
The Vast Re-Education Program of the Superbowl Ads - pan_cogito
http://churchlife.nd.edu/2019/02/05/the-vast-re-education-program-of-the-superbowl-ads/
======
gnodar
This whole article is a bit baffling to me. I'm having trouble understanding
what the message is. That advertisers are using technology in their ads? Why
wouldn't they? That they are trying to "normalize" the influence that code and
technology has on our lives? It's already normalized. There isn't a dark
conspiracy where advertisers subliminally incorporate language to drown out
the luddites. There are big tech companies that want to advertise their brand
and their tech. And there are non-tech companies that want to advertise using
the language and norms we're already familiar with.

~~~
module0000
I think the message is "don't trust yourself to interpret ads, it's really
complex and you should just take your gospel(no pun intended) from us".

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tomatotomato37
I'm sure there's a less salty way to say this, but if you're going to do this
deep analysis of the Superbowl ads, than I expect you to use more than two ads
by the same fucking company

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tlb
> Are digital assistants really representative signs of cultural harmony and
> world peace? Hardly. In fact, the logic of binary is inherently polarizing.
> You can either be a 1 or a 0 and you must pick a side. Pro life or pro
> choice? Trump or Hillary? Democrat or Republican? Amidst the ironclad logic
> of the syntax of binary code, the ultimate...

That's a common argument, but completely flawed. Yes, logic gates are binary.
But when a bunch of them are wired up to compute in floating point, there's
nothing binary about the external behavior.

Binariness depends on the resolution you look at. Individual bits are binary,
but floating point registers are an excellent approximation to analog.
Individual synapses are binary, but brains are analog. Laser pits on a CD are
binary, but the music isn't.

The curious thing is, presumably the author has seen video games and heard
music on computers. How has it escaped their notice that the outward behavior
of these systems is not all-or-nothing?

Perhaps it's no more silly than the claims people have made about how the
quantum nature of reality makes us all one in a spiritual sense.

~~~
microcolonel
In a genius stroke of irony, the claim that binarization has some inherent
effect on things the author implies are "more than binary"... is expressed in
good old UTF-8.

~~~
tlb
UTF8 does lose a lot of nuance. Compare a quality handwritten letter like
[http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/01/your-pal-
john-k.html](http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/01/your-pal-john-k.html) with
the transcript (in UTF8) below.

~~~
lern_too_spel
JPEG captured that nuance nicely. HTML captured the nuance of John K's letters
to other kids pretty well, too.
[https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/arianelange/john-
kricfa...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/arianelange/john-kricfalusi-
ren-stimpy-underage-sexual-abuse)

------
Terr_
> Signs no longer reflect a profound reality. [...] In Baudrillard’s view,
> signs no longer have this sacramental power because they have been detached
> from the Real, due, in no small part, to the dissembling media environment.

Given that we're already talking about cognitive psychology with a religious
tinge, the Screwtape Letters (1942) [0] seem entirely relevant here. (Context:
A senior devil is advising a junior one on how to corrupt his human)

> I have known cases where what the patient called his “God” was actually
> located—up and to the left at the corner of the bedroom ceiling, or inside
> his own head, or in a crucifix on the wall.

> But whatever the nature of the composite object, you must keep him praying
> to it—to the thing that he has made, not to the Person who has made him. You
> may even encourage him to attach great importance to the correction and
> improvement of his composite object, and to keeping it steadily before his
> imagination during the whole prayer.

[0] [https://gutenberg.ca/ebooks/lewiscs-
screwtapeletters/lewiscs...](https://gutenberg.ca/ebooks/lewiscs-
screwtapeletters/lewiscs-screwtapeletters-00-h.html)

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saagarjha
> Are digital assistants really representative signs of cultural harmony and
> world peace? Hardly. In fact, the logic of binary is inherently polarizing.
> You can either be a 1 or a 0 and you must pick a side. Pro life or pro
> choice? Trump or Hillary? Democrat or Republican? Amidst the ironclad logic
> of the syntax of binary code, the ultimate form of protest and rebellion is
> to declare oneself non-binary.

…what? Seems like a strained metaphor to me. Computers suddenly becoming
ternary would not magically make the country into a three party system.

~~~
brianberns
I agree that this is a weak metaphor. Perhaps it would be better to say that
the digital era has made discrete values more common, rather than the
continuous values of the analog era.

~~~
brobinson66
Agreed. Thanks for picking up on this.

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Animats
_" The 7% are the software engineers who possess the shamanic knowledge of how
to manipulate said codes to influence human behavior."_

No, no. They mean military veterans. The numbers were probably Military
Occupational Specialties. Army MOS 11B is infantry. MOS 25M is "multimedia
illustrator".

 _" Oil, water, bread and wine are signs that bring about profound changes in
the soul of the recipient because they are tied to a fundamental reality,
God’s saving love for mankind affected through the Incarnation and the created
order."_

Huh? Oh, right, that ritualistic cannibalism thing Catholics are into. The
tortured reasoning around that is amusing.[1]

The author is in media studies, not theology.[2] He also wrote "Appletopia:
Media Technology and the Religious Imagination of Steve Jobs". Reviews of that
book are mixed, but trying to understand Apple as a religion is promising.

[1] [https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2011/08/06/the-
eucharist-a-...](https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2011/08/06/the-eucharist-a-
cannibalism/)

[2] [https://mcgrath.nd.edu/about/faculty-staff/brett-robinson-
ph...](https://mcgrath.nd.edu/about/faculty-staff/brett-robinson-ph-d/)

~~~
zerocrates
They do seem to understand that the ad and the 7% statistic are about the
military, and are performing an "alternate reading" based largely around the
shared word "code." The alternate reading may be more "paradigmatic," but it's
not particularly insightful or useful. Let's not even get into the analogy
from the, well, binary nature of binary code to the current polarized
political atmosphere.

There's plenty of room to criticize the tech giants, and their advertising,
but this is disappointingly shallow even for such a short piece.

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Chris2048
I was following until "binary language and logic must be embraced as the new
natural syntax for human interaction via our omnipresent devices" at which
point the article seemed to abandon analyzing the motives of the ads, and went
off on a rant somehow related to "binary logic", to which computers are
apparently tied in contrast to more humane logic.

Also, they threw in "the ultimate form of protest and rebellion is to declare
oneself non-binary" which I think might be just a pun, but I'm not sure if
they are being serious or not..

------
nice_byte
Why do people who clearly don't know what computers are or how they work
choose to write things like this? It makes them look like clueless buffoons.

> In fact, the logic of binary is inherently polarizing. You can either be a 1
> or a 0 and you must pick a side. Pro life or pro choice? Trump or Hillary?

what the frick is this?

~~~
Nasrudith
It is an attempt to appropriate the trappings of knowledge with none of the
understanding or uncomfortable changes to way of thinking involved. You see
scammers do that all the time like "homeopathic vaccines" the one time their
daft dillution principles would ironically be closer to actual medicine they
don't do it.

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mhb
Generic Brand Video said it better, faster and was more entertaining.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YBtspm8j8M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YBtspm8j8M)

~~~
xamuel
Ironically, that video is a genuine ad for a stock footage company. Reality
has collapsed on itself and is no longer distinguishable from parody.

~~~
ghaff
I think it's a bit of both. Which makes it particularly clever. Not many
companies would be willing to poke fun at their own product that way.

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asdfasdfasdfa
I'll take my warnings about insidious cultural programming with a grain of
salt when they come from Catholics. Thanks.

~~~
CGamesPlay
You should also do that when they come from atheists!

~~~
velp
If only "atheist" was a meaningful descriptor of how a group acts

~~~
throwawaymath
Likewise, neither is the word “Catholic” actually a meaningful descriptor for
how a group acts.

Maybe we should just take the article on the merits of its content, and not
its source.

~~~
falcolas
When evaluating literature, ignoring the context of the literature strips
significant meaning from the literature.

~~~
throwawaymath
Literature? This is a blog post. It’s not like I’m losing a critical piece of
the Superbowl advertising zeitgeist by ignoring the identity of the authors.
The Superbowl is not a figurative tool to be used as the backdrop for religion
in modern advertising. If this was reposted anonymously and still stood on its
own, would we have to do this song and dance?

The content of this article stands on its own or it doesn’t. Ignoring it
because it was written by someone with different values from your own is
puerile. That was my original point.

~~~
asdfasdfasdfa
I mean i was being in tongue in cheek, but it really seems like a "Why do you
look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the
plank in your own eye?" kind of situation.

