Comment by Terry_Roll | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Terry_Roll | Hacker News Reader

In https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations "Harbinger Households" are called Laggards in scholarly circles.

So to use the word "Harbinger" which for most people will have greater negative connotations by virtue of the common phrase "harbinger of doom" in most English speaking people's lexicon, would suggest an element of psychological profiling is being carried out in plain site on ycombinator, although it can be played down as just a clickbait headline, no different to the techniques used by journalists and editors of "reputable" news outlets.

Either way, its getting even easier to identify the people who are worth manipulating to win elections in a country, rendering the election process not "free and fair process" so easily trumpeted out by Western democracies.

I might just place a bet on Trump winning the next US Presidential election because there are more Republicans owning and running a business than Democrats!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-small-business/wp/201...

The article is using the term companies use, because: customers buying their products are harbingers of doom for the product (unless they got causation wrong on the coupon use for heavily discoubted possibly discontinued goods...)

The last half of you comment seems completely unrelated to the article?

Actually these 3 are the one's who started to coin the phrase. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1509/jmr.13.0415

This is another attempt to run with the idea with some variation. https://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/faculty-research/sites/faculty...

Harbinger Customers is also a phrase coined.

Its out there, its just a question of time before someone picks up the ball and runs with it. You can track idea's snowballing online, like this one.

Research papers like this tend to have more gravity if they are focused at those with money to spend, so this latest twist will certainly get some attention from businesses.

Savvy Political Campaign organisers will also be aware of this development when targeting their efforts for future upcoming US Presidential elections with current legislation in place.

The Surveillance Capitalism that exists for businesses to identify and target individuals can equally be applied to political campaigns, helped along with favourable media coverage from political donors product or service advertising budget to sever the direct link to comply with legislation.

Its not a cynical take on the world, its the nuanced way the world works, something even the press dont like drawing attention to, so you dont ever see any decent investigative journalism now a days.

The world is all bought and paid for, as some would say!

> The last half of you comment seems completely unrelated to the article?

Their comment is implying that this research is part of a larger academic bias against and attempt to publicly disparage political conservatives, Republicans, and/or rural people.

Their username is Terry_Roll.

TFA seems to be about Innovators who turn out to be wrong a lot. I don't think Laggards are the same thing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com