George Carlin - advertising and bull shit
Why Hacker News recommends it
Brought up as a comic touchstone in discussions of advertising, usually with a joke or a quick reference.
What it is
A clip of George Carlin riffing on advertising and the nonsense around it, taken from a longer piece tied to the Zeitgeist movie.
Recommended by 1 HN commenters across 1 different months, 2015 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Recommends numair · 2015-09 · on “Ad Mocking Burning Man Corp. Influence Is So Accurate That Burning Man Might Sue”
George Carlin's skit is helpful here: [this video] It's just another ad. Advertising is mental cancer. Ignore it.
Cites delegate · 2016-10 · on “CoinTent: A Sustainable Ad-Free Web”
Just because advertising existed before, doesn't mean it has to continue to exist. Advertising is not a law of nature, it is a human invention and should be replaced by a new invention. Advertising is a very bad thing. It's a form of brainwashing in which people are manipulated or provoked to consume way beyond their needs. Its goal is to plant ideas into your head, without you even being aware of it. Curiously, the law of supply and demand in economics doesn't even mention the concept of advertising, yet it plays a huge role in demand creation. This 'inflated' demand provokes inflated supply, which creates even more demand (because everyone wants a popular thing), the feedback loop being li