Sifting through to the Truth

USS Clueless:

Indeed, a finely tuned bullshit detector is a survival trait in the information age. When we are inundated with data, much of which seems contradictory and much of which is intended to persuade or deceive us, we need to learn how to reject that which has a high probability of being invalid, and to that end we begin to understand what kinds of messages or ways in which they are delivered tend to suggest that the messenger is less than honest. Those of us who have grown up in information-rich societies have learned this skill over time, although to differing degrees. This is a real problem for those using these media, such as advertisers, to try to influence us in ways which are to their advantage but not necessarily to ours, and as our access to information grows, the effectiveness of advertising has declined. We’re just not that easy to convince. Indeed, it’s not all that easy to even get our attention any more to even deliver the message, let alone to have the message convince us and change our behavior. That’s why there’s a long term trend for advertising to become more strident, more intrusive, more obnoxious, and more emphatic; it shows that the advertisers are growing desperate. Ironically, those very characteristics in turn decrease the effectiveness of their message because they more strongly set off our collective bullshit detectors. (Advertising is falling prey to the tragedy of the commons.)