Are There Not Ethics In Manipulating People Buy their Product or Services

 J. André Faust (July 28, 2021)

We now live in a world where truth has become lies, and lies have become truth.  What is the difference? Propagandists, marketers and communications officers (spin Drs. don't know the difference).  All three exploit our cognitive limitations.  Most are not even conscious of the limitations that we all possess, making it very easy to distort the reality that we perceive.

The only way that we can at least defend ourselves is by understanding what those limitations are.  Most emotions override our rational thinking, so when you see a phrase or an image or anything that elicits an emotional response, that should be a clue that someone is trying to influence our free will.

I recently came across an advertisement attempting to use the persuasion of authority (endorsement by a celebrity).  

The marketers used Facebook as the clickbait to lead a person to what appeared to be a legitimate news media NBC. News story on how Another CBD business was suing David Suzuki because he had a superior product.  (I haven't been able to find any reference of David Suzuki selling CBD Gummies), so that claim may be fictitious.

I looked at the address bar looking for the word NBC. It wasn't there.   I clicked on the NBC logo, and it took me to a site selling CBD Gummies, an American company.  Humm, David is Canadian, and his alleged CBD business is supposed to be Canadian.

What exploits that guttersnipe adviser uses,  1: heuristics, 2: our altruistic 2: desires, our sense of fair play, 3: Generalization of the heuristics. 4. Authority via celebrity ship.

We need to put aside our egos and accept that we can all be fooled if we don't think critically.  Unfortunately, critical thinking is time-consuming, and the Marketers, propagandists, spin Drs'  all know this, which they all use to their advantage to make you believe you have free will when you conform to their persuasion plan.

---