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You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?

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Re: You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?

#501

Post by matheusmoreira »

snarfy wrote: post #88
stareatgoats wrote: post #84

Advertising as it is done presently has at least three faults, which is just as much a fault with the ethics of society for allowing this to go on: - adverts seeks to hijack your attention away from whatever you were doing, which is a mental burden resulting diminished performance (in the case of a work environment), is downright dangerous in the case of traffic environments and lessens the enjoyment in the case of l…

If my attention has value, then hijacking it is a form of theft.

Awesome. I never thought about it that way. Perfect counter argument to people who act like we're stealing from them when we block their mind hacking attempts.

Re: You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?

#502

Post by [deleted] »

the_snooze wrote: post #136
Overtonwindow wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t forget the loud advertisements at the petrol pump!

And in airplanes. Airlines like to use those screens in front of each seat as billboards. They're on by default and don't time out, so they keep cycling bright ads while you're trying to sleep. Sure, you can turn yours off, but most of your neighbors won't bother changing the default on state.

[deleted]

Re: You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?

#503

Post by matheusmoreira »

blackboxlogic wrote: post #394
PopAlongKid wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true if it is a barter exchange (under U.S. tax law at least). However I have a hard time seeing this as a barter - what are you getting in exchange for your attention that has a positive fair market value?

"You can view this content if you also stare at these ads. If you don't want to see the ads then don't visit this webpage." Sounds like an exchange to me. Edit: aren't "donations" received by a for-profit also taxable? Edit2: items of value acquired by theft are taxable.

> You can view this content if you also stare at these ads. If you don't want to see the ads then don't visit this webpage.

How can I even decide to agree or not before I visit the page? Bet they also fingerprint you before the consent pop ups even make it to the screen.

How about they stop serving web pages for free instead? Just return 402 Payment Required. If they send me ads, I will delete them.

Re: You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?

#504

Post by matheusmoreira »

dionidium wrote: post #333
snarfy wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If my attention has value, then hijacking it is a form of theft.

This is actually a nice little reductio argument against the notion that your attention has value (at least in the sense you imply). If the proposition "my attention has value" leads to an absurd conclusion ("hijacking my attention is a form of theft"), then the premise must be false.

Why is the conclusion absurd? Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Comparing it to theft is actually a very generous interpretation. To me advertising is more like mind rape for profit. Someone pays money to violate your mind and insert into it whatever noise they want whether you consent to it or not.

Re: You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?

#506

Post by dionidium »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #504
dionidium wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually a nice little reductio argument against the notion that your attention has value (at least in the sense you imply). If the proposition "my attention has value" leads to an absurd conclusion ("hijacking my attention is a form of theft"), then the premise must be false.

Why is the conclusion absurd? Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Comparing it to theft is actually a very generous interpretation. To me advertising is more like mind rape for profit. Someone pays money to violate your mind and insert into it whatever noise they want whether you consent to it or not.

How is that different from what you are doing to me right now?

Re: You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?

#507

Post by xyzzyz »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #489
banana_giraffe wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An archive of the company behind that tech [1], has this to say: > Each car radio sends out a signal at a frequency higher than the one it is receiving from the radio station. When a car passes by one of the MobilTrak sensors, the sensor picks up on the signal to determine what the driver is listening to on the radio And US6813475B1 seems to be the patent behind the tech. If they ever really could find that sort of s…

> Each car radio sends out a signal at a frequency higher than the one it is receiving from the radio station. Why would it do that? I thought car radios were merely receivers, not transmitters. This is insane...

It is a result of the mechanism used for operation. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superheterodyne_receiver especially the section on Local oscillator radiation

Re: You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?

#508

Post by cm2012 »

xphx wrote: post #416
cm2012 wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Multiply it times a billion. One Banksy is tolerable, a million people graffiting their opinions everywhere would be truly awful. Therefore what Banksy is doing is immoral.

One Jesus of Nazareth is tolerable, a million people preaching their opinions everywhere would be truly awful. Therefore what Jesus was doing is immoral.

A million people do preach opinions today, and did in Jesus' time, it's not horrible.

Re: You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?

#509

Post by pjfin123 »

It's pretty crazy that we allow ourselves to be bombarded with the psychological attacks that are advertising. Ads use pictures of food or sex appeal that manipulates our lizard brains or social attacks to convince us to buy products we don't need. If you pay close attention a large percentage is for negative sum products like unhealthy and addictive fast food.

Re: You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?

#510

Post by yason »

Static ads I can look at or ignore at if I so choose, both on the web and on the street. For reference, just some decades ago static ads in, for example, a computer magazine used to be as much valued content as the magazine articles themselves.

Ads become a problem as soon as they become interactive, illuminated, or moving images. Those remove my option to consume the ads at my own pace and choice. Instead, they become attention magnets primarily to be fought against.

Just as pop-in ads or flashing/screen-estate-hungry ads are bad on websites do large, bright digital advertisement screens make a horrible streetscape and in public transit video screens totally kill your ride. You can no longer walk or sit in your own thoughts as you're kept occupied to avoid looking at the flashing, moving footage.

Google search still mostly does ads right. Not only are they sometimes even relevant but firstly they don't stand out so badly that I'd refuse to take a glance at them.

(Not that I ever click on any of them because that would support the ad-business. If I see something interesting I open an incognito window and browse the corresponding company's site directly and look for the bargain/offer - they might still be able to track me, even if partially, but at least there's no direct link via the clicking the ad.)

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