Advertising Is a Cancer on Society • Hacker News Board

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#501

Post by bonoboTP » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 1:11 AM UTC

CamperBob2 wrote: post #491

bonoboTP wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no epidemic of dangerous hobby-related health issues, but obesity is aone of the biggest health problems in the developed world, especially the US.

There's no epidemic that can be ascribed to one food item in isolation, either. Why pick on soda? Where are the (reproduced!) studies that justify that? (Standing by for the inevitable authoritative-sounding pubmed link that actually proves nothing of the sort.) Meanwhile, why should my health insurance rates go up because Dr. Joshgel is into cave diving or parachuting or enjoys the occasional track day in his GT3? O…

People who are seriously into extreme sports already have pay for extra insurance as related injures aren't covered for such high risk activities.

There's also huge taxes on alcohol and tobacco for instance.

There's also a lot of other stuff that is banned already or strongly regulated or taxed heavily. Recreational drugs, medicine, certain additives that turned out to be harmful. Or rules like having to buckle up in your car. A lot of nanny state stuff that saves people from themselves.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#502

Post by CamperBob2 » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 1:13 AM UTC

bonoboTP wrote: post #501

CamperBob2 wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no epidemic that can be ascribed to one food item in isolation, either. Why pick on soda? Where are the (reproduced!) studies that justify that? (Standing by for the inevitable authoritative-sounding pubmed link that actually proves nothing of the sort.) Meanwhile, why should my health insurance rates go up because Dr. Joshgel is into cave diving or parachuting or enjoys the occasional track day in his GT3? O…

People who are seriously into extreme sports already have pay for extra insurance as related injures aren't covered for such high risk activities. There's also huge taxes on alcohol and tobacco for instance. There's also a lot of other stuff that is banned already or strongly regulated or taxed heavily. Recreational drugs, medicine, certain additives that turned out to be harmful. Or rules like having to buckle up in…

People who are seriously into extreme sports already have pay for extra insurance

No, they don't, unless they are doing something their policies call out explicitly. Which is extremely rare.

There's also huge taxes on alcohol and tobacco for instance.

Because unlike soda, the damage done by those products is unequivocally identifiable.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#503

Post by crimsonalucard » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 1:16 AM UTC

UnFleshedOne wrote: post #468

crimsonalucard wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah only a strong central government could redirect resources and restrict freedom of speech in such a manner. In theory this works, in practice it doesn't. Nobody is quite sure about what the dichotomy is between the theory and actual results. Basically by allowing commercial interests to control the direction of capital you get useless areas of inn-efficiency like advertising. The weird thing is, these types of econ…

I heard a hypotheses that one reason planned economies failed was available computing power and communication speed at the time. To manually calculate how many screws each little shop will need takes an ever growing army of bureaucrats, is prone to mistakes and lags a lot. So lots of uneven distributions (anybody growing up in USSR will know what I mean), and lots of overhead. A modern networked infrastructure could…

Good comment. I agree but I feel even an AI can't deal with it. The system is chaotic so it's like predicting the weather. If we can solve the problem of predicting the weather to 99% accuracy with AI then we can do the same with the economy, if we can't then we can never manage the economy with AI.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#504

Post by bonoboTP » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 1:18 AM UTC

CamperBob2 wrote: post #502

bonoboTP wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who are seriously into extreme sports already have pay for extra insurance as related injures aren't covered for such high risk activities. There's also huge taxes on alcohol and tobacco for instance. There's also a lot of other stuff that is banned already or strongly regulated or taxed heavily. Recreational drugs, medicine, certain additives that turned out to be harmful. Or rules like having to buckle up in…

People who are seriously into extreme sports already have pay for extra insurance No, they don't, unless they are doing something their policies call out explicitly. Which is extremely rare. There's also huge taxes on alcohol and tobacco for instance. Because unlike soda, the damage done by those products is unequivocally identifiable.

The damage in excessive sugar intake is unequivocally identifiable as well.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#505

Post by CamperBob2 » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 1:28 AM UTC

bonoboTP wrote: post #504

CamperBob2 wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who are seriously into extreme sports already have pay for extra insurance No, they don't, unless they are doing something their policies call out explicitly. Which is extremely rare. There's also huge taxes on alcohol and tobacco for instance. Because unlike soda, the damage done by those products is unequivocally identifiable.

The damage in excessive sugar intake is unequivocally identifiable as well.

I especially like how every time I state something specific, you respond with a vague generalization that, if acted upon, could be used to justify all kinds of bans, laws, and taxes... some of which, once again, you would not personally care to be subjected to.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#506

Post by Zeklandia » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 1:36 AM UTC

solipsism wrote: post #496

Zeklandia wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entertainment and relaxation are necessary, you are right. However, both can be done in ways that are at best productive and at least not-counterproductive. Entertainment does not have to unproductive. People who play sports or do other recreational activities are working to maintain their physical health while having fun. There are games of all sorts you can play to help you improve life skills or even physical and…

All entertainment must be productive? That's what you would decree? Ugh, very free people would want to live in your horrible nanny state.

It's not my decree, it's nature's. The world does not have infinite resources. We have to be careful how we use them.

If you cannot live efficiently, you will exhaust your available resources and your lifestyle will die out. Humans have put in a great amount of effort in the last few hundred years to make as many resources as possible available to use, but this only encouraged us to use more. If you want to see how to live life efficiently, look at present and past cultures that do. They seem to be plenty happy living on much less than the average person in the first world.

You don't exist to be happy, you exist to survive. What would we have accomplished as humans if after thousands of generations of working to build a world with more possibility if all that work is dashed by a bunch of greedy, selfish idiots who think pleasure is more important than the sustainability of human life?

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#507

Post by wpietri » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 1:43 AM UTC

cm2012 wrote: post #357

TeMPOraL wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without advertising being a crucial part of that environment, they'd have to focus on making a better and cheaper product than their competition, instead of engaging in a shouting match.

Without advertising, no matter how good your product is, people will never find you. People would just go with whatever product they happened to know (the market incumbent, usually), or just not have access to that category of product.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" -- Upton Sinclair

As I told you, I find good products all the time without looking at advertising. The problem you imagine might conceivable have been a big issue before the rise of the internet. But now anybody who feels a lack can quickly search. E.g., right now I'm traveling; before I left I looked at Wirecutter's travel products guide: https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/travel-guide/

It was great. I found and tried out a few new products. I'll buy more of some of them, and have already recommended a couple to friends.

The reason you keep failing to understand a pretty simple point is that you are identifying with a particular business, rather than consumers. But think of it the other way: Why should I as a consumer care if a given business can't manipulate me into buying their product?

Answer: I don't. I trust that I'll find sufficient good products when I need them. Indeed, without paid audience manipulation, I expect I'll find better products on average.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#508

Post by wpietri » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 1:46 AM UTC

dwaltrip wrote: post #463

cameronbrown wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could never remove advertising without silencing companies. Let that sink in. As long as companies exist and have tools to reach out, even if it was a free Facebook post, they're always going to do that.

It is possible to heavily reduce available advertising channels with some clear regulations. It isn't that hard to imagine. Sure, it wouldn't be perfect, but there is a wide range of "advertising pervasiveness and harmfulness" that we can dial the knob down on.

Exactly. We don't have to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

And it's not like I object to companies publishing on their own channels. They can have a website, a Twitter account, a Facebook account. If people volunteer to read that, great. If we just eliminate paid manipulation, it'll be a huge step forward and we'll free up enormous sums of money.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#509

Post by bonoboTP » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 1:52 AM UTC

CamperBob2 wrote: post #505

bonoboTP wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The damage in excessive sugar intake is unequivocally identifiable as well.

I especially like how every time I state something specific, you respond with a vague generalization that, if acted upon, could be used to justify all kinds of bans, laws, and taxes... some of which, once again, you would not personally care to be subjected to.

I responded to the extreme sport one. As for the sedentary lifestyle that's not directly a product in itself.

Maybe you're just not convinced about the actual harm that sugar and obesity causes. I won't be able to write a good summary of the research here and now,but there's a lot of evidence out there. It's more dangerous than many people would assume.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#510

Post by wpietri » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 1:53 AM UTC

rifung wrote: post #56

wpietri wrote: post #23

He doesn't quite say it by name, but most advertising is a classic arms race. Especially given how the internet now makes information easily available, a great deal of advertising is about manipulating consumers to pick company A's products over those from competitors B, C, and D. This forces those other companies to spend to get and keep customers. It's pure waste. For example, everybody on the planet is now familia…

> For example, everybody on the planet is now familiar with soft drinks. If anybody has never tasted Coke, it's not by accident. But Coke's ad budget is enormous. If all soft drink companies stopped advertising tomorrow, society would not be worse off. And we'd have billions of dollars [1] to spend on something useful. Not that I disagree, but where do you draw the line? Sure, if Coke stopped advertising we'd have bi…

Soft drinks aren't an arms race where most of the money spent is pure waste. When I buy a soft drink, I value it directly, so it isn't waste.

> that implies it's better for people to know about soft drinks, and how will they know? Advertising.

Are you really saying the only way you have ever known about a product is advertising? I honestly have trouble believing that, but if that's the case please consider that you're an outlier.

Me, I avoid ads vigorously and have for decades. I have no trouble learning about new products.