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> Meanwhile advertising is a direct social negative (IMO a cancer on human society) Wow wow wow you can't just make a claim like that without any basis whatsoe

> Meanwhile advertising is a direct social negative (IMO a cancer on human society) Wow wow wow you can't just make a claim like that without any basis whatsoever? It might be true or not, but would you mind collaborating on why you think that? I am not even talking about proving it with some science (which is likely very hard), but you just write it off as if everyone else is sharing your view and as if it is self-explanatory or widely accepted. It is not. Capitalism and the product culture has led to the most technological and in many case, lifestyle, lifespan, and life standard advancements known in history. This way of propelling progress forward requries efficient markets, and markets need to connect products with people who want and can benefit from those products. No advertisement is directly forcing anyone to buy or do anything, they just provide information for people and help locating people who might otherwise not have knowledge of the products they might want. Assuming your take on the advertisement industry is different, what is that take?

bryanrasmussen 8y ago
I would think the feeling that marketing as a whole, and advertising as part of it was a large social negative was prevalent enough that one would not have to explain it even if not everyone agrees. I mean it's common enough that Bill Hicks on the subject is pretty much a meme by this point https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHEOGrkhDp0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHEOGrkhDp0 I'm not saying I necessarily agree, but if someone says advertising is a cancer on society or something like that I would not be like - whoa what particular belief system has led him to conclude this?!? - I would think, huh, they have that set of beliefs regarding advertising and marketing.
- Erlich_Bachman 8y ago
  So, one more time, care to explain why you think that it is? Or am I to understand this correctly that you think it's "cancer" on society because you have just heard other people say that (like Bill Hicks and perhaps others you respect) and you assume it was prevalent? It would be interesting to understand your original arguments if it was more clear what you based that assumption on (which is by no means universal).
  - bryanrasmussen 8y ago
    1. you might notice that it was not me that made the original arguments, I just noted my surprise that you needed understanding of the viewpoint since I've seen it expressed throughout the internet at various levels of lucidity for the last decade at least. 2. one expression might be this https://ioptconsulting.com/online-advertising-is-the-new-digital-cancer/ https://ioptconsulting.com/online-advertising-is-the-new-dig... if the Bill Hicks expression of it was not to your liking. 3. again, I was not arguing for the correctness of the belief that advertising is a cancer, I just noted that nobody should be surprised at it's existence. Maybe it's like this XKCD https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/ in which case congratulations, I've now given you two links to why people think advertising and marketing are awful awful things. Again, I do not necessarily see advertising as something that is cancerous, but I am familiar with expressions of the idea so I am not shocked, shocked when I encounter it.
TeMPOraL 8y ago
> This way of propelling progress forward requries efficient markets, and markets need to connect products with people who want and can benefit from those products. No advertisement is directly forcing anyone to buy or do anything, they just provide information for people and help locating people who might otherwise not have knowledge of the products they might want. That's the motte-and-bailey[0] defense of advertising that I particularly dislike. Yes, connecting products & services with people who want them is a crucial ingredient for efficient markets. But that's not what most advertising is about, that's not what the advertising industry is doing, that's not what adtech is working on. Ads as made and experienced today (and for the past 100 years), are all about emotionally manipulating people, about convincing people who know about a product to buy it when they otherwise wouldn't, about brainwashing people with brand associations so that in their moment of weakness they'll default to the advertised brand. The end result is customers making suboptimal purchasing choices, and the externalities are noise and utter destruction of all communications media. As for "cancer on society" part - the following is an incomplete list of problems brought on us by advertising industry: spam, robocalls, telemarketing - all three having a spectrum from just annoying to outright fraud. Dark UX patterns. Blogspam, content marketing and wholesale flooding of the Internet with free garbage to gather eyeballs. Outrage-inducing news reporting. "Native advertising" (aka. just straight up dishonesty). Leaflets and other advertising material overflowing garbage bins everywhere and spilling on the pavements of every city. Excessive light pollution. Billboards distracting drivers. Social media influencers and other "individual advertisers" directly eroding trust you have in recommendations of people who aren't your immediate family. Having to protect your elderly parents from getting scammed by both criminals and reputable companies alike. Having to protect your kids from Elsagate-style video content. And yes, wholesale tracking and privacy violations too. I could go on, and on, and on. My belief is that advertising is poisoning society from the inside, while at the same time causing absurd amounts of waste through negative-sum games (when competing for a fixed pie of customers, all your advertising efforts work to cancel out the advertising efforts of your competitors). -- [0] - https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Motte_and_bailey https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Motte_and_bailey
- amelius 8y ago
  The root of the problem is how we measure the performance of our economy. Fix that, and all negative effects of ads will go away.

bryanrasmussen 8y ago

I would think the feeling that marketing as a whole, and advertising as part of it was a large social negative was prevalent enough that one would not have to explain it even if not everyone agrees. I mean it's common enough that Bill Hicks on the subject is pretty much a meme by this point https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHEOGrkhDp0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHEOGrkhDp0 I'm not saying I necessarily agree, but if someone says advertising is a cancer on society or something like that I would not be like - whoa what particular belief system has led him to conclude this?!? - I would think, huh, they have that set of beliefs regarding advertising and marketing.

Erlich_Bachman 8y ago
So, one more time, care to explain why you think that it is? Or am I to understand this correctly that you think it's "cancer" on society because you have just heard other people say that (like Bill Hicks and perhaps others you respect) and you assume it was prevalent? It would be interesting to understand your original arguments if it was more clear what you based that assumption on (which is by no means universal).
- bryanrasmussen 8y ago
  1. you might notice that it was not me that made the original arguments, I just noted my surprise that you needed understanding of the viewpoint since I've seen it expressed throughout the internet at various levels of lucidity for the last decade at least. 2. one expression might be this https://ioptconsulting.com/online-advertising-is-the-new-digital-cancer/ https://ioptconsulting.com/online-advertising-is-the-new-dig... if the Bill Hicks expression of it was not to your liking. 3. again, I was not arguing for the correctness of the belief that advertising is a cancer, I just noted that nobody should be surprised at it's existence. Maybe it's like this XKCD https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/ in which case congratulations, I've now given you two links to why people think advertising and marketing are awful awful things. Again, I do not necessarily see advertising as something that is cancerous, but I am familiar with expressions of the idea so I am not shocked, shocked when I encounter it.

TeMPOraL 8y ago

> This way of propelling progress forward requries efficient markets, and markets need to connect products with people who want and can benefit from those products. No advertisement is directly forcing anyone to buy or do anything, they just provide information for people and help locating people who might otherwise not have knowledge of the products they might want. That's the motte-and-bailey[0] defense of advertising that I particularly dislike. Yes, connecting products & services with people who want them is a crucial ingredient for efficient markets. But that's not what most advertising is about, that's not what the advertising industry is doing, that's not what adtech is working on. Ads as made and experienced today (and for the past 100 years), are all about emotionally manipulating people, about convincing people who know about a product to buy it when they otherwise wouldn't, about brainwashing people with brand associations so that in their moment of weakness they'll default to the advertised brand. The end result is customers making suboptimal purchasing choices, and the externalities are noise and utter destruction of all communications media. As for "cancer on society" part - the following is an incomplete list of problems brought on us by advertising industry: spam, robocalls, telemarketing - all three having a spectrum from just annoying to outright fraud. Dark UX patterns. Blogspam, content marketing and wholesale flooding of the Internet with free garbage to gather eyeballs. Outrage-inducing news reporting. "Native advertising" (aka. just straight up dishonesty). Leaflets and other advertising material overflowing garbage bins everywhere and spilling on the pavements of every city. Excessive light pollution. Billboards distracting drivers. Social media influencers and other "individual advertisers" directly eroding trust you have in recommendations of people who aren't your immediate family. Having to protect your elderly parents from getting scammed by both criminals and reputable companies alike. Having to protect your kids from Elsagate-style video content. And yes, wholesale tracking and privacy violations too. I could go on, and on, and on. My belief is that advertising is poisoning society from the inside, while at the same time causing absurd amounts of waste through negative-sum games (when competing for a fixed pie of customers, all your advertising efforts work to cancel out the advertising efforts of your competitors). -- [0] - https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Motte_and_bailey https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Motte_and_bailey

amelius 8y ago
The root of the problem is how we measure the performance of our economy. Fix that, and all negative effects of ads will go away.