I had a very odd experience the other day; while waiting for a doctor’s appointment, I had a book I’d read pop into my head (Mercy of Gods, very good) and looked up when the sequel was going to release. It had come out that morning.

I can’t remember seeing any marketing about the sequel, I don’t use any app or service that would have told me it was upcoming or released, and I block ads; but it feels too enormous a coincidence for me to discount the idea that I had been primed to look it up.

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sonofhans 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I’ve had similar experiences. After watching it for a decade I think it’s a mostly over-active pattern recognition combined with a flood of incoming information. I believe I’m careful with the information I consume, but compared with 25 years ago it’s literally orders of magnitude more.

IOW, maybe, it’s easier to find a needle in a haystack if you have a magnet (brain with pattern recognition) and live in a blizzard of haystacks (online today).

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squigz 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It seems infinitely more likely to me that this is simple coincidence than something nefarious.

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vermilingua 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Don’t get me wrong, I agree; but the odds of that coincidence are extremely long.

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ryankrage77 an hour ago | parent [-]

I'm sad my second thought about this (after dismissing it as a coincidence) was that it could be used for marketing - "I randomly thought about this book/show/movie whatever, and hey what do you know? The sequel is coming out!". Basically another variation on 'organic' advertising in comments that's been around for a while.

Of course I highly doubt that's what actually happening here, but the idea is unpleasant. I hate advertising, I don't want it messing with real interactions with other humans. I'm not sure how to express the idea, it's like its so pervasive I'm thinking about it when its not even present.

	▲	vermilingua 5 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		This idea makes me deeply uncomfortable, and I shouldn't have included the name of the book in my original comment (now too late to edit).