For many years, I did not have a gun. I did not hunt or target shoot. Where did all this manipulative marketing come from? I never saw it. I consider myself an average male who reads magazines and newspapers, yet I never once saw marketing material for me to go out and buy a gun. House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) indicated five companies made $1 billion over 10 years by selling civilians “military-style assault weapons.” What exactly is military-style? Is that like a Maryland-style crab cake? We have no assault weapons legally on the streets. That’s a made-up term to spark fear.
I purchased my first firearm after my house was broken into, with my wife and baby in bed. Over the years, I bought more, largely for self-defense. This oversight committee needs to understand that reducing jail time and penalties and allowing criminals to go free send people into gun shops. Politicians’ failed policies have driven the gun market.
— Donald Poole in Failed Policies Drive Gun Sales, Not ‘Marketing’
EDIT by Jeremy S. — as I read and scheduled Grace’s Quote of the Day post here I couldn’t stop myself from chiming in. Poole’s quote (the last two sentences, specifically) is one of those great truths that’s just so clearly, deeply factual that it’s painfully and intuitively obvious on its face, yet it likely hasn’t occurred to many people. Possibly one of those “why didn’t I think about that?” epiphany moments, despite being cuffed about the ears by data like the spike in firearm sales over the last two years. There was nothing whatsoever that changed in gun-related marketing from 2019 to 2020; it didn’t cause the doubling in firearm sales that we saw across those two years. Policies that allowed and fomented riots and handcuffed police officers did.
Also, RE Poole’s Maryland-style crab cake remark, a few years ago I was in Manhattan’s lower east side at a cafe and I was going to grab coffee and some sort of pastry or dessert there with a friend. The menu said “New York Style Cheesecake,” so I berated the poor waiter. “I’m in New York City, why the heck does your menu say it’s New York style cheesecake? I can get that in San Francisco. If you’re making it and serving it here, isn’t it actual New York Cheesecake?” Anyway, needless to say I didn’t order it. We got coffee style coffee and left.
While it is true that facts don’t care about feelings the opposite is equally true.
Cultists and tyrants don’t care about facts. At all. Actually, in most cases, facts are something that gets in their way.
“facts are something that gets in their way”
The climate cult morons and the envy crowd are so easy to manipulate. They voted for people who are passing a massive tax and spend bill in the midst of stagflation. Any time the government passes a massive spending bill, the rich are the ones who benefit. Remember Obama promising to tax the rich? That was the greatest transfer of wealth from the middle class to the upper class until the more recent crazy spending bills.
Do the climate morons ever ask how much this tax and spend bill will lower the temperature? How much will it lower the sea level? Please explain the science. The Puppet should have to answer these questions, and more, to an adversarial press.
“We won’t have inflation”
“Inflation will be transitory. This was predicted”
“There won’t be a recession.”
“Well this doesn’t look like a recession to me.”
“New taxes and spending hundreds of billions will fight inflation.”
“We’re going to lower the temperature and sea level.”
Democrat: “That sounds great!”
And how do they presume to know what the ‘right’ temperature is for the planet? A warmer planet would quite possibly be very good for growing seasons & rainfall.
Nope! Change = bad
Speaking of temperature, do any of my fellow Californians here remember a recent proposal by two female Democrats in Sacramento to introduce a bill that would regulate office building temperatures due to … (wait for it) … sexism?
The argument was that the average male prefers an ambient temperature of 72 degrees, and typically wears a long sleeve dress shirt indoors, while the average female in the same office prefers a temperature of 76. Most offices lean toward a cooler temperature because the human body begins to perspire (self-regulate) at about 78 degrees, but the Democrats nevertheless wanted to create a law to force everyone to use certain temps. One more trivial liberty none of us ever think is up for grabs, but is apparently in the crosshairs of the Dems.
Oh, and let’s not forget the bill they introduced a few years ago that would have required full registration and annual taxation of bicycles, too. Because so many Californians now ride bikes for both exercise and fuel savings, the Dems said it isn’t fair for cyclists to use the roadways without paying their “fair share” like vehicles do.
At haz:
Just looked at my thermo, 90° and climbing. No AC and that’s the way I like it. Sweating is good for you, drink more water. I’ve never used anti presperant either, it’s bad for you.
Global Warming is impossible. The earth is flat. MAYBE some Planar Warming. But even then, the science isn’t quite settled yet
“A warmer planet would quite possibly be very good for…”
…And that’s how you know it’s a scam!! I’ve mentioned this before. There are pros and cons to everything. How is it that there are only downsides to the planet warming with zero upside? Does science and history matter? Humans thrive when the planet warms. There are fewer deaths due to warm weather as opposed to cold weather. Our planet has experienced drastic swings in both CO2 levels and temperature, but we’re supposed to believe that the entire thing is going to end when the temperature raises one more degree in 80 years??
Does anyone think it’s a strange coincidence that we can only “fight” this “problem” by making the citizens poorer and less free, and giving the government more money and power? They’re about to inflict mass misery on a scale never before seen (we’re getting a tiny taste of it now,) and for what? To save half a degree in 80 years? They have no control over that! What a joke!
“A warmer planet would quite possibly be very good for growing seasons & rainfall“
Tragically comic.
“Humans thrive when the planet warms. There are fewer deaths due to warm weather as opposed to cold weather.“
Could you be kind enough to share the information which supports your claim?
MajorStupidity,
The only thing “tragically comic” about your interaction with Time in Texas? Your response to Tim in Texas. Seriously, are you f**ing RETARDED????
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/are-there-positive-benefits-global-warming
https://www.thoughtco.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-global-warming-1434937
That s*** took me less than 30 seconds, and those are “hair on fire” globull warmening alarmists, who STILL have to admit that . . . it ain’t a “crisis”. Because it ain’t.
MajorStupidity, you used to occasionally barf up a semi-rational comment. Now you’ve reduced yourself to idiocy and drive-by (really PATHETIC) snark. Do better, or go the f*** away. You are needed here like I need an ingrown hair. Just go back to your circle jerk, and stop annoying the adults; we’re TRYING to have a conversation.
Oh, and go micturate up a cable.
“…the Dems said it isn’t fair for cyclists to use the roadways without paying…”
Ohio charges additional registration fees for electric vehicles, to make up for some of the lost gasoline tax revenue.
“Could you be kind enough to share the information which supports your claim?”
Nah. I’m sure I have before anyway. Plus, you’ve pissed away 99.9% of my goodwill toward you.
our mere presence in ever increasing numbers is impacting the planet…so what’s the solution?…covid?…nuclear war?…
“Could you be kind enough to share the information which supports your claim?”
Humans are much more susceptible to death in lower temperature bands than they are to warmer ones because our biological processes run best at temperatures over 90°F and maintaining that temperature is easier the less the ambient temperature diverges from our core temperature.
The same is true for most other flora and fauna. This is why you see major reductions in life on the planet, as well as reductions in the geographical distribution thereof during an ice age.
There, done in three sentences.
What you’re describing is typical of cults but is not exclusive to them.
Like many things, it’s a spectrum and you need a certain number of criteria to be met before you can really call it a “cult” and even then it’s probably not *that* useful to use the term in public, or at least not with the people you’re trying to get out of the cult.
I’ve pointed this out before. Good propaganda assists a person in building a mental prison for themselves, but the victim perceives that prison as a castle.
Anyone who tries to get them out of the prison is seen as attacking the castle, which makes extricating these people quite difficult in the best of circumstances.
Now, your usual “deprogramming” has several major ways of doing this but the key to it is removing the person from the influence of the the cult before attempting to do this. Joost Meerloo talks about this quite a bit.
But what do you do when mass media is deployed in favor of the cult’s point of view and said mass media is something that the victims actively seek out because it’s custom built to be addictive?
This is a really quite wide-ranging issue. Guns, finance, climate, transitioning of children… whatever.
The issue is that you can talk to many of these people one on one and seemingly convince them, but they’ll rapidly go seek out affirmation for their prior point of view via electronic devices. It’s like grabbing someone, “deprogramming” for several hours them and then sending them back to Jonestown. The fact that they actively seek something so easy to attain makes this a real PITA to deal with.
I can’t prove that they’re correct but I’m left with little choice but to go with the heavy hitters on this subject because they’re the ones who elucidated the methods designed for controlling people via mass media and those methods DO work. So, from Nietzsche to Meerloo to Jung and back to Freud and Pavlov, these systems play on people’s anxiety and turn it against them in an effort to get them to focus that anxiety on a “thing” that they believe they can control. Maybe it’s a fetish, a rosary, a mask or an EV. Maybe it’s a repetitive behavior. What exactly the object/action is doesn’t matter, the underlying principle that gets the person attached to that thing is the same, this thing or action allows them to control some part of their anxiety.
And the behavior, logically, becomes repetitive. It’s calming for the individual and so they like it. Going against that will be taken as a personal attack because they’ve been primed to take this position by the people who set them on this course and you’re doing something that makes them feel bad. Who goes out of their way to make others feel bad? Bad people.
This is exactly how cult ritual works to bring people in, keep them and isolate them from others. It certainly seems that this is how it works with politics at this point too. Until we reckon with the issue that facts are threatening to the feelings created by the ritual, which is designed to concentrate and then allay anxiety, we’re not going to make much progress on any of these fronts.
And you’re up against a whole series of powerful entities that derive benefit of one type or another from running these systems. All the incentives for them run against truth and reality and towards keeping the game running as it is.
“But what do you do when mass media is deployed in favor of the cult’s point of view”
There’s no real way to fight that when they change the definitions to fit their narratives.
The CDC changed the definition of “vaxxine.” *misspelled to avoid moderation
Merriam-Webster changed the definition of “female.”
Wikipedia changed the definition of “recession,” then locked the page. It may be open again now.
Then the media deploys to explain why the changes were necessary.
(Control the language and you control the masses.)
When normies see the same thing everywhere they look, they assume it’s the truth. It would be a good idea to have a strategy for getting them out of the cult. I’m mostly just venting and preaching to the choir here.
“There’s no real way to fight that when they change the definitions to fit their narratives.”
That opens a bigger can of worms than you might think… my kneejerk short response will leave you unfulfilled. So, I’ll channel some 2017 for you, with a bit of a personal explanation up front because it’s probably necessary. Apologies for the length I know I’m about to generate here.
===
Of course there’s a way to fight that, despair not.
I have not come here and spent years on this topic to end with “And that’s why you’re fucked”. And I don’t continue to hang out here simply because I think it’s cool (though it is and I wish that were the only reason). I’ve been observing the “long march through the institutions” first hand for 20 years and I bring good tidings. Well, maybe not good, but they’re not tidings of doom.
From our point of view this is intellectual and political guerrilla warfare where other people are the ground you gain or lose.
IMHO, some things are worth fighting for. In my estimation these things are worth fighting for, because whether *you* see it or not this is… everything. All the marbles. More than most people can imagine. The archetypal stories right here, IRL. The life and death of the West which is the undeniably best system of thought ever developed because it’s powerful, adaptable and self-correcting. Not perfect, but still the best. 10,000+ years of human development, much still unknown to us.
This brings a guy like Jordan Peterson to tears for a reason. It’s fucking big. Cosmic even, if you prefer. To mock the man isn’t a display of strength, it’s an open display of ignorance so deep that those mocking don’t know it belies their own weakness. It’s fucking profound and I don’t say that lightly. Here there be dragons you do not want to wake.
Happily, there are a great many advantages on our side should we pay attention and choose to use them. I advocate (and manipulate) that we do. The only thing that can destroy us is us and we’re treading damned close to that line. This fire will either temper us going forward or consume us. The latter being unacceptable in my opinion, but again the West is self-correcting in many regards and that’s something we can use but which we shouldn’t bet the farm on.
Flowery philosophical underpinnings aside; What these people are doing is not new. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. It never works for long because, while strong, the system is self-limiting and eventually turns on itself. (Ask the Jacobins about that.)
In the immediate, the determining factor isn’t “them”. It’s “us”. There is no attack for which there are zero counters unless you simply allow the attack to proceed, which is what they’re counting on.
They expect to get away with this because of four things things. Those things are: their own stupidity, the ignorance of the public (specifically the lack of attention that leads to that ignorance), the strength and breadth of the attack and modern tech.
But, again, “there is nothing new under the sun”, only new spins on the application old tactics. This cannot be untrue because we have not fundamentally changed in the past 10,000 years. What *they* are doing seems new because it has a new-ish face but underneath it’s as old as people. They don’t know that, they’re wrapped up with shiny new toys and a belief that this makes what they’re doing new and special.
The second item, public attention/ignorance we can address and we can use the forth (tech) to do it. Done right the breadth of their attack is no longer a strength but now a liability. Their own stupidity and ignorance will hamstring their response.
Guttenberg, in a roundabout way, provided you the answer to this. It’s just not one people want to hear because it requires work. But a huge, huge percentage the answers you require are in the Harvard Five Foot Shelf of Books which is basically a very good introduction to the Western canon.
It cannot be altered because it’s in book form, as such it’s an excellent repository. No “electronic updates” and… it’s fuckin’ Harvard. Harvard! That’s gravitas on steroids on top of the gold standard for exactly the target audience. They’ll eat this shit out of your hand and come back begging for more if you sell it right.
The other side has decided to hijack the name of Harvard, we can use that against them by going back to basics when Harvard was worth a shit. What are they going to do? Disavow their own best weapon? LOL, no, they’ll struggle for control. Perfect. Once again, old tactics, new spin. Let them struggle, they’re wasting resources while we move on.
Any copy of this set of books from ~1909 to ~1970 will do it. All fifty volumes in collector’s “Very Good” condition is about $500. But you don’t need collector’s grade, they just need be readable.
Oh, and that tech? Amazon sells this and many other great BOOKS. “They’ll sell us the rope we use to hang them”, the commies just had it backwards about who ends up on the gallows.
And, to boot, modern tech can make infinite copies and disseminate this information faster than they can stop us. Decentralization is a big boon here. What, you think Google knows what page 273 of book 32 in this set looks like for the 1958 copy AND why they should censor it? No, they don’t. Plus we can make it take nearly infinite forms. They can’t adapt an algo that fast. Too bad, so sad.
The trick here is the other side’s manipulation relies on ignorance of their own footsoldiers and our own (See my previous comments on how no one reads Nietzsche but everyone claims to know his work). The other side is full of people that don’t actually know what they’re doing but they’re doing it hard to make up for lack of understanding. Things learned by rote are powerful but do not adapt to changing circumstances. We can use that.
The tide’s already starting to turn. Can you see it? Can you feel the energy moving and the momentum shift? Can you take advantage of that? You can if you pay attention and think, the former being more important than the latter actually, because you’ll see the connections bright as day. Deep truths are true and deep. Nothing can change this, that’s why Jordan Peterson can do what he does and why they hate him so much for it. Because they can’t stop him and what is seen in this regard can never be unseen.
The Bible would note, in Ecclesiastes, that “the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill…”
I would point out that unworkable plans are unworkable and nothing will change this. If enacted, the plans will self-destruct, it’s the damage such would cause that we want to avoid because that brings out chaos and from chaos comes order, usually not the previous order. Since the previous order was pretty damned good, we don’t want another version. We know what those look like.
We just need blow on the Jenga tower they’ve created and do so in the right way. And we should start now because the bigger it gets the more damage it does when it comes down. But ultimately they are hard but brittle. They will break.
This is a damned dangerous game with very high stakes. Personally, I’d have not chosen to play it but I don’t get to make that choice because they already made it for me.
Since I have no choice, I’d prefer to win and I’ll take all the allies I can get. Since I walk in both worlds, essentially as a fifth columnist within their ranks, I also happen to have some insight as to how these people operate. They’re not that hard to defeat and their belief in their own omnipotence will be their undoing. I aim to accelerate that and minimize the collateral damage, which will at this point be quite substantial but survivable.
“You wouldn’t even believe your eyes, it’s all your circus now…”
Well there are the ad-free logical reasons. On the other hand the 2A and Gun Control are reasons Confirmed by History. And rest assured from the perspective of those who had to learn the definition of Gun Control the hard way they hold the History Confirmed Reason why the 2A must be protected at any cost. The ad-free man whose home was broken into has a reason however his reason is far, far, far away from the main reason.
Logic doesn’t have a place with the people I’m talking about.
A really quite good study looking at every biomarker known to molecular bio in the search for a cause of long Covid found only two correlations to long Covid.
Being female and having a previously diagnosed anxiety disorder. And for these people all you have to do is tell them it’s a thing and they’ll be sure they have it and even manifest psychosomatic symptoms.
Try convincing them they don’t have the thing they can barely define.
those ads were always around…but usually confined to magazines that a potential purchaser might read…firearms buffs, collectors, sportsmen etc…but times have changed and people are buying guns for a different reason these days…
Well, there is NOT A SINGLE ad over tv, radio, print, or internet that has motivated me to by any firearm of any kind. My interests are mine. Frankly, I find it offensive that these people actually think I’m so gullible. I’d rather filter out as much advertising as I can…across the board. It’s not only a good way to waste money but get you equipment infected. Not to mention giving these companies the ability to track, trace, and monitor your every move.
So much attention given to something that doesn’t amount to anything more than BS…it’s pathetic.
Frankly, I find it offensive that these people actually think I’m so gullible.
I’m going to pick at this statement a bit, not at you Prndll, but the statement. I get why you made it. Don’t take any of the following as a personal critique. [Also, for the purposes of the following “you” should always be considered in the general sense or as a direct address to the reader. Not as “you” = Prndll”.]
The reason I’m going to pick at it a bit being because it’s quite common and it’s also demonstrably incorrect and also something I’ve been harping on here for years which has much, much broader meaning to the 2A, the BoR and the Republic in general. In fact, it goes right to the heart of preserving freedom and liberty.
You may be, and if you’re reading this probably are, highly resistant to such forms of direct advertising but you are not immune to them. You can’t be unless you’re like the T-800 or something and even then it would be hard because some portion of the data input you’d get would be from people who are not impervious to this.
Advertising and propaganda work on different levels simultaneously, the micro, the macro and inbetween. The individual and the culture as well as the subcultures an individual inhabits. Even when such advertising doesn’t directly affect you specifically due to your [lack of] consumption of the specific media it affects the world around you in ways that rub off on you and to some degree inform choices that you make to some degree because advertising has affected the overall pool of information available to you. This kind of thing even works on psychopaths and a people with severe autism because at base we’re a social creature. This is hijacking deep brain systems based on how we view ourselves, other people and the relationship between self and group.
So eventually on some level, they’ll get you. That’s not a knock on you, it’s just how this works. You can be resistant to direct forms of this and also the indirect forms but truly full immunity is impossible. Advertising has, in some way or another, shaped the information available to you in the decision making process to buy [insert item here] and, therefore, done its job. The same thing is true of archetypal stories but that’s going too deep for this post.
For this to not be the case, baring you being a machine with some impressive filters built in, your purchase of a firearm would have to be based entirely on novel thinking and emergent problem solving which by definition can’t be true because then you’d be the one inventing the specific gun to solve the exact problem you’ve noticed based on your own unique perception of that problem and applicable solutions. Even then, you’d be informed by prior knowledge insofar as you’re not the first one to create a gun, and the sum total of prior knowledge of guns would be informed by advertising to some degree. But even if you eliminated all of that you’d come down to a set of preferences based only partially on engineering data. Anything not 100% based on that data (and even the data in many cases) is affected by perception that’s shaped to a greater or lesser degree by culture which is affected by advertising. In some cases that may simply be small things you don’t know that you don’t know because something related to advertising has obscured the unknown unknown from you. Proverbial blinders, if you will.
In some regards this is like the statement “You cannot build one car that is both the bluest and the fastest”. It’s a true statement in a physical universe, tradeoffs and all. Obnoxiously true. This fact is something the gun community doesn’t do well with, and, quite honestly, freedom minded people don’t generally handle well due primarily to personality traits that lead them to prefer to ignore this small but important fact. (In essence these traits leading to such people not being manipulative.)
People have not spent hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars on weaponizing neuroscience against you and then hundreds of billions or trillions more on the advertising informed by that research because it doesn’t work. It has a positive ROI and it has that because of how it functions, in nearly unavoidable ways.
Susceptibility is less some people, more with others but no one is impervious to this kind of thing and much of the best advertising isn’t overt to begin with, it’s suggestive at the culture and sub-culture level.
In general yes.
There might technically be considered some degree of advertising in the fact that the US military using Beretta might have played a role in my decision to go with that brand. I’ll also equally admit that Beretta does advertise its company’s age.
Some of the primary reasons why I chose Beretta though is for the pride in that age. It’s truly amazing for a company to last that long and still produce something so well made. Not to mention my personal ties to Italy. It’s also for the fact that it was Italian guns that came here to start with. They have been with us well before here was here. It’s a more personal more nostalgic thing. No ad can make up for that.
This is just one example.
Now I do think m&m’s Christmas commercials are funny as hell and used to enjoy watching Budweiser ads but neither one ever motivated me. I don’t drink beer and the only m&m’s I get come with the yogurt the I like (also not chosen because of ads…I just like them better).
There’s nothing wrong with picking Beretta for the reasons you mention. Preferences are preferences.
But IMHO, it’s important to get away from this notion that we’re entirely impervious to various forms of manipulation. We’re not and no one else is either.
These things have been weaponized against freedom minded people for a long time and it’s getting worse. The gaslighting from the Biden administration is an example.
Now, that sort of behavior might not save them in this instance (or it might, it’s saved worse people from stickier situations in the past) but it’s still effective on enough people to be highly corrosive to society.
If we’re to have any hope of countering that we (the broad “we”) need to understand it and fight back effectively. That requires doing the homework on how what they’re doing functions.
There’s every reason in the world to dislike someone like Shannon Watts, she knows exactly what she’s doing.
But the people that fall for her schtick need to be treated differently. They’re her target audience and ours too. Going at them the wrong way basically ensures that she keeps the vast majority of them right up until reality smacks the majority of them in the face.
What’s required for the majority of them to get smacked in the face by reality is not a situation any sane person wants to see befall this country.
@ strych9
👍🙂
Adds are for stuff that ain’t worth buying.
If it was any good word would get out.
You never see an add for a 65 Chevy Apache now do yah.
possum, adds are for calculators. Everyone knows that.
Like the old saying goes; give a marsupial a carburetor…
yeah,..used to think if the military opted for it there must be something special about it…now i’m not so sure considering how those contracts are awarded….
Well articulated, strych9.
And +1 for the correct reference of “T-800”.
I couldn’t find a sportsball reference that worked in that spot, so I had to resort to movies.
“So eventually on some level, they’ll get you. That’s not a knock on you, it’s just how this works.”
Nice write-up.
So why has it had *zero* motivation on me to demand ‘common-sense’ (gag) ‘gun safety’ (double-gag) from my lawmakers?
In my case it’s motivated me to buy more guns-n-ammo…
Ever recommended that someone get training?
Gun people recommend training, antis run with that and want codified laws for training levels few can afford and fewer will pass and then say we agreed with them so what’s the BFD?
Just because they stole the big part of the idea from you and it was a good idea to start with doesn’t mean they’re not turning it on you in ways they plan to use later. Which they clearly do.
Now you’re having an argument about degrees and you’re the one who made the initial recommendation. This is politics, not the obvious upsale to the soccer mom at a mechanic’s shop. It’s a knife fight in a telephone booth, not a game of grabass. Any advantage will be taken and shoved down your throat.
Culture and sub-culture manipulation, the unseen parts are the ones that get you because if you saw them you’d have avoided them in the first place.
There are multiple ways to skin any particular cat, particularly if the ends justify the means and Mr. Kint/Soze was right The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.
This is actually for strych9…You were right when you offered this: The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. And because people don’t believe he exists they do nothing to resist him. And so our leaders are possessed by him and his demons and it all trickles down to the common folk. I recently had a conversation with a liberal couple and all they did was spew the talking points of the media. The View and CNN. They couldn’t see how stupid the idea that breaking a mall rule in killing an active shooter was more important than him following the stupid rule. The man even said he was okay if they came and registered all of his guns! And they’re from a Jewish background. I guess never again doesn’t have any meaning for them. Needless to say, our dinner didn’t lead to any other activities. As they were too angry to do anything else.
Tex:
Again, this is an aspect of cult-ish behavior that hijacks deep brain systems.
The basics work like this:
Find some anxiety for which no obvious solution exists.
Concentrate that anxiety on an object or action.
Offer action/item as a solution.
This, quite often, results in repetitive neurotic behavior. It’s obvious when the person is really in an obvious cult. The person is focused on the action/object. They can’t see past it because what they’re doing is emotional, not logical.
An example; My dad will tell you this story (which is far more complicated than I’m about to make it and has an entirely different point) about being on a plane on approach to Logan (Boston). He’s sitting next to a Catholic Priest. On approach the plane hits some pretty good turbulence and the priest pulls out a rosary and starts furiously praying and counting beads.
Now, not to be offensive here, that’s neurotic behavior. The guy’s engaged in a calming exercise because he can’t control the situation, so he’s retreating to a mental “safe space”. Since he can’t directly affect the outcome he’s resorting to an emotional safety net. And he will likely attach serious significance to having done this. Part of him believes that his actions saved the plane.
The repetitive actions the Catholics have built around the rosary actually do serve a useful purpose, which is a discussion in, and of, itself but this isn’t the place for that. This priest is falling back on that for lack of other things to do because he normally finds this action calming in situations in which is should be but this is not one of those situations.
That’s what your liberal conversationalist is doing here. They have anxiety about a problem and they’re focusing on a non-solution that provides an emotional salve rather than a real-world solution specifically because they do not know what a real world solution would look like. Mostly because the root of the problem isn’t in the real world, it’s in their head.
We came about in a world in which anxiety wasn’t abstract. That meant that concrete actions could dispel anxiety by addressing the actual problem. A vicious animal could be attacked and killed or driven off. No food? Go hunting. Lack of water? Look for some.
In an abstract world this doesn’t work as well because people often don’t know what exactly causes their anxiety. They therefore place it somewhere and then address it abstractly. This can produce odd behavior. This facet of human consciousness can be hijacked. Totalitarians do exactly this. Pols do it. Advertising does it. They’re all playing on the same basic facets of human existence.
The difference between old-time religion and a cult, generally, is that old-time religion hijacks this system for the benefit of the person in question. Cults and politicians do it for their own benefit and at the expense of the person in question.
The only person who could truly be immune to advertising is the person who is already aware of all products in existence. If advertising does nothing more than inform you that a product exists, then it is exponentially better than no advertising. You can’t buy something you aren’t aware of.
It would help but not solve the problem.
Our information processing about novel circumstances or objects doesn’t take place initially in our higher brain where logic and abstract thinking occur.
Initial processing occurs in the lower brain which is emotional. In order to be truly immune to advertising you’d have to have a much larger dataset than “all things that exist”. You’d also have to have “all circumstances that could ever arise” in relation to the object set in question and you’d have to have logiced your way through each of those circumstances in an abstract way.
In essence, because of the physical way your brain is built you’d require omniscience in order to pull this off.
strych9,
I suppose it depends on the buyer. Sure, there are instances where gun REVIEWS influence what guns end up on my list of “guns to try”. Gun ADS?? Not hardly. IF I’m in the mood to acquire a new gun, I have a specific function in mind. I make a list of guns that might fill that function, and then I do to a range and I TRY THEM. If the ergonomics are good (many pistols aren’t, for me), the trigger is decent, and it is reasonably accurate, it goes onto the “Should Consider” list. Then I do a more extended trial, and I pick what is FOR ME the “best” on that list.
Like prndll, I have NEVER purchased a firearm based on an ad. I don’t honestly think I’ve ever put a firearm on a “guns to try” list based on an ad. I can categorically state that (i) no gun has ever gone on a “guns to try” list that I haven’t read at least a couple of reviews of, and (ii) I have NEVER purchase a gun I haven’t shot an exemplar of.
That’s just me, but I don’t buy a “pig in a poke”. I learned from trying friends’ guns that what works for someone else may not work for me, and I’m not sufficiently spendthrift that I would buy a gun that . . . may not fit. That’s a lot of money to spend on a gun that you won’t use, because it doesn’t fit your hand, etc.
Give us a little bit of credit. I wouldn’t buy a car without test driving it. Sure, the LIST of cars I want to try may be influenced by advertising (usually not much, if at all), but . . . the car is either a good value for what it is, or it isn’t.
Don’t know about you, champ, but I’ve learned to filter advertising (whether print, or TV, or radio, or movies) – I tune that s*** out. I have occasionally been so annoyed by an ad that I have committed to never buy that product, but I have NEVER bought ANYTHING, even a candy bar, because I liked the ad.
“I am a human being, and thus nothing human is alien to me.” —Terence
Nero,
Ya got me. Good response.
So, you’ve found ways to resist aspects of this manipulation. You have not defeated it.
The rest of your argument revolves around you not having the same basic brain structure as anyone else who’s ever lived, and in fact a brain structure so divergent that it hasn’t been seen on this planet.
Call me doubtful on that.
most folks know enough to be leery of anything that is heavily advertised…a good product sells itself….
strych9,
Well, being retired, I am on a fixed income, but that has been my process for “large purchases” since I was a teenager – and made the mistake of paying attention to an ad, and getting burned thereby. Money is a “scarce commodity”, so I try to apply mine as efficiently as possible. Having once purchased a pistol on a friend’s recommendation, that ended up not being suitable for my hand, I don’t buy guns I’ve never shot personally.
If that makes me “nonexistent”, well, I’ve been called worse.
did John Wayne convince many people to buy a Mac-10?…or was it simply the idea that the concept was cool and the cost very low?…
I got a gat when young black youts ran into my neighbor’s lamp on a rainy night. They pounded on my door yelling. I called the po-leece. I realized I needed a gat. All I had was a baseball bat & knives.That was maybe 13 years ago. It hasn’t gotten better but I have. I’m NOT giving anything up…
These ads they speak of must be ghost ads. I am 79 and owned guns since I was 12 and no gun purchase was ever motivated by any advertisement. Gotta be ghost advertisements.
You gotta know about a gun before you buy it. That means you either heard about it from an advertisement or heard about it from a person who saw an advertisement
…or read a gun review on some blog. Which is usually how I learn about things I might be interested in. True, those reviews are a form of “advertising,” since everything we want to know about a new gat is in there–and if it isn’t, someone complains. Print ads to me are nearly invisible. Moreover, and contrary to what all these anti pundits are complaining about now )because it is the only way they have to get at manufacturers) I have never been persuaded to buy a “weapons of war” because of some military/militia marketing. In fact, I built my first one when the State of California was threatening to ban 80% lowers, and I figured I might as well get one before it was too late. [Then since I had one, I decided I might as well finish it. And since it was finished I had to get a lower kit. And because the lower was finished….]
I bought my first .22 rifle because my two kids were out in the side yard shooting targets with a pump BB gun and a Crosman .22 air rifle. It was all down hill from there.
still,..an ad showing a young kid holding an AR-15 in his lap like he just got a new fire truck is a bit much….
Tim in Texas,
No, not necessarily. I’ve gone into my favorite gun range before and said, “I want some recommendations for a 9mm carry pistol for this lady with me (a friend of mine). She’s shot a couple, is OK with the recoil of a 9, you can see she’s not large (said lady was about 5′ nothin’), and will probably mostly carry in her purse.” He gave me four recommendations, they let her shoot examples of each, and we made the choice based on what she preferred . . . never even SAW a freakin’ ad.
Hey Jeremy, leave the waiter alone. He didn’t write the menu and you aren’t as clever as you think you are. Let the poor guy just do his job
Service industry schmuck here.
Thank you and God bless people like you.
Unfortunately, the wait staff is pretty much the face of any food establishment. If the head chef, manager, etc. regularly wandered the facility and interacted with customers? Sure. But they usually don’t. So, for a “waitperson” (GAWD, the euphemism is annoying!), dealing with patrons’ (sometimes justified, sometimes not) annoyance at silliness in menu descriptions, presentations, etc. . . . is part of the damn job. There is an easily discernable difference between a patron making an irrational demand, and a patron expressing justified annoyance at some silliness on the part of the establishment (I will say, Jeremy’s objection to “NY Style” vs. “NY” cheesecake? Over the top silliness.). If you can’t handle that? Consider another job.
I’ve been handling that for six years. What I consistently fail to understand is what brand of control people think I, a lowly mook, exercise over things like how the menu is written. We serve a “New York-style cheesecake” where I work. It comes frozen, we thaw it and put it on a plate. The menus come in boxes from corporate, we hand them to people. Who writes them is a mystery. Rest assured, if I wrote them, the description would read “cheesecake; lineage and pedigree indeterminate, thawed and served”.
Nobody has, as of yet, raised issue over the cheesecake in particular, but it could well be within the realm of idiotic commentary I deal with every day.
My job is to figure out if you want to put the New York-style Cheesecake into your facehole, and then facilitate that happening. Don’t make it harder than it already is, because I already have to navigate and wade through additional layers of idiocracy to even make that happen.
“…if I wrote them, the description would read “cheesecake; lineage and pedigree indeterminate, thawed and served”.”
Mmmmm — sounds, well, appetizing. Or not.
Think any Michelin guide writer would recommend your place?
“The food is rather plain, non-descript, but somewhat nourishing…” 🙂
Carolus,
I am SOOOO “there”! Only worked “front of the house” for a short time (mostly as the maitre’ d), but I HATED every minute of it – probably why my boss and I agreed I was not a “good fit” for front of the house. OTOH, having done it, I KNOW how hard those people work. I tip heavy, because a good waitstaff can turn an OK meal into a pleasant evening, and a bad waitstaff can take a great meal and make it an unpleasant experience.
Glad I went “back of the house” (and then got the HELL out of the business!!) – that is HARD work. Then I got even smarter, and finished college and went to law school – and ended up with food service M&A being one of my business focuses. Learned a lot about the money end, representing buyers and sellers!
“We got coffee style coffee and left.”
You should have made your cheesecake comment after you received your coffee. I know people who worked in restaurants. Ignorance is bliss.
“Floor spice makes everything nice”.
Ha! I’ve seen it happen. MOST food service people won’t adulterate or otherwise screw up an order just because the patron is obnoxious, but . . . I’ve seen it happen.
OTOH, if you’re a gigantic pain-in-the-ass, you are NOT going to get the “best” cut of meat, salad, whatever. And if you return to that restaurant? You are NOT going to get the ‘best seat in the house’. Plan on dining near the kitchen door, if you’re lucky.
Whenever we are eating out, we are placing our lives into the hands of the restaurant staff. We don’t know them or their circumstances. With that in mind, we make an effort to be easy customers and we tip generously. Being pleasant is hard work, but it is rewarding.
eating out can be a bit of an adventure…in Mexico..be sure to bring some pepto bismol…
The impression of Basketball-Americans abroad must stop.
What if it was my black daughter was arrested for bring drugs on an international flight to Russia? (Brittany Grier). Or my black son got caught shoplifting in China and the PRESIDENT had to get him released? (LaVar and LiAngelo Ball). Blacks should be able to break the laws of every country on earth – not just American law. As long as any black is subjected to any form of law anywhere on earth, blacks will never truly be free from slavery.
You didn’t make any headway claiming you let your kid carry a gun to school in CA so now you’re trying this tired sh*t.
Just another anti gun poser trying to make honest Americans look bad.
It’s pee-gee-two, JWM…
Like I said. Another anti gun poser.
That has got to be the dumbest post of the day.
The girl. How much for the girl?
The restaurant scene from “The Blues Brothers”. Classic.
why do people go to russia?…I considered it once till I was told to bring a lot of blue jeans…(true story)…something just isn’t right there…
I can honestly say that I am frequently influenced by media marketing campaigns, specifically t elevision ads, to repeatedly purchase…FAST FOOD! I freely admit this in the futile hope that I will be able to overcome my weakness. To date the score is Fast Food: ♾ OldProf49: 0
Unfortunately, my budget does not permit the same weakness when it comes to the acquisition of firearms.
At ten o’clock last night I decided that I NEEDED a Dodge SRT Challenger after watching their tire smoking commercial on TV.
At 10:01, unfortunately, my wife decided that I DIDN’T.
That got a giggle.
Tomorrow, it’ll be something like a pink beetle or her version of that. And if you’re smart, you’ll get it and gain a point. Life’s unfair like that.
Going after this phantom advertising is the same sort of disingenuous nonsense as crying about the “NRA lies” that politicians want to take your guns. As if those politicians aren’t doing that themselves every time they pull some asinine stunt like this.
Effectively the old “stop hitting yourself” from grade school.
What about car advertisements?
SUV drives into parade in New Mexico, injures several people including two officers
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-mexico-parade-suv-several-injured/
Surely this lunatic was influenced to do this by car advertisements… that is the prevailing theory for guns that advertisements make people do crazy things.
car ads used to work when their design was unique…now they all look like jellybeans, and buying one is about as exciting as purchasing a refrigerator…..
The dumbest gun-grabber in the world has to notice that gun sales go UP every time a progressive/liberal/Democrat president promises to “do something” about guns. If they really want to see gun sales decline, maybe they should just accept the status quo, and stop trying. Give us ten years of nobody promising to take our guns away, people will start to lose interest and motivation in buying new guns. Of course, that won’t end gun sales by any means, but simply dropping the subject will probably result in fewer sales.
It’s the hysteria that gets everyone’s attention. That, and actual violent criminals injuring and killing people every day.
yeah,..remember going to gun show I attended regularly…you walk in, plunk your money down and go about your business…after Obama got elected the line to get in stretched clear around the corner…in many ways their stance on guns makes them their own worst enemy….
Why did I start buying firearms?? The Left keeps saying they want to kill white guys like me. When someone says they want to murder me, I take them seriously. You would be foolish not to.
Who is the biggest marketer of firearms of any kind?
Liberal ran Hollywood.
I don’t think ads have ever influenced my decision on a firearms purchase. My friends have the largest influence. Accessories, especially leather, is another story.
The fact is that the 2nd A is geared toward self defense but it does not rule out the other necessary uses of a firearm. To be proficient you have to practice (I admit a lot of people don’t), A firearm is often used to eliminate varmints and predators. And then sometimes to put food on the table.
IT is a shame that the Leftist anti-gun radicals can’t see further than the bridge of their nose.
Well, I may have been influenced by advertisement to purchase my S&W500. Beyond that, I’ve purchased many of the firearms I own because they caught my eye at some point, or were of some historical interest too me. A majority of the firearms I currently own were at some point in history actually military issue or a type of firearm used by some historical figure.
I enjoy shooting. Used to be a not too expensive way to spend an afternoon. I’ve always enjoyed the engineering, and design aspects of firearms. Hell, I am fascinated by the designs and engineering of steam engines and antique machines as well.
So, are people who use a knife as a weapon influenced by the late night info-mercials for Ginsu Knives? Or the Cutlery Corner by their junk sales shows? Just asking.
I don’t know about that, but I am influenced by ads for good quality swords and daggers. (Bought one today in fact.)….I’m such a consumer!
There is truth to the idea of crime driving gun purchases. Just like I am sure if you did research on fires hitting the news in areas you’d see an increase in purchases of smoke detectors and extinguishers.
That said, if there are people out there buying guns because they’re “cool” it’s almost certainly more likely it’s being done because X Y or Z gun was seen in a video game or on a movie. It’s arguable that the fates of guns and entire cartridges were determined at the box office (.44 Magnum, I’m looking at you.)
The antis can try to squelch the gun culture all they want to, but in the end the ugly truth is that so long as guns are legal and action movies are a popular genre they’ll have trouble totally squashing the culture around guns.
Andrew,
As other commenters have implied, on this thread and others, there were certainly hundreds (thousands?) of .44 mags sold because of “Dirty Harry”. Equally, there was a boom market in “used” (usually shot a couple of times) .44 magnums for sale a year or two later.
Not saying that people aren’t influenced by advertising (if they weren’t, there wouldn’t BE an “advertising industry”), but . . . I think MOST people have learned to have their bullshit meters warmed and ready for ads, product placements, etc. If not, well, I guess I’m of the caveat emptor persuasion. If you can be gulled into a major purchase by an ad?? Darwin will have his day.
Hey back in the day — I purchased a Smith & Wesson 645 because Sonny Crockett on Miami Vice used one. (And it was a nice upgrade from my Auto Ordnance .45 that failed on the range.)
And a couple years ago, I found a nice Walther PPK so I can play out my James Bond fantasy. I’m shaken, not stirred.
alien,
I had a Walther PPK .380 as my primary “carry” gun for years. Although it worked for it’s purpose, it isn’t a patch on currently available carry guns. Still, was a nice pistol, for it’s time.
Lamp — what do you mean,
“…it isn’t a patch on currently available …” I’m not familiar with that phrase.
I actually entertained the idea of making the PPK (mine is a S&W-made 380) my carry gun. What was good/bad about it in that role?
Thanx!
“I purchased a Smith & Wesson 645 because Sonny Crockett on Miami Vice used one.”
IIRC, “Crocket” had a Bren Ten. You could get one of those, just not the magazine…
Craig, for the first two seasons, he had a Bren.
From season three, he carried a 645 — the show contracted with S&W to supply it after the Bren marketer went out of business.
Why can I recall details like Crockett’s gun, yet can’t remember why I walked into the next room?
alien,
When I carried the PPK, it was only available in .32 and .380. I chose .380. Again, for its TIME, it was a great firearm for CCW. Now, we have 9mm that are (i) smaller, (ii) lighter, (iii) carry more in the mag, and (iv) are at least as accurate. A lot of people find the .380 “snappy”, but my beef was always that it wasn’t quite enough (back then, they didn’t have the ‘defensive’ cartridges that we do now). There are some other beefs people have with the old PPK platform around safety, etc., but that, to me, is just ‘training issues’. Like I said, it was a good gun, for its time, but we have better options on the market today. I have a G43X that fires a more powerful round, no more (I would argue less) felt recoil, weighs less, has a (slightly) smaller carry profile, is as accurate, has more accessories available, . . . what about that ISN’T “better”? (NOT saying, btw, that the G43X is the “ideal” carry gun, it’s just the one that fit my needs/hand the best. )
Lamp — thanks again!
I have to wonder how many people who own one of these guns ..[.44 Mag.]..shoot them often…it’s not a pleasant experience…
Shooting .44 Mag *is* pleasant for quite a number of people, myself included. I’ll be the first to admit that the learning process had a few painful moments, but once you find your right grip and stance, shooting the .44 Mag is pleasant and exhilarating. And expensive, but that’s another matter.
that gun has limited uses…certainly a poor choice for self-defense…[unless it’s a large animal]….
We got Taco Bell yesterday, and I really wanted a chalupa. @#*&$ chihuahua.
hawkeye,
If you got the chalupa, what makes you so sure you didn’t get the chihuahua, as well??
Just askin’, for a friend.
LOL, that is a very good question. My brother was a manager trainee with them for a short spell. At that time at least, the, er, meat style filling? came in a tube, not unlike window caulk. It is notable that the rat dog has disappeared from the airwaves as their menu has expanded.
But I’m an adventurous sort, and one takes protein where one finds it. I’ve eaten all manner of critters here. In the wife’s homeland, we dine on fire roasted cuy (guinea pig), and depending on the crowd, may sip a chaser of chicha to celebrate the occasion (fermented juice from yucca root, chewed up and spit out into a large bowl by the village ladies, tastes like sourdough starter). Yeah, I’ve had a few tummy upsets, but it’s a package deal.
speaking of marketing…
AR-15s put in all Madison County schools to enhance security in case of active shooter
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ar-15s-put-madison-county-090104953.html
If its good enough for police as a defense firearm its good enough for the ordinary law abiding citizen as a defense firearm.
.40 – ah but you see when the coppers have them they are either ‘patrol rifles’ or ‘personal defense weapons’ – if us plain old ordinary people have them they magically become ‘evil black rifles’.
We have ceded far too much terminology to the antis – think “assault weapons” and particularly “gun violence” – remember that whoever controls the terms controls the discussion. That is why I tend to harp on being very conscientious about the terms we use.
So how would you describe a SEMI-Automatic Rifle? Assault Rifle does NOT nessessarily mean a FULLY AUTOMATC system and n fact fully automatic Rifles are NOT the norm for the majority of the worlds military WHY? Because after only THREE auto-discharges inaccuracy sets in and that’s why most NATO spec have three-shot trigger setting. The idea of a hundred soldiers charging up the beech and firing ALL their ammo in the first hundred yards [and at 600rnds a minute that’s not hard to do! as well as the vulnerability of continuing to change mags is somewhat of a myth.
Not to acceptbthat ALL semi-autos are MILITARY SPEC assault rifles is just convenient semantics.
I’ve just accessed a report onn the TOP TEN HUNTING RIFLES in the USA. Not a Semi-Auto among them, most have only 5 SHOT mags and one or two have 3 shot alternatives. DSo it woulod seem that Semi-Autos are NOT the best choice for hunting. It’s the same for serious TARGET shooters. Not a single Semi-Auto in the top ten. So it also appears the SEMI AUTOS are notn the best choice for target shooting either.
So what does that leave us with?
It leaves us with the ONLY logical purpose of a Semi-Auto and that’s for KILLING PEOPLE. And that means to me that there are perhaps 5 MILLION Semi-Auto owners just waiting for the opportunity to ‘slot’ someone. If not legally then as a vigilante and if not as a vigilante then any old crowd will do, even any old crowd of schoolkids.
Once again, Albert the Poncey Fake-Limey, FAKE ex-military Poofter shows his @$$, and his ignorance, in public.
No, you benighted twit, “assault rifle” does not mean “full auto”, you absolute fool, nor did ANYONE here claim that. To meet the definition of “assault rifle” for the US military requires SELECT FIRE. No, military professionals DO NOT use full auto to “storm up the beech” (sp – the word is “beach” you illiterate ass) – but military professionals also like to have the ability to select full-auto or burst-fire when THEY think they need it.
Take your fake-Limey pretensions, your fake-military pretensions, and shove them firmly where the sun don’t shine, you wanking, lying poofter.
Albert, you’re such a liar.
“I’ve just accessed a report onn [sic] the TOP TEN HUNTING RIFLES in the USA. Not a Semi-Auto among them”
Top Ten Hunting Rifles, NRA/American Rifleman, March 2013:
Note: this is an historical list, sort of the “all-time greats” and not a ranking of currently available rifles in the US. I can find top-ten lists of current weapons that include numerous semi-automatic and standard-capacity magazine firearms. So could you if you would look past the one example that only supports your erroneous premise.
Not that you would know this nor wish to learn it, but a semi-automatic rifle fires one bullet per pull of the trigger. Any weapon that is select-fire or fires more than one bullet per trigger pull (as does a three-round burst selection) is an automatic rifle.
You are entitled to your own opinions (and we really don’t give a chubby rodent’s posterior about yours) but you are not entitled to your own facts.
Popping totalitarian wannabe’s like you is another valid use of any gun, and a legitimate one under the 2a.
So suck on that, and speaking of, then go suck start a shotgun you piss ant bell end.
Hey now go easy on the 21st Century Piers Gaveston after all (s)he’s had a busy day, cruising Hyde Park’s men’s restrooms trying to contract a dose of the Pride Pox from George Michael/Richard Qwest-types can be exhausting.
most folks know enough to be leery of anything that is heavily advertised…a good product sells itself….
“Poole’s quote (the last two sentences, specifically) is one of those great truths that’s just so clearly, deeply factual that it’s painfully and intuitively obvious on its face, yet it likely hasn’t occurred to many people.” (Adendum via Jeremy)
No, Jeremey, those truths have occured to a great many people, just not to politicians and blue city/state social engineers out to create their own brand of Utopia. It’s not rocket science if one doesn’t live in a gated community, a chauffeur, and have someone else do their shopping for them.
As per all of the arguments and angst above about the “power” and effect of gun advertising:
It’s all BS. Where will anyone encounter a firearms ad other than in a “gun magazine” or publication or specific media presentation on cable TV? Certainly not in women’s, sports, “news”, DIY, self help magazines or publications. A person has to really be looking for a firearms ad, it’s not like you’re perusing the designer drug du jour, automobile or diet/supplement product. The vast majority of publications won’t allow firearms advertisers access to their platform.
To Craig in IA: in the pilot Crockett was supposed to use a Browning BDA 45 auto, often mistaken for a Sig 210. But the studio wanted a more “modern” firearm so he used a Bren Ten in the “new” 10mm caliber. However, the pistol used in the show was in 45 acp because 10mm blank’s didn’t exist.
Starting in Season 3, the studio went with the S&W 645 because Dornaus & Dixon, who manufactured the Bren Ten, went out of business. S&W stepped up and the rest is history. In the last season (5th) Sonny was given the upgraded Model 4506.
Interestingly, in Nash Bridges he used a customized 1911A1 in 38 Super. I guess Crockett/Bridges/Johnson really preferred powerful, mid-caliber cartridges. Or the prop crew did. LOL.
The last advert that charmed money out of my pocket was from Howa. Howa claimed their mini action chambered in 7.62×39 would shoot 1 inch groups at 100 yards. Didn’t believe the hype but fortunately I was wrong. The rifle with Hornady ammo does much better than 1 inch groups and reaches out to 400 yards with no problems. Money well spent; advertising works!
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