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Comment by jw_mc | Hacker News Reader

Sorry, Walter, I don't recall comic book companies hiring legions of psychologists, behavioral economists, and data scientists in order to optimize engagement metrics by exploiting evolutionary bugs built into our brains. This is fundamentally different technology, but nice try. I don't necessarily think that this law is the solution, but I'm glad not everyone is as laissez faire about it as yourself.

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> Walter, I don't recall comic book companies hiring legions of psychologists, behavioral economists, and data scientists in order to optimize engagement metrics by exploiting evolutionary bugs built into our brains

They had to do it the old-fashion way and put explosions and women with cleavage on the cover instead.

> I don't recall comic book companies hiring legions of psychologists, behavioral economists, and data scientists in order to optimize engagement metrics by exploiting evolutionary bugs built into our brains.

demographic studies and market analysis wasn't invented in the 80's. Neither was clickbait nor color theory or other general psychology. There very much were psychologists to figure out what stories resonate with an audience, and economists optimizing the price per issue with the right cut-off point to engage you to buy the next one. Data scientists didn't exist the way they do now, but did the same thing; surveying a bunch of kids and figuring out what they liked and making content based on it.

None of this is new. advertisement is an art with centuries of refinement.

Is there a source for this? I have taken this at face value, because its quite clear from app designs that this is happening, but I have never found definitive proof of this happening. Has someone compiled a report on this?

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