The Force of Advertising and the Halfwits

Driving through the city yesterday I saw an outdoor ad by Apple saying something like that everyone should buy a new IPhone and this will give them (who buy it) some “new power.” Again as many times before I pondered the necessity (or absence of it) to buy new smart phones every time a new model comes out. You see, I am more in favour of using things till I die or till they die, and replacing them only in times of utter necessity. In this regard I think humanity does not do any technological progress, it is vice a versa, we are regressing (at least from the Roman times), because before things lasted a lifetime, like roads or stone books. But all this is not the point. The point is that I am now sure that advertising and marketing in general is meant to work on the weak-minded. Consider this – you tell someone “you must go buy a new phone even though the one you have is working OK” and this someone goes an buys it. Same can apply to a car or a yoghurt or anything, really. Interesting how corporations make profits on halfwits. Remember – in one of the early Star War episodes a Jedi told police troopers “you do not want to see our papers, just let us through” or something like that and these troopers did exactly as they had been told? And then this Jedi explained that this trick only works on the weak minded. The same example is repeated a few times in the Star Wars series. Think about this next time you see some ad. Exact quote follows. For me it truly is the quintessence of advertising, and the contemporary consumer society which evidently is populated mostly by the weak minded:

Luke: “I do not understand how we got by those troops. I thought we were dead.”

Obi-Wan: “The Force can have a strong influence on the weak-minded.”