Hacker News Reader

Comment by edw519 | Hacker News Reader

...skill is shown in making people buy what they don't want rather than what they do...

This is where he gets it wrong. There's a big difference between "buying what they don't want" and "buying what they don't need". Of course they don't need it. Hardly anything we buy is actually needed.

But "want" is a different story. Of course we want it. We want all kinds of things we don't need. Any good salesman will tell you that all he has to do if find that emotional want and the rest of the sales cycle becomes natural, like judo or ballet. Driven by the buyer's emotion and justified by the salesman's logic.

Funny a philosopher as brilliant as Bertrand Russell didn't understand something so fundamental. I guess that's why he was a philosopher and not a salesman.

View on HN

Firstly, his first paragraph is an example, whose details don't matter. It's the third paragraph that is most important.

Secondly, if you initially have no need for something and wouldn't have felt any need for it if no one had pestered you about buying it, then 'I did not want it' is an entirely acute way of phrasing the way you felt about it, before you were brainwashed into buying it.

Thirdly, your use of 'want' and his use of 'want' may be different. In 'ye olde English', "having want of something" means: needing it. For Russell, want and need may be more synonymous than for you. You could read "buying what they don't want" as "buying something they don't have want for". I'm not sure this is the case, but having read other writings of Russell, I am sure that his English and our English are different creatures, with some differences that can cause strange misinterpretations.

Fourthly, and perhaps most importantly, there is a world of difference between wanting something because you think you need it and wanting something because you have been assaulted with so much glorious reports on the goodness of 'it', that not having 'it' leaves you with a nagging feeling that you should want it.

As an example of the last bit: I consider a car a utility. I have an ugly and scratched car, but it serves me very well and I like it this way. However, that doesn't mean that I can avoid conversations about shiny Ferrari's or someone's brand new SUV and I can't avoid being given the feeling that I should care about my car. I constantly have to stand up to the cultural indoctrination and reconvince myself that what I'm doing is perfectly fine. I don't need a shiny car, but I often feel like I want one. That is what Russell is talking about and that is still something that is very wrong about our society.

Thirdly, your use of 'want' and his use of 'want' may be different. In 'ye olde English', "having want of something" means: needing it. For Russell, want and need may be more synonymous than for you.

Great point! I completely missed that reading the piece, but you're right: the evolution of "want" from "need" to "wish" was far from complete in 1932. A famous example of the older usage is "That soup wants salt". It also survives in proverbs like "Waste not, want not".

In this case it's not just a linguistic curiosity, but affects the meaning of the whole thing. Edit: it also provokes thought as to what the difference between the two really is.

"I don't need a shiny car, but I often feel like I want one."

I think you're hitting on something here. Maybe more to the point is that there is something else you want more - either to save your money for things that give you more security or enjoyment, or to follow your principles, etc. In you heart, you feel that NOT buying a shiny car will make you happier than buying it.

Much of our unhappiness comes from sacrificing our higher desires - health, security, accomplishment - for lower ones: junk food, instant gratification, laziness.

The salesman in the article is pushing his customer away from a higher desire to a lower one. And helping to make him less happy.

Ah, "higher desires" and "lower desires" is quite a judgment!

It is even more an extreme judgment when you are talking about what you think other people should do.

I am not saying that I disagree with you, necessarily. The problem is that human societies have evolved from smaller scale societies where "higher" and "lower" desires were well-defined by social consensus to the present large scale societies where there is no consensus definition of virtue however much it might be talked about.

I won't say that there's a solution here but we've got to take into account the problem...

"It is even more an extreme judgment when you are talking about what you think other people should do."

No. You're missing my point. I don't mean "higher" and "lower" in terms of how other people judge them. I mean in terms of how happy they make you.

If you are overweight AND you wish you weren't, you make yourself unhappy when you choose to eat junk and not exercise. For a moment, the junk food tastes good, but then it makes you unhappy all day. (If you don't mind being overweight, fine.)

On the other hand, if you force yourself to get in shape, going running makes you momentarily unhappy, but overall you feel more satisfied with your life.

It's the same reason you go to work when you're tired, clean your house when it's filthy, etc. The reward is worth the pain.

Everyone is welcome to define their own goals in life. If your goal is to be a Level 5 Million WOW player, and you don't mind losing your health for it, fine. But if you kick yourself every day for your habits (whatever they are) and wish you could change (in any way), you've got a priority problem. You should be sacrificing lower desires for higher ones.

I don't need a shiny car, but I often feel like I want one. That is what Russell is talking about and that is still something that is very wrong about our society.

Interestingly, I'm in the same boat (car?) WRT utility and being happier with an ugly, scratched car.

However, I have no trouble avoiding being given feelings about my car by someone else, since my feelings are mine alone, and I am secure in them.

This means that I don't feel like I want a shiny car (how is feeling like one wants different from actually wanting?), but I don't think it's wrong to attempt to dissuade me.

In fact, I consider a good salesperson to be someone who discovers something I want, but had been unaware of, and points it out to me. I may lose some blissful ignorance, a trade-off I consider well worth it.

I find it interesting that a few of you are suggesting that the logical opposite of a brand new shiny car is not simply an old, still well maintained car, but an unpleasant poorly maintained ("ugly", "scratched") car.

If you buy a timeless design and maintain it properly, there is nothing to be ashamed about, but letting your car get scratched to the point of rusting below the paint, this is sloppiness.

But sales, or maybe more accurately, marketing, is the art of making people want. 10 years ago, I wasn't dreaming of owning a Cadillac. In fact, I probably would have told you I would never buy a Cadillac in my lifetime, too much of a grandpa car. Now, a little marketing magic, some slick sales moves on TV, and that which I did not want, I now want.

I believe this is what he is talking about. So much of what we purchase, what we 'want' is created by the companies selling the product. So much so that we are no longer aware of it, it's just part of life.

Surely the Cadillac thing is not just clever marketing, though -- there have also been vast improvements in Cadillac's actual products. They combined a marketing push for younger drivers with an actual product (the CTS) with genuine appeal to younger drivers. Marketing alone couldn't make me want a Mercury Grand Marquis.

Well, it kind of depends on your definition of marketing. Certainly the CTS is a new product at the center of Cadillac's new image, but what are new car models other than genius marketing-in-disguise with incremental updates to technology? That's not to poo-poo the CTS, but when you strip off the pretty sheetmetal, it's still 'just' four wheels meant to get you where you're going. From a product stand point it's not so different from a BMW, Acura, Lincoln or Chevy. The difference is the feeling evoked by the sharp lines, aggressive stance, and the seductive model they've got driving it. In other words, marketing.

Maybe that's too broad of a definition for this particular thread, but I think it's a good example of how marketing and sales are truly interwoven in everything we touch. Every product on the shelf is designed in this manner, to make consumers want it, or to convince them they need it.

Marketing: Meeting the needs and desires of the customer at a profit.

It's a pet peeve of mine when people conflate advertising (hiring a seductive model), and some very narrow areas of marketing (identifying that successful, young customers like sport-luxury vehicles) with marketing as a whole.

I'd agree that from a product stand point it's not so different from a BMW, Lincoln or Acura... but it's not remotely similar to a Chevy. If you're interested in a sport/luxury sedan, Chevy has nothing to offer you. They can do sport, or sedan, but not sport, luxury and sedan simultaneously.

the rest of the sales cycle becomes natural, like judo or ballet.

Judo and ballet are perfectly unnatural. They take dedication and concentration and consistency, years of practice. There is no other animal in existence which will take the time and effort to perfect a set of particular movements.

Also, we should use words other than "want" and "need". Make up a few, give them definitions and that way we'll avoid any equivocation or any other logical problems.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com