That makes sense. There are other drugs people think that are a 9/10 or 10/10 in harm that they avoid even if they know that the drug produces pleasurable affects. Something like heroin comes to mind (though I don’t know about that drug really).
The only other thing that comes to mind is that something like alcohol seems so ingrained into American culture (and many other cultures) compared to some known really bad stuff like heroin that I have a hard time thinking people would care. Hmm. Then again smoking was ingrained into the culture very heavily at one time, no? I assume with all the bad stuff about smoking coming out people slowly changed their minds on it regardless of the culture.
They all became happy while sharing their memories—but they were quiet when Dr Rapaille asked them about their thoughts on coffee.
Japanese had no association with coffee.
He commenced with children as the target audience. Nestle started making coffee-flavoured candies to woe the Japanese children. This experiment was a long-term strategy to attract Japanese consumers because Nestle wanted to introduce the flavour of coffee to children at a young age, which would later lead to capturing their attention as adults. Psychologically, we all remember glimpses of our childhood memories of enjoying toffees and hammock rides. Similarly, these children would miss the taste of coffee candies, ultimately opening the doors for Nestle products to enter the market on demand. This strategy is called the imprinting strategy.
Now they do.
Dr. Rapaille illustrated the influence of emotions in business. He triggered the human behavioural aspects to implement his plan. The trick is simple! Keep researching and seeking out opportunities instead of forfeiting.
Try to always surround yourself with positive peers because the energy from them will help you face the challenges with courage.
They talk about this as if its a good thing. Then again I don’t see whats explicitly (if anything) bad here.
I guess? I think because tobacco is bad if they did the same thing with tobacco then it would be bad. I do think coffee is bad and therefore what they are doing is bad. To clarify: I’m having issue seeing whats necessarily wrong with the method. The product they are selling is bad, but the method seems ok to me. Not great. Since it seems kind of manipulative, but idk. If they did something similar with a product that was actually good I don’t think I would care. Though maybe they wouldn’t have to? But then again coffee is seen as a good product to many people.
No they wouldn’t. I think this is something I could see Jim Taggart or Orren Boyle doing. That is not the sort of thing they do.
Hmm. In my head I’m imaging some seemingly decent businessman who has a good product that does this. Something like onions. I think those are more or less a good product. He runs a good onion company and wants to expand. The place they are trying to expand to is somewhere where onions aren’t part of the diet and they do the above tactic. I don’t know. Doesn’t seem bad to me. Its just onions.
I don’t think those characters that I consider great would do this kind of thing.
Coffee is a bad product. It’s not like onions. (At least coffee is bad for consuming a lot regularly like Nestle wants. I have no strong opinion about consuming small amounts sometimes.)
I think if Dagny were selling onions, and they weren’t already popular enough, she would come up with some advertising tactics that work significantly better for good products than for bad products. She’d use a strategy where having a good productive is an important advantage. The tactics Nestle used can work for good or bad products. Tactics like that are dangerous.
Also, I don’t think which food products were already popular was just luck. Onions have been a valuable part of the human diet for a very long time, while mass produced coffee hasn’t been. Making large changes to people’s diets is dangerous if you don’t know a lot about nutrition and health (which we don’t). Just because new technology enables big diet changes doesn’t make that safe.
I do agree that if Dagny were selling onions she would come up with tactics that were better for good products than bad products.
So is the issue with Nestles strategy the fact that it can work both good and bad products? Or is there another issue with tactic itself?
Hmm. Do you have anything to make of the tobacco stuff in Atlas Shrugged? Actually. Hmm. This is what I was thinking: I/we think coffee is a bad product. Its probably suppressed that its a bad product, but I think too many its a good product. Do you think that the reason coffee failed in Japan was because its a bad product/they thought it was a bad product? I mean coffee is successful in many other places. I don’t know/doubt if the same tactics were used in the initial expansion of coffee. *
*I’m not asking you to research this for me. I’m just asking for your general thoughts on the matter. I looked up some stuff related to the spread of coffee and found this reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/gs4o77/how_did_asia_specifically_the_east_iie_china/ . The stuff seemed quite dense. I may read it more throughly later cause it seems interesting but it seems Japan has had some prior coffee history. Also I did ctrl + f and did nestle and nothing came up.
It being not just luck makes sense. Aren’t onions (and most vegetables) today mass produced? Hmm. Onions have been produced for 5000 years it seems according to this: Onion History - National Onion Association :
Most researchers agree the onion has been cultivated for 5000 years or more.
It’s suspicious how indirect Nestle’s tactic was. They couldn’t just directly persuade their target customers that the product was good and valuable for them. They did something more indirect and sneaky.
It’s also suspicious how Nestle targeted children after failing with adults. Adults tend to know more about critical thinking and have more strategies for resisting propaganda. Adults can also be more set in their ways and resistant to change, so targeting children can be legitimate, but it merits some concern/consideration. Note that if one were trying to rationally spread new ideas to young people who were open minded, I think it’d be more typical to target teens and young adults, not little kids.
Looks like Rand had some beliefs about smoking that were normal in society at the time but mistaken. They weren’t essential to the book.
A more important underlying error, that contributed to her view on smoking, may have been inadequate skepticism about the potential dangers of new technologies.
Paul Crider just published an article in The Bulwark arguing that Trump and his minions resemble Ayn Rand’s villains more than her heroes.
Rand instilled in her followers a need for hero worship, and she gave them the impression these heroes were plentiful at the commanding heights of the economy, despite slotting many of her villains in these same lofty positions. She thus left her disciples unprepared for a world in which so many of the world’s wealthiest capitalists used the “aristocracy of pull” to amass their wealth, and sought that wealth not as a byproduct of their creative energies but as a means to dominate others. Being seenas dominant is just as important—that whooshing sound you hear is the black hole of Elon Musk’s self-esteem, sucking in its surroundings. And Rand failed to equip her followers to grapple with racism not from the underbelly of society but from its highest echelons.
I appreciated your post, particularly that part.
I came to a similar realization myself a few years ago which might interest you:
My essay argues that the rule of law is a prerequisite for free markets, and today illegal actions by businesses are so widespread (particularly fraud) that to move towards capitalism we need to improve policing of businesses (which are mostly run by villains). Shrinking government to try to move towards minarchy, without getting businesses to respect property rights and follow the non-aggression principle, won’t actually get us capitalism nor anything resembling it, just aggressor companies running even more wild than they already are. I think the almost total emphasis on shrinking government while viewing companies too positively, without much discussion of improving and making more effective the legitimate parts of government that would exist under minarchy, is a huge error by the Objectivist and libertarian movements. More emphasis on how tons of corporate behavior violates the rules of the free market and is incompatible with (classical) liberalism would also allow us to find more common ground with the anti-capitalist leftists who complain about big companies and are often correct that there is some sort of problem (even if they don’t understand the nature of the problem and suggest the wrong solution).
Insurance companies are investment banks. They make most of their money by investing their money. It’s better for insurance companies to keep the money they have longer because they can invest it longer and they can make more money on the money they have. If they have to give up that money. They can’t make as much in their investments.
Bifurcating trials splitting into two trials
twice as long for the insurance companies. They get to hold their money for longer.
Clearer Trial Procedures (“Bifurcated Trials”): The legislation allows trials to be split into phases: first to determine liability, and then to assess damages. This ensures a fair process where both sides can present their arguments without confusion or bias.
I don’t know/get how splitting the two helps. I do think Tort law has some issues with cost and stuff but I don’t see how that helps. Regardless, kinda crappy that, if true, insurance companies are pushing for this so they can do stuff with your money.
Having a really hostile, adversarial relationship with one’s employees is a serious problem that needs solving regardless of which side(s) are in the wrong.
