I was sitting by the pool in my backyard one day when Jessica Alba, scantily clad in a baby blue bikini strolled up to me holding a hammer.
Jessica Alba: I have a question for you, my wise philosopher.
Me: What's that you sexy minx?
JA: If you were given the choice between pleasure and pain, what would be the logical response?
Me: Why of course pleasure would be the logical choice! What kind of silly question is that? By the way, what's with the hammer?
JA: The hammer, oh that's part of my challenge, if you can logically prove to me that pleasure is better pain than I will get down on my knees and give you a world altering blowing blow job, but if not I will smash your penis with this hammer.
Me: Woah, that could be painful, but I accept, ha, this should be easy, better start loosening up your tongue sweetheart!
JA: Then let's begin, why do you want the blow job instead of the hammer?
Me: Because it would feel better
JA: What makes it feel better?
Me: Because it would feel pleasureable and the hammer to the jewels would be painful!
JA: But why would you rather feel pleasure than pain?
Me: Because I prefer the feeling of pleasure over the feeling of pain.
JA: But why do you prefer feeling pleasure?
Me: It feels better
JA: HAHA! Don't you see the circularity of your argument. You said that you would rather feel better than worse, but when I asked you why you said it's because feeling better is more pleasureable, and when I asked you why you prefer feeling pleasure than pain you said because it feels better! That's a CIRCLE! I got you! And as you know circular arguments are irrational.
*she rears back hammer*
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
How ESPN,NBA,TNT and Nike Control What you Think
For Basketball fans.
Let's make something clear. The NBA, ESPN,NIKE TNT and ABC are all businesses. They are out to make money. The way the TV networks do that is by getting you to watch their programs so that you can see their commercials and they get paid by the advertisements. Nike wants you to buy their clothing. From now on I will call this conglomerate of companies the CORPORATIONS.
They are very aware of various aspects of human psychology. With two very prominent features.
1)Humans have a disposition towards Idolatry. We love having favorite players and we worship them and debate about them endlessly. Even though Basketball is a team sports involving 14 players, coaching staff, GM, Owners and trainers we rarely ever argue over who was better the 2008 Celtics or one of the past celtic teams. But we'll endlessly debate who was better Shaq or Karee or Wilt, Kobe vs West etc.. These companies know this, and in order to get peope interested in their product they need STARS. So what do they do..They MANUFACTURE them. They will literally engineer a Star player so that people will fall in love with them and follow them and watch their games.
How do they do this?
2)There is a basic psychological principle called the "Mere Exposure Effect"..it states that the more familiar you are with something the more you are going to like it. The more you hear or see something, the better you think it is.
To show you how this works, let's take another sport you are not too familiar with and I'll show you how they helped 'manufacture' a star. If someone were to ask you at any point from 1999-2005 who the best cyclist in the world was, what would you answer? Lance Armstrong...right? But did you know that cycling has a system just like tennis in which they have current world rankings based on a point system? Well guess what? During his entire career from 1992 to present day, Lance Armstrong was only ranked #1 in the world for a total of one month. But because he was American, because he recovered from cancer and because he had huge sponsorships with NIKE you heard his name constantly and assumed he was the best in the world, maybe even the greatest ever. Yet in 2003 he was ranked 8th, 2004 7th and in 2005 4th. Never number one. Mere exposure effect in action.
Basketball does the same thing. They MANUFACTURE stars, by using the Mere exposure effect they create stars in order for you tune into their games. How do they do this?
Well first off the player has to be pretty good. Second he has to somewhat affable or at least controversial and exciting to watch. Then the CORPORATIONS will schedule that players games on National television. For instance ABC will have a sunday game between the Lakers and Heat. And since ABC and ESPN are both run by Disney ESPN will be in cahoots and hype up the game on Sportscenter. They'll run a segment on how great Kobe Bryant is and have different analysts argue about how good he is etc..all with the idea of getting his name out more..the more you hear his name the better you think he is...mere exposure effect..the better you think he is the more likely you will watch his game..after watching his game where the announcers who work for these companies endlessly hype up the stars you will think he is even better because of more exposure to that star through the watching of the game and the endless hype by the announcers.
On top of that you will then talk with your friends or go on message boards and discuss these players more and more, all the while feeding in on more exposure and what you have is a giant spiral of how great you think this players is. And unbeknownst to you all of this was planned in advance by some people in business suits sitting around a board room thinking of ways to make themselves more money.
It works something like this...
"Hey Michael Jordan sold incredibly well, he made us lots of cash. But he's gone now, we need a second coming. This Kobe Bryant plays sort of like him, let's make him the next huge star, we'll tell everyone he is the next Jordan and forever compare the two. He'll sell like Jordan! Call up ABC let's get his game scheduled for TV. Call ESPN have them run a piece on him on Sportscenter!"
"Hey Magic/Bird sold well in the 80's. We need another friendly rivalry. How about Carmelo/Lebron? It doesn't matter that one is way better than the other, we'll make Carmelo a Star. He's got a shoe contract, let's have Kornheiser and Wilbon talk about him on PTI, we'll say he's one of the best players in the league, and if we say, because we are experts people will believe us!"
You all are sheep and you don't know it.
Let's make something clear. The NBA, ESPN,NIKE TNT and ABC are all businesses. They are out to make money. The way the TV networks do that is by getting you to watch their programs so that you can see their commercials and they get paid by the advertisements. Nike wants you to buy their clothing. From now on I will call this conglomerate of companies the CORPORATIONS.
They are very aware of various aspects of human psychology. With two very prominent features.
1)Humans have a disposition towards Idolatry. We love having favorite players and we worship them and debate about them endlessly. Even though Basketball is a team sports involving 14 players, coaching staff, GM, Owners and trainers we rarely ever argue over who was better the 2008 Celtics or one of the past celtic teams. But we'll endlessly debate who was better Shaq or Karee or Wilt, Kobe vs West etc.. These companies know this, and in order to get peope interested in their product they need STARS. So what do they do..They MANUFACTURE them. They will literally engineer a Star player so that people will fall in love with them and follow them and watch their games.
How do they do this?
2)There is a basic psychological principle called the "Mere Exposure Effect"..it states that the more familiar you are with something the more you are going to like it. The more you hear or see something, the better you think it is.
To show you how this works, let's take another sport you are not too familiar with and I'll show you how they helped 'manufacture' a star. If someone were to ask you at any point from 1999-2005 who the best cyclist in the world was, what would you answer? Lance Armstrong...right? But did you know that cycling has a system just like tennis in which they have current world rankings based on a point system? Well guess what? During his entire career from 1992 to present day, Lance Armstrong was only ranked #1 in the world for a total of one month. But because he was American, because he recovered from cancer and because he had huge sponsorships with NIKE you heard his name constantly and assumed he was the best in the world, maybe even the greatest ever. Yet in 2003 he was ranked 8th, 2004 7th and in 2005 4th. Never number one. Mere exposure effect in action.
Basketball does the same thing. They MANUFACTURE stars, by using the Mere exposure effect they create stars in order for you tune into their games. How do they do this?
Well first off the player has to be pretty good. Second he has to somewhat affable or at least controversial and exciting to watch. Then the CORPORATIONS will schedule that players games on National television. For instance ABC will have a sunday game between the Lakers and Heat. And since ABC and ESPN are both run by Disney ESPN will be in cahoots and hype up the game on Sportscenter. They'll run a segment on how great Kobe Bryant is and have different analysts argue about how good he is etc..all with the idea of getting his name out more..the more you hear his name the better you think he is...mere exposure effect..the better you think he is the more likely you will watch his game..after watching his game where the announcers who work for these companies endlessly hype up the stars you will think he is even better because of more exposure to that star through the watching of the game and the endless hype by the announcers.
On top of that you will then talk with your friends or go on message boards and discuss these players more and more, all the while feeding in on more exposure and what you have is a giant spiral of how great you think this players is. And unbeknownst to you all of this was planned in advance by some people in business suits sitting around a board room thinking of ways to make themselves more money.
It works something like this...
"Hey Michael Jordan sold incredibly well, he made us lots of cash. But he's gone now, we need a second coming. This Kobe Bryant plays sort of like him, let's make him the next huge star, we'll tell everyone he is the next Jordan and forever compare the two. He'll sell like Jordan! Call up ABC let's get his game scheduled for TV. Call ESPN have them run a piece on him on Sportscenter!"
"Hey Magic/Bird sold well in the 80's. We need another friendly rivalry. How about Carmelo/Lebron? It doesn't matter that one is way better than the other, we'll make Carmelo a Star. He's got a shoe contract, let's have Kornheiser and Wilbon talk about him on PTI, we'll say he's one of the best players in the league, and if we say, because we are experts people will believe us!"
You all are sheep and you don't know it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)