What if we banned all advertising? Not regulate it—abolish it. This proposal would transform manipulation machines, and maybe save democracy itself. A thought experiment worth considering.

The idea feels like sci-fi because you’re so used to it, imagining ads gone feels like asking to outlaw gravity. But humanity had been free of current forms of advertising for 99.9% of its existence. Word-of-mouth and community networks worked just fine. First-party websites and online communities would now improve on that.

The traditional argument pro-advertising—that it provides consumers with necessary information—hasn’t been valid for decades.

  • RowRowRowYourBotEnglish
    11·
    20 hours ago

    That does not make equating graffiti and dumping hazardous waste equivalent. The false equivalence was you comparing graffiti to illegal river dumping. There’s no amount of sophistry that will make your claim logically valid.

    • masterspace@lemmy.caEnglish
      11·
      20 hours ago

      I’m not being sophisticated, I’m trying to keep you on track.

      If you want to have a different argument about whether or not advertising is deserving of jail sentences, steep GDPR level fines, slaps on the wrist, or nothing, that’s fine, we can have that one.

      But this reply chain was about whether or not it’s possible to make advertising illegal, which it is.

      • RowRowRowYourBotEnglish
        11·
        20 hours ago

        I accused you of sophistry not of being sophisticated. You should look that word up to avoid this situation next time.

        This part of the chain is me calling out. your false equivalence as you compared graffiti to river dumping which you keep trying to claim isn’t invalid and now you are trying to “keep me on track” because you seemingly cannot admit you made a terrible analogy.

        • masterspace@lemmy.caEnglish
          11·
          18 hours ago

          This part of the chain is me calling out. your false equivalence as you compared graffiti to river dumping which you keep trying to claim isn’t invalid

          Because I never claimed they were equivalent, I said that river dumping laws are an example of how to make something illegal, after your dumb ass claimed it was impossible to make advertising illegal because it’s been around for a long time.

          • RowRowRowYourBotEnglish
            11·
            16 hours ago

            And the fakse equivalence is we were talking about graffiti at that point. Hence the false equivalence between them. We have had ads like billboards for thousands of years in some places. Anywhere you find a whole bunch of people you find ads for the extra stuff people have. The only times when this isn’t true is when no one has extra stuff they don’t need.

              • RowRowRowYourBotEnglish
                11·
                3 hours ago

                No, unlike many people on Lemmy I seem to have an actual education from schools that teach history and economics

                • masterspace@lemmy.caEnglish
                  11·
                  2 hours ago

                  Lmao, and all that history and economics taught you just these two lessons?

                  • If something wasn’t illegal previously, that makes it impossible to make it illegal
                  • Marketing is cool and awesome, and totally a necessary part of society that has always existed in every society, so there’s no point trying to ban it

                  Let me guess, you went to American schools? Learned all that America History ™?