(no subject)

[dwenius]

On the route from San Francisco airport to El Cerrito-- a path too often traveled-- there is a large sign that says: "Autonomy Dominates the Search Industry." Without getting into the question of the veracity of this claim, I will remark that I am convinced that this specific wording is intended to subliminally suggest to the aging Bay Area hippie population the name of a Pink Floyd song, thereby engendering spontaneous feelings of goodwill towards the company that their product's performance would not necessarily foster.

So: score one for the evil forces of marketing. Also, there has not been nearly enough exploitation of this and similar memes in SciFi, not even in P.K. Dick.

Comments

[glaucon.livejournal.com]

that would explain this ad I found on craigslist:

several specialties offer some future creative growth to go-getters in a case when moving is unpredictable.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_lj_sucks_/]

Well, they were the company who first came up with the idea of letting people buy their way to the top of search engine results pages...

[glaucon.livejournal.com]

I don't get it - what song is that a reference to?

[dwenius.livejournal.com]

Astronomy Domine

Right?

[glaucon.livejournal.com]

yeah, I got *your* reference (see my first reply). I was joshing mathew in response to *his* reply.

[dwenius.livejournal.com]

I R TEH DUM.

[twirlgrrl.livejournal.com]

LAWL

[eejitalmuppet.livejournal.com]

The closest to a "future in which marketing is all" that i can think of are The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth (written in the '50s, and probably showing it by now; i read it as a teenager), and the sequel written by Pohl on his own in the '80s (The Merchant Wars or something like that). Not fantastic literature, but they had their moments.

[crisper.livejournal.com]

Actually, I rather like that billboard as a warning instead of as something touting an actual company.

Questions are a burden for others. Answers are a prison for oneself. And the information-industrial complex is ruled by self-determination.