Ah, capitalism…

I love stuff like this:

If You Died Today?

First, insurance companies wonder why we hate them. Uh, duh.

Second, while I entirely support the legality of advertisements such as above (freedom of speech and all), we as a people should give companies like this so much crap that they’re dare not to spew such disgustingly manipulative sludge.

The fact that they still do puts truth to the lie that “free markets” are the “truest form of democracy”. Bad capitalist things exist like this all the time and the market doesn’t “clean them up”. That is, if the Ayn Rand’s of the world were right, then we wouldn’t see ad above because consumers would shun such ugly tactics and the advertiser would either stop advertising so despicably or they would go out of business.

The truth is – manipulation works, so in the Darwinian marketplace bad things win.

And this “market Darwinism” brings up my last point – that:

1. It’s funny that people who hate evolution so much have taken such a shine to “Social Darwinism”.
2. Darwinism DOES NOT equal Democracy.

That is, just because something wins at a Darwinistic level, doesn’t mean it represents what people would actually vote for if they weren’t being manipulated or were otherwise thinking with any part of themselves outside of their reptilian brain stem (case and point – why does “porn” sell so well? why do we have laws against drugs? if cigarettes are so bad, why do they still exist? everyone hates SPAM, but why does it make money then? Clearly markets fail to reflect democracy all the time.).

UPDATE:

The above doesn’t even cover things like monopolies and companies with shear brutish power to dictate market direction – not because it’s the best solution, but because “might makes right”. That too is hardly “democratic” and there is no sign that “market democracy” can or does anything to correct these sorts of abuses.