across the front unless, as you said, it's for group think, because it's certainly not due of "quality" (at least in that instance).

I'm glad you design your own products; I do as well, if it's something I'm passionate about (my band, my Official US seal police state shirt, etc, or other unique artistic endeavor).

You know what I'm talking about; you can buy certain brand name products for a quality product that's purposeful (such a rain jacket, cold weather jacket, outdoor boots, etc), but buying something just because of the name (such a simple cotton T shirt with Nike, Tommy Hilfiger, or UA on it, that is obvious and that the name does not make it superior), is completely different.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

So then you won't laugh at me when I tell you that Microsoft Excel is one of my favorite canvases to place my art into? Its the thrill of making a well oiled, fully automated machine. I think actual coders feel similarly

I get it :-)

Whenever we create, and we get something to really sing - when it feels that good? Yeah. In commercial art/advertising whenever a piece hits that spot they call it sexy. You know it when you feel it

I hate Microsoft with every fiber of my being - but that's a tale for another time. Coding made a magic medium possible. I remember when I was a kid thinking how wonderful it would be to be able to paint with light - and to have little pieces of lit up art that could move. So, wow

We all have our mediums. For some people it's paint, or film - words or music, yarn, landscaping

Art can change a person's thinking - their philosophy, politics or religion. How is it different from advertising? How is it not intrusive and manipulative, or devious even?

:-)

so - this is fun

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan
I worked for the marketing department for the world's biggest company in its sector, because I had a background in psychology. It really does come down to neuroscience and some of it is kind of sickening.

It really will eventually reach the point of that Matthew Good song, Advertising on Police Cars. Or Futurama:

Your attention deficit is stealing your attention. Pointing a finger at someone else for one's lack of focus? Just means pretty weak focus... you'll miss the shot every time. Mindfulness, awareness of what is occurring, consciousness is all the grasping at what is occurring... that is extraneous a needless extra. Focus occurs in the eyes the thought does not... the thought is a grasping. Cease to grasp as that is the job of the hands... the mind cannot perform work it can only form concept resolve conflicts of concept... not conflicted? Then nothing to resolve. Conflicted? Then who or what is grasping making conflict? Let it go and it ceases to arise.

a reply to: BigBrotherDarkness

Im too big of a fan of science to reject it in favor of self gratiation.

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

I mentioned earlier my strategy for dealing with a world set to distract me from what matters at that moment: my thoughts. Believe it or not, i think constantly.

So do most people. River of thought, the thought stream, likened to a river. Question is are we aware of our surroundings as we entertain these thoughts? How immersed are we, do we fall in our river, get carried along, clutching at straw, getting caught in whirlpools? Or do we sit on the river and and watch the river flow by, only choosing what we want to?

Which vantage point is best, carried away by the river or sitting on the bank?

Just sittin' on the dock of the bay, watchin' the tide roll-in.

It is possible to "detach", from all of the common drama of the moment, but yet still be there with situational awareness.
It's not the same thing as hazing-out on a long-distance drive.
Your attention is attached to what is going-on around you, as you are in observation mode of what is going-on around you, as well as within you. (Just for the sake of this post, using "inside and outside").
But you can be detached from it all, meaning it doesn't affect your stream of consciousness, emotions, thoughts, nor actions.


As a totally different secondary thought: Imagine for a moment: what this world could be like, if every dollar spent, and man-hour spent working in the fields of sales, advertising and marketing, had instead been dedicated to the bettering of life for all of mankind?
All of those office floors and floors, of brilliant creative folks, thousands and thousands of bright minds, wasted on a totally useless endeavor. Creating markets for unneeded products, and using any trick in the book to manipulate minds into desiring some useless piece of crap.

Has anyone posted the Bill Hicks bit about folks whom work in sales, advertising and marketing?

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

Well distraction can cost more lives than ones own, so paying attention is the best appreciation of life one can exercise. So I can understand your frustration when everything screams I am the most important thing to focus on... kind of ironic?

originally posted by: Nothin

As a totally different secondary thought: Imagine for a moment: what this world could be like, if every dollar spent, and man-hour spent working in the fields of sales, advertising and marketing, had instead been dedicated to the bettering of life for all of mankind?
All of those office floors and floors, of brilliant creative folks, thousands and thousands of bright minds, wasted on a totally useless endeavor. Creating markets for unneeded products, and using any trick in the book to manipulate minds into desiring some useless piece of crap.

Tell me about it...
You could extend that thought to so many institutions and ideas mankind holds so dear. The scope of that secondary thought you posted could thus be greatly expanded.

Attention!
This thread is stealing your attention.
Death toll from Aleppo bus convoy bomb attack at least 126 - 8 flags
The irony

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
...a soapbox from which to rant.

Someone ended up stealing my attention with a rant when I was expecting something else from the thread title. I was much more interested about that subject than advertizing. See my signature and text under my name regarding what I was thinking about when reading the thread title.

AS MEANS of communicating have expanded—from printing to the telephone, radio, television, and the Internet—the flow of persuasive messages has dramatically accelerated. This communications revolution has led to information overload, as people are inundated by countless messages from every quarter. Many respond to this pressure by absorbing messages more quickly and accepting them without questioning or analyzing them.

The cunning propagandist loves such shortcuts—especially those that short-circuit rational thought. Propaganda encourages this by agitating the emotions, by exploiting insecurities, by capitalizing on the ambiguity of language, and by bending rules of logic. As history bears out, such tactics can prove all too effective.
...
Some people today are like sponges; they soak up whatever they come across. It is all too easy to absorb whatever is around us.

But it is far better for each individual personally to choose what he will feed his mind. It is said that we are what we eat, and this can apply to food for both the body and the mind. No matter what you are reading or watching or listening to, test to see whether it has propagandistic overtones or is truthful.

Moreover, if we want to be fair-minded, we must be willing to subject our own opinions to continual testing as we take in new information. We must realize that they are, after all, opinions. Their trustworthiness depends on the validity of our facts, on the quality of our reasoning, and on the standards or values that we choose to apply.

Source: article in my signature (previous page than the one that is linked)

There's a rant forum as well mr. Moderator, just mentioning it, not implying anything.

a reply to: Nothin

Just sitting' on the dock of the bay, watchin' the tide roll-in.

Amazing. Earlier I was going to bring that song to exemplify my point about sitting on the river bank. Its beautiful in its simplicity. The sound of surf, whistling a tune, just... sitting. "Just sittin' on the dock of the Bay, wasting tiiiimmme..."

Temptation tells us if we're not ambitious and busy, we're not earning, we're not successful, a failure. In fact we learn more from taking time to sit and practice stillness, develop patience and see from within.

Not the stillness of most meditations that use mantras or chants to induce oblivion (whats the difference between that and alcohol or drugs), but the practice of staying in the moment, of remaining in the room. Being in the here and now is much more difficult nowadays in a world of designed escape and distraction. Thats what sleep is for, to rest and restore our physical being, the spirit part (if I may be so bold) is transcendent, not of this world. The world is seen much more objectively from the riverbank of our soul than from the river of the world.
That part from Hicks. ***Language Warning*** if you can't take Bills heat stay out of his kitchen:

Advertising is part of the zeitgeist, so it's impossible to escape it. Especially in America, where consumerism is our national pastime and religion.

But this idea of stealing attention is interesting. We do have a finite amount of attention, so naturally if we are paying attention to one thing we have less time to pay attention to something else.

We don't live in bubbles, though. We can try and create a bubble in our home, unplugging televisions and radios, and throwing away magazines and newspapers. Those media are all kept afloat by advertising, you know. Also, shut off the Internet and don't look at utility bills. I see ads in my power bill each month, now.

Now consider that you've been successful in building a bubble that is free of the distractions, except the ones you choose to indulge. What if someone decides to visit, and he talks about the massive billboard erected along the freeway. Has your attention been corrupted by consumerism? Or, does the billboard serve as something to talk about, which can draw you closer to another human?