Logical Reasoning

PT148 · S3 · Q25 Direct-mail advertising usually consists

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Direct-mail advertising usually consists of advertisements for products to be purchased from the home, so the perception that it is bad for the environment is misguided.

Conclusion

The perception that direct-mail advertising is bad for the environment is misguided. (i.e. direct-mail advertising is not bad for the environment)

Evidence

Because of direct-mail advertising, millions of people buy products by phone or online. These products would otherwise require use of a car to go buy, and the car would add pollutants to the air.

Evaluate

The author's argument is that direct-mail creates a Net Gain for the environment (or at worst it's neutral).

She thinks that there is an environmental "savings" happening because people are buying products that are then shipped to their house, rather than driving to the store to buy them.

We have to analyze all the environmental tradeoffs between the world with direct-mail advertising and the one without.

With direct-mail, they aren't driving to the store to pick up the toaster they ordered, but isn't Target driving the toaster to their house? Are we sure that the exhaust saved by the customer not driving to pick up the toaster isn't offset by the exhaust used by the Target delivery driver bringing it to their house?

Maybe personal vehicles are more likely to be electric / low-emission, whereas delivery trucks are more likely to be gas-guzzling / high-emission.

What if it's less environmentally efficient for me to have Target and Pier 1 and Bed, Bath, & Beyond all deliver me stuff than for me to get in my car and drive to the shopping center that has all of them in one place.

We also have to consider the environmental harm of all the paper that goes into sending out the direct-mail ads. What resources are used to make those ads? What damage is potentially done by all the direct-mail trash?

Goal

The argument would be weakened if we could say

So we can strengthen this argument by ruling out any potential environmental cost.

We can also strengthen by learning any information that makes direct-mail sound more environmentally friendly, or that makes the direct-mail World seem more environmentally friendly than the world without direct-mail.

25.

Which one of the following, if true, would most strengthen the argument?

Although the primary intent of
Weakens, if anything
The author's whole case was that direct-mail ads obviate the need to drive to the store, and that's where the environmental 'savings' comes into play. This answer is saying direct-mail ads are actually triggering a desire for people to drive to a store.
3% picked this
Correct
Most of the products purchased
Why this is right
This is one of those correct answers on Strengthen that makes way more sense if you already had the objection that it's countering. Some people may have objected to the original argument that, "Direct-mail isn't saving me a trip to the store to buy something I was otherwise going to buy. It's showing me these items I never even thought about buying until I got the direct-mail ad. Look at my figurines from Avengers! I would have never driven somewhere to buy these, but when I got a direct-mail advertisement I decided I wanted them and ordered them." For purchases like these, where direct-mail created a consumer desire that didn't exist before, it's not fair to say "direct-mail is better for the environment, because it saved you a trip to the store!" There was not going to be any trip to the store. We'd be measuring all the environmental harm of the direct-mail flyers for the Avengers figurines + the harm of the delivery truck that brought it to my house vs. the alternate world in which I never knew they existed and never bought them. That would mean that the direct-mail world was more environmentally harmful than the world without direct-mail. So since it would be a big objection to say, "most things purchased because of direct-mail wouldn't have been purchased otherwise", it strengthens the argument to say, "most things purchased because of direct-mail would have been purchased either way." To put it another way, the author was Assuming a Similarity between the Direct Mail world and the non-Direct Mail world: in both worlds, people wanted to buy items X, Y, and Z. And then she's stating a difference between the two worlds: in the Direct Mail world, you don't drive to get it. In the other world, you do drive. And that's how she's deriving the idea that direct mail leads to environmental benefit, but if we deny that initial assumption (if we say people would not have gone out to buy this otherwise), then her argument doesn't work any more.
Skill tested: Strengthen · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
57% picked this
A person who receives and
Irrelevant Comparison: mail vs. magazine
We were never talking about magazine vs. direct-mail, so it's hard to judge what impact this answer would have. If people were already going to buy a product because of seeing an ad for it in one of their magazines, then getting the direct-mail ad would be a redundant, environmentally wasteful addition. But saying that people are more likely to buy from direct-mail could just as easily weaken this argument slightly by making it seem like direct-mail is creating new purchases that would otherwise not exist. All other things being equal, the less consumer purchases we do, the less environmental harm we do.
7% picked this
Usually, a company that sends
Too Weak
This strengthens a tad, in the sense that one objection to direct-mail might be that it's very wasteful since most of us don't even read the direct-mail ads; we just toss them into the trash or recycling. This answer goes against that objection somewhat by making it seem like the ads are at least somewhat targeted. But that's a very weak addition to the conversation. The fact that the advertiser usually thinks these ads are somewhat targeted doesn't really tell us whether people ever read the ads or just toss them with all their other junk mail.
12% picked this
Products purchased as the result
Unclear Impact
Without knowing the issue that's resolved in (B), we don't know how to interpret the impact of this answer. If direct mail is giving us a more efficient way to get products we'd be buying either way, then the fact that it's a large proportion sounds like, "maybe it's saving us a lot of car trips?" But if direct mail is just creating new consumer wishes and leading us to buy stuff we otherwise wouldn't, then the fact that it's a large proportion of purchases sounds like, "Jeez, maybe direct-mail is inspiring us to buy lots of crap we don't need."
21% picked this

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