View RSS Feed

Memories of the 28th Century

Where's the Hype

Rate this Entry
A skill that is nice to have is the ability to tell the difference between hype and facts. People often say “Follow the money.” and that is one of the best methods for determining which is what.

If you remember the bottled water campaign and followed the money before buying bottled water, then you would have learned that the campaign was from the marketing department of Nestles, and it had started shortly after Nestles had bought three bottled water companies in the U.S., so the whole bottled water craze is hype Oh! You only drink bottled water, then you might want to know that Nestles has been pumping so much water out of the ground in Maine that many wells have failed.

Another clue is when the campaign is contrary to science, and medical science and nutrition certainly don't require that one drink only bottled water, nor do they discount the water that is contained in foods from one's consumption of water. Or maybe you remember the hype about CO2 being a “greenhouse gas” that is causing global warming. Following the money on those one isn't as easy, because so much money was moving around, but looking at the science is very educational. It turns out that what makes a gas a “greenhouse gas” is that the gas has a dipole moment, but you already knew that, and you know that the dipole moment of carbon dioxide is zero, nil. Apparently, keeping a bunch of climate scientists employed and selling solar panels produces enough money to pay for that campaign,

Another method for determining whether a marketting campaign is believable is to determine whether the thing actually happened. You remember Donald Trump claiming that he actually won the 2020 presidential election, don't you? You probably noticed that Biden received more electoral votes than did Trump; therefore, Biden won the election. Where was the money? Trump gave plenty to his friends, and he probably had promised even more, so he had to get his mitts on the government so he could steal more from taxpayers and give it to his friends.

Is it hype? The first thing to do is to check verifiable facts. If the authoritative sources say it is true, then it probably is, and if the authoritative sources say it is false, then it almost certainly is false. Note that the sources are reliable, and that doesn't mean that some talking head asserts that something is true; it requires that an authoritative source, and preferably several, say that something it so. Then look at the money flow. Then consider the tone of the campaign. If they say that you have to believe something, then start wondering. A couple other things to watch for are double-talk and other logical fallacies, but everything I have mentioned involves logical fallacies.

Then there are situations where someone is trying to cover himself with a collection of falsehoods that is so thick that no one can tell what is involved. I was acquainted with a man who was pleasant and friendly, but he was using everyone to hide the fact that he was just pleasant and friendly. I will try to create a fictional character like that, but it will be difficult, because the concept is so foreign to me.

Hype shows up in most human endeavors, but especially where someone can make extra bucks by selling the unnecessary. The field of medicine is filled with hype, and if it is advertised, then it certainly is hype. But there are some medical people who work at selling extra. I have recently experienced the hyping of treatments that were unnecessary, but I searched the internet, and this is a link to one of the first results: https://medicalfuturist.com/healthca...ds-hype-cycle/
The very term “healthcare” is a marketing term for what used to be the medical field. Someone seems to have thought that including the word “care” made it better for sales. I like and respect many medical professionals, but there are scammers in the industry also, and it is difficult to tell the difference. I think that I am being used as the source for fake insurance claims by some providers, but they control the data, so it is difficult to prove. But hype looks good to the insurance companies, so they pay the claims.

Please tell the rest of us where you have encountered hype; it is everywhere, so it's easier than shooting fish in a barrel. I was involved in real estate appraisal for decades, so I saw overhyped properties and areas regularly, and the sales people took their hype as facts; they just didn’t know.


https://chem.libretexts.org/Bookshel...Dipole_Moments


https://www.toppr.com/ask/question/t...h-impliesthat/

Comments

  1. PeterL's Avatar
    And this website or clothing manufacturer appears to be named ""Just Hype". I wonder if that elps sales.
    https://us.justhype.com/collections/...ocks-underwear
  2. NikolaiI's Avatar
    Follow the money.

    Follow the truth.