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A Happy, Flourishing City With No Advertising

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Re: A Happy, Flourishing City With No Advertising

#111

Post by wr1472 »

rhygar wrote: post #81
cmdrreiki wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poor aesthetics cause psychological harm through both distraction and pure ugliness. I shouldn't have to combat decades of scientific research on attention-stealing simply to maintain my train of thought as I walk down the street.

Admit it - you have no evidence other than anecdotes to prove that signs cause material harm, and therefore externalities. This is government red tape that hurts the economy in that city.

> Admit it - you have no evidence other than anecdotes to prove that signs cause material harm

Could you then show some evidence for the below quote? -

> Basically, the economy in that city is worse off overall as a result, and there are fewer jobs to go around.

Re: A Happy, Flourishing City With No Advertising

#112

Post by danssig »

kingkawn wrote: post #11
jobu wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So they didn't eliminate all signage, but it was rather dramatically reduced. I grew up in a suburb of Minneapolis that had similar restrictions on advertising, and I can say that it is very nice as a resident. Now when I visit however, I find it difficult to locate some of the new businesses. I'm curious how this law has affected business revenue from tourists in Sao Paulo.

"Now when I visit however, I find it difficult to locate some of the new businesses." I'd be shocked if many people, on this site in paritcular, used street ads as their primary means of locating new businesses they'd been wanting to find.

Why? Sure, if I'm looking for a specific store I find out the info online or on my phone. But just the other day, after accomplishing what I had planned to, I wanted something to eat. But where I live in Europe there are no signs on the highway so you just have to known where the restaurants are. We ended up eating at Burger King because I knew that was there. I would have preferred something nicer.

Re: A Happy, Flourishing City With No Advertising

#113

Post by premchai21 »

ars wrote: post #105
msbarnett wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How nice for you - and even nicer for those places with large advertising budgets. But that is not the case for everyone. I don't need a huge billboard above a shop. But some ads that show what they do are quite helpful. Quite helpful, for you. Useless, for me. Neither of us should mistake our preferences for some kind of universal fact. The public commons are a space that needs to be governed by the balancing of c…

Did you really say "public commons"?? You understand we are talking about the window of a shop right? That's as far from the commons as you can get.

Actually, it's not. As far from the commons as one can get might be more like a heavily shielded, localized room in a remote area with no sound, light, or other effects going in or out except for some set of operators.

What is the sight one sees upon traveling through an area? A composite of many things, but including a large amount of the public faces of shops if there are any. Yet surely that sight has a considerable impact on the common areas.

Re: A Happy, Flourishing City With No Advertising

#114

Post by glassx »

swah wrote: post #28

IMO cables are much uglier than ads, but nobody else seems to notice or care for them. Most of them resemble this one: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2170/2056763887_4157b7a3a2.jp...

This one is an extreme case, but I agree with you.

I live in Belo Horizonte, another large brazilian metropolis 580 kilometers away from Sao Paulo, and all the cabling is underground in the whole downtown area.

And it's not just the looks, in the five years I lived in this area I never had a blackout caused by storms. Had to buy several UPS units after moving to a suburb.

Re: A Happy, Flourishing City With No Advertising

#115

Post by [deleted] »

rapind wrote: post #66
ars wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they've successfully gotten that information to me in other mediums How nice for you - and even nicer for those places with large advertising budgets. But that is not the case for everyone. I don't need a huge billboard above a shop. But some ads that show what they do are quite helpful. > "Campus Copy Shop" So you suggest that all shops name themself as basically what they do? And what about a grocery store that h…

While I see your argument, I myself would enjoy a trip back in time where you would simply ask a local if they knew somewhere you could make a copy. There's no getting around the fact that socializing with the locals is inconvenient, but sometimes it can be a nice inconvenience. It has the added benefit that if your business pisses off the locals (crappy service perhaps) they'll probably recommend a competitor if the…

[deleted]

Re: A Happy, Flourishing City With No Advertising

#116

Post by kansface »

I spent about a month in Sao Paulo on short notice so I spoke basically no Portuguese. Consequently, I found the city extremely difficult to navigate- both in terms of finding specific destinations and in the hunter/gatherer sense. I imagine big signs would have been of benefit to me since I understand pictures, logos, and studied Latin so I can comprehend way more in writing than in speech. Even large, indoor shopping centers are not obvious for someone in my position... how can you tell a shopping center from an office building when people aren't making huge purchases? I should also mention I didn't have a smart phone with me. I'm sure this move could not have been a net positive for business. Whether the trade off is worth it for locals is another matter entirely.

Re: A Happy, Flourishing City With No Advertising

#117

Post by jarek »

ericingram wrote: post #80

Why don't they regulate away poverty, while they're at it? I look forward to the future, when citizens realize their government is the biggest barrier between themselves and prosperity.

As we all know, it's the poor who benefit the most from the business of placing and maintaining billboards and other ads. /s

Re: A Happy, Flourishing City With No Advertising

#118

Post by rufibarbatus »

kawera wrote: post #99
Calamitous wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, another commenter has pointed out that the government has started displaying ads on buses and inside trains.

Not really. The ban doesn't apply to indoor ads so isn't applicable to the metro's trains or stations. As for the buses, they aren't displaying ads at all.

Buses are pretty much ads on wheels, --- and in some buses of the green variety [1] there are TV sets broadcasting most relevant content such as government propaganda, the horoscope, news and events, and yes, advertisement.

[1] I'm yet to figure out what the colours mean on buses.

Re: A Happy, Flourishing City With No Advertising

#119

Post by ars »

premchai21 wrote: post #113
ars wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you really say "public commons"?? You understand we are talking about the window of a shop right? That's as far from the commons as you can get.

Actually, it's not. As far from the commons as one can get might be more like a heavily shielded, localized room in a remote area with no sound, light, or other effects going in or out except for some set of operators. What is the sight one sees upon traveling through an area? A composite of many things, but including a large amount of the public faces of shops if there are any. Yet surely that sight has a considerab…

You have an incredibly broad view of what "public commons" means.

I suppose you would also support legislation to regulate what color clothing people can wear if they go out in public?

Should shop keepers be required to have window shades on their stores so you are not offended by the display of merchandise?

Re: A Happy, Flourishing City With No Advertising

#120

Post by premchai21 »

ars wrote: post #119
premchai21 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, it's not. As far from the commons as one can get might be more like a heavily shielded, localized room in a remote area with no sound, light, or other effects going in or out except for some set of operators. What is the sight one sees upon traveling through an area? A composite of many things, but including a large amount of the public faces of shops if there are any. Yet surely that sight has a considerab…

You have an incredibly broad view of what "public commons" means. I suppose you would also support legislation to regulate what color clothing people can wear if they go out in public? Should shop keepers be required to have window shades on their stores so you are not offended by the display of merchandise?

Let me clarify: I didn't mean to say “this is directly part of the commons”. My main objection was to the idea that it was unambiguously not part of the commons (“as far from … as you can get”). I think that is incorrect because it is ambiguous: the physical world enforces more interference than you seem to imply.

I currently live in an area in which my window coverings are regulated to show an off-white color on the outside when closed, for what little that's worth. And almost all jurisdictions have some regulation on public clothing: public nudity is often punishable, for instance, thus excluding clothing with the color “invisibly transparent”. I neither directly support nor directly reject such laws, at the moment.

My best approximation of a “correct” solution might have involved upgrading everyone's perceptual filtering capability enough to obviate most commons regulations, but I've recently gone through a (possibly fake—I haven't stabilized the prionic meme filter yet) realization that humans are not at all what they seemed to me to be earlier on, and the inference propagation has not converged, so that shouldn't be treated as a stable opinion.

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