Quality of Life

Some people like to say, "Eat well, do good, get exercise, and die anyway," as some sort of excuse for partying, being unhealthy and/or being inconsiderate. This logic has no place in a happy, fulfilling and successful life. Regardless of when you die, you want the life you live today, and tomorrow to be the best life you can possibly have. There is no excuse for not doing the best for yourself and the best you can for those you love. Even if I were going to die in six months, I still would continue my diet exactly as I do (if not do even better) because I want the highest quality for my life. The quantity is quite irrelevant.

~Raederle Phoenix Jacot

"Are you really sure that a floor can't also be a ceiling?" ~ M. C. Escher

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Bayer; Advertisements Are Misleading

I don't usually watch any advertisements since I rarely watch any television, and when I used to, I had a DVR and I recorded everything I watched and fast-forwarded through all the ads. Now, however, I watch a bit of anime on Hulu which has "limited commercial interruption."

I think this is great, in theory. I love that I can find anime streaming high-quality on the net with the small price of non-skipable advertisements. The concept is fine, and I have no argument with that in and of itself.

What bothers me is the content of these advertisements. There is one I just watched showing women touching a rhino (or perhaps an elephant; I was thinking about what the ad was saying more than I was focusing on the animal being touched) with blindfolds on. The women report guesses as to what they're touching. They suggest it might be things like a "wall" or a "pipe" and the narrator goes on to say that you should get the full picture before making judgments.

Yes. You should get the full picture - what a wonderful message. It would have been warmly received if it wasn't an advertisement for Bayer birth control. First of all, to get the whole picture, you have to consider that birth control is dangerous.



I'm not saying I don't use a form of it, but I certainly don't use Yaz, or get a shot loaded with three months worth of contraceptive stuck in my rear either. Those are just bad life choices, really and truly. (A friend in high school actually lost her period entirely and required more drugs to get it started again after using the shot, not to mention gaining twenty pounds.)

Whenever you put any drug in your body, you are putting yourself at risk. That's why it's called a 'drug' as opposed to a 'food.' No drug is 'safe' - not a single one. They all have some risks.

Now, let's talk about Bayer, as a company. Just as a quick run-down; Bayer became a big name when it became part of a conglomerate company owned by Nazis. Bayer creates a pesticide shown to be destroying bee colonies. Bayer had a drug created that they knew was contaminated with HIV, and after taking it off the market in America they turned around and sold it in other countries (the FDA was aware of this, and did nothing.)

Are you thinking to yourself, "Bayer... That sounds familiar?" You probably have a Bayer product in your home right now;


Advertising; Made To SELL, Not to Educate


Yes, they're the company that makes the Asprin you mostly likely buy. Do you really want to keep giving these murderers your money?

2 comments:

Tim said...

It's surprising to see you making such a clear distinction between (risky) drugs and (safe) foods when you view so many (of what most people would consider) foods as harmful. As an extreme example, compare the number of people killed by aspirin with the number killed by nuts.

The trick, of course, is balancing the potential benefit with the potential harm. Hormone-based contraception may come with the risk of some serious side-effects, but how do you weigh that against the side-effects of other methods of contraception, including the chance they will be less reliable and increase the risk of pregnancy?

The pill has been around long enough to get some idea of its long-term effects, and on the whole it seems to be a pretty safe drug. Not risk-free, of course, but what is?

On the subject of advertising, we seem to be moving to an ever more ad-saturated world. People would rather be sold as a market to advertisers than pay for a something directly.

Perhaps that's a misleading perception though. Commercial television, radio and newspapers have always been mostly funded through advertising. What we've seen is the commercialisation of the internet, funded by advertising. And even here there may be a bubble - it's not clear this model can continue to provide the money required.

Raederle said...

That last point you made is interesting. The more advertising there is, the more numb we'll become to it. The more information that is spread based on someone trying to make money, the less we can trust any information. It kinda forces people to either 'give up' trying to find the truth, or to be paranoid and picky ALL the time... And that does mean that advertising loses it's purpose. We do need a new model. Especially because ads are designed to catch your attention, and they do that by being ugly. It's so annoying to see everything covered in ugly all the time.