An adblocker would be a killer app for AR glasses.
You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?
531–540 of 633 posts
Re: You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?
#532Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's critically different from advertising because the art is also the product itself. You're meant to enjoy the art for what it is. An ad on the other hand, is meant to encourage you to buy a separate product; this can be effective even if you absolutely hate the ad. A more apt comparison would be a company giving out free samples. If you get a free sample of a delicious new cheese brand, you might talk abou…
I'm not sure the author's intent is a good indicator of if the "art" will be a positive force in the community. Here's a local anecdote to the contrary. https://www.pressherald.com/2013/02/24/court-order-walk-whil...
Trolling as protected speech is an interesting perspective. I’ve often felt that trolling is part behavioral issue and another part free expression. I wonder how these lines blur as they cross over into the digital realm.
> “Though I find him as annoying as many others do, I find him equally and strangely compelling,” Belisle wrote. “He is, in his own way, a placeholder. He prompts me to remember that not all hear the same music I hear; or respond the same way.”
> In a phone interview, Belisle, who specializes in family and preventive medicine, said The Whistler is breaking down barriers that people put around themselves, forcing people to notice what is right in front of them. He is, she said, a reminder that everyone marches to the beat of their own drummer.
> “The best thing you can do is have compassion for other people whose songs are not the same as yours,” she said.
Re: You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?
#533An adblocker would be a killer app for AR glasses.
Soon to be replaced by personalised ads, I’m sure
Re: You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?
#534Earlier quoted context omitted.
The road outside my house was there on the oldest deeds I have, from 1830. Was that built for cars? What about the roads in town that were mentioned in writings in the 1400s?
> Was that built for cars? You tell me are cars and traffic a big problem on that road? Would it be a problem if companies started dumping their products/marketing on that road to obstruct it?
The main problem on the road in town is parked cars obstructing it. They closed the parking spaces for covid so people could walk along it without being squished and things were far far better.
Sadly they have reintroduced the ability to litter the road with your car and it’s gone back to being rubbish. I don’t go to that part of town any more.
Re: You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?
#535Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is similar to the logic of nations desiring peace but having an armed force for defense. If you are attacked and you refuse to engage in that system, disarming unilaterally, you may avoid violence, but at a loss of other values. Using the system judiciously can enable you to disengage from it in the longer term. The tradeoffs for choosing this path will be different for different situations, but I don't think it's…
> It is similar to the logic of nations desiring peace but having an armed force for defense. The whole point of having a strong defense force is to have peace. People don't start wars with a strong opponent, only a weak one.
Proxy wars are a wrinkle in this logic whereby strong belligerents pick their battles so that they have plausible deniability; deniable wins and losses, deniable assets and capital, deniable aims and goals. Deceit and détente have a fractious relationship, but often serve complementary purposes - managing perception of reality and control of time and space via control of individuals and groups.
The personal is political. Weak sides challenge stronger opponents all the time, just usually not militarily. By situating yourself in opposition to power structures, you may reframe the debate and win it on its merits in the minds of the public, thus causing friction when status quo attempts to reassert itself.
Re: You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?
#536Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Don't need" is relative though. Just like the term lizard brains. They're both simple models. There are lots of cases where ads will sell you things you will need, just like there are lots of cases where humans make wiser choices than lizards. If you want to defeat advertising, you have to acknowledge this side, otherwise you underestimate its brilliance and role in human wellbeing and productivity. Until you can ca…
Clearly not all is bad but they don't have your best interests in mind and I would argue it's overall quite harmful.
"They don't have your best interests in mind" is also relative. Keep in mind the diversity of clients who have or receive money to buy ads, from advocacy groups to attorneys involved in ecological litigation to your local bookstore to a new credit union in your area to a fast food chain to a complete out and out scammer running worthless seminars.
Part of the deal is that they still get to work from incentives on their end. But this alone doesn't rule out your interests or even your best interests.
The subjective beauty of this is that depending on who you are, even the seminar scammer might be both obvious AND the best news you've heard all week, because you have been waiting for a specific opportunity.
BTW I really recommend watching Harrison Ford in The Mosquito Coast. There's a bit of a diamond of truth buried in the story, kind of an anti-anti-ad message that is really important to consider.
Re: You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?
#537Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's something different about streets and web. I'm not sure but on my laptop i kinda expect things to go to the point, fast. A street is not a mean to an end. So a bus stop with some ad.. doesn't really changes everything. Consider web ads more like annoying bus boys trying to get you to order something in their restaurant by stepping in front of you and mirroring every move.
It changes a lot if you have ADHD. IMHO, it's an accessibility problem for people like me.
I have ADHD and as long as my wife insists on talking to me while I'm driving billboards are a rounding error (and to be honest I'm more likely to be distracted by interesting architecture than advertising)
Re: You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?
#538Earlier quoted context omitted.
They definitely do. Ads in the subway carry an outstanding cognitive load. A simple experiment helps understand this: just walk through a super ad-heavy subway (Paris or London) then through a much lighter one (Vienna). The difference is significant. The mental experiment is literally different.
The only reason ads exist is to reprogram our brains and make us want things we didn't previously want. It's brainwashing. People who say ads in public spaces do not bother them might be easier influenced than they understand. I often hear people say ads don't work on them but we're all susceptible to being manipulated.
Indeed, ads aren't charity. If companies are spending $1,000 per adult in the United States for advertising (which the are, from the figures I can find), that's because they either:
A. Expect the ads will manipulate spending habits to bring in more than $1,000 of profits per adult on average (with the actual spending needed to reach that profit being far in excess of $1,000, considering profit is only a fraction of revenue).
B. Don't expect the ads to manipulate spending habits, but are stuck in game theory hell where companies waste a vaste amount of resources (10x the budget of NASA) merely to maintain the status quo, because any company that doesn't will fall behind its rivals.
C. Some mixture of A and B.
The cost to the public is mental intrusion (if mental intrusion didn't work, companies wouldn't buy ads), financial (in case A), and also the bad habits that advertising companies and the companies that deliver them push on us so that we can consume more (sedentary culture of watching TV to consume more ads, mindless browsing to consume more ads, encouraging political fights with family to increase engagement and consume more ads).
It's hard to not come to the conclusion that advertising is a huge blight on modern society, and exactly the kind of thing collective action by a society should be fighting against.
Re: You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?
#539Increasingly, sites will break without their analytics.
Seems bananas to me for your entire functionality be dependent on third parties.
Re: You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?
#540Reminds me of this Banksy quote: People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most…
> Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head. Funnily enough, you can say the same thing about Bansky's art: > An artist who defaced several works of famed graffiti artist Banksy has been charged with the cri…
You can follow his own advice and deface any of his pieces you're forced to see until he stops doing it to you, morally. I wouldn't touch the legality of it with a 10 foot pole though.