4 ms·

Your heart is in the right place, but you negate all of that with either incorrect reasoning, or unnecessary hyperbole. First, you can make your point without

Your heart is in the right place, but you negate all of that with either incorrect reasoning, or unnecessary hyperbole. First, you can make your point without saying "turning your house into a brothel". You and I both know, you said that to elicit an emotion reaction. It is an appeal to moral values, when you could have much rather said - "profit maximizing at all costs is bad, or not well understood". Second - "publically funded assets to make tangible profits". This is incorrect. Governments do all sorts of things so that private individuals / companies can make profit. For instance, they build roads and bridges and highways to enable commerce. They give our licenses to establish companies. They put up stock exchanges so that shareholders can speculate and make money. By doing both of these, you have diluted the core of your argument which is "outdoor advertising is visual pollution" and has some "safety concerns".

SturgeonsLaw 2y ago
> They give our licenses to establish companies. How generous of them to allow us to pay to bypass the barrier they put in place
- xapata 2y ago
  A company is meaningless without a government and law enforcement. The existence of a barrier is necessary for a company to have practical value as a legal concept.
  - lupusreal 2y ago
    That's not really true; in places without government, or adaquate aligned government, businesses have been known to form their own police forces and quasi-governments, even navies. Profit is a powerful motivator, if something business needs doesn't exist already they'll create it.
    - sdf4j 2y ago
      So, they create a government because it’s necessary for the businesses.
      - lupusreal 2y ago
        It's misleading to claim that companies own their existence to governments, to imply some innate subservience of companies to governments, when companies can and have created governments whenever the need arises.
        bitpush 2y ago
        You're getting the cause and effect wrong. For a company to exist, there needs to be stable structures in place. Foundational things like money, infrastructure, laws, people - "Capital".
        lupusreal 2y ago
        There are many examples of companies causing those stable conditions to exist. They even create currencies whenever one doesn't already exist. It doesn't work in only one direction, that's my point.
        xapata 2y ago
        When it goes the other way, would it be more appropriate to call those gangs, not companies?
        Supermancho 2y ago
        > It's misleading to claim that companies own their existence to governments It's misleading to point to exceptions as the rule. > companies can and have created governments If you are referring to a company as "a group of individuals" (vis a vis the dictionary definition), that's outside of this conversation. >> They give our licenses to establish companies. The original discussion is about corporations (and smaller business companies) as they exist in the US.
reaperman 2y ago
I suspect the downvotes are mainly due to the lack of something tangible to latch onto for a continuing line of dialog. The "and" in "Yes, and...". I wish more comments on HN were as well-presented as yours. "By doing both of these, you have diluted the core of your argument which is 'outdoor advertising is visual pollution' and has some 'safety concerns'." -> Indeed. It's difficult for me to find fault with this. Since childhood I've found billboards to be a very mildly dangerous distraction - increasingly so over the years as they've gotten colored lights, LED screens, animations, etc. And the proliferation of close-quarters digital ads which add audio feel particularly violating to me. When my Uber/Lyft rides have those tablets with unending ads, when gas station pumps insist on bombarding me with harsh noise from a too-small speaker driven too hard, etc. Pro-tip for the vast majority of gas station pump TV advertising screens that are in service at the moment in the USA - if it has four rectangular buttons (all/mostly unlabeled) next to the screen, the third button down is an unlabeled "Mute" button about 90% of the time. I have not yet found a mute feature on the newest models that are just starting to replace those.
cassepipe 2y ago
> profit maximizing at all costs is bad, or not well understood How is it not well understood ? It does not seem very hard to imagine what the consequences would be since it already happens sometimes... Or do you think abuse when scaled up can have unexpected good social consequences ? I would like to defend that brothel metaphor. You say the goal is to appeal to emotions (brothel bad == advertising bad) but it could be argued that the actual purpose is to be striking: It's unexpected so my brain will notice. To me this is just good storytelling and I didn't feel manipulated. Actually I would feel more manipulated if the metaphor was more discreet.

SturgeonsLaw 2y ago

> They give our licenses to establish companies. How generous of them to allow us to pay to bypass the barrier they put in place

xapata 2y ago
A company is meaningless without a government and law enforcement. The existence of a barrier is necessary for a company to have practical value as a legal concept.
- lupusreal 2y ago
  That's not really true; in places without government, or adaquate aligned government, businesses have been known to form their own police forces and quasi-governments, even navies. Profit is a powerful motivator, if something business needs doesn't exist already they'll create it.
  - sdf4j 2y ago
    So, they create a government because it’s necessary for the businesses.
    - lupusreal 2y ago
      It's misleading to claim that companies own their existence to governments, to imply some innate subservience of companies to governments, when companies can and have created governments whenever the need arises.
      - bitpush 2y ago
        You're getting the cause and effect wrong. For a company to exist, there needs to be stable structures in place. Foundational things like money, infrastructure, laws, people - "Capital".
        lupusreal 2y ago
        There are many examples of companies causing those stable conditions to exist. They even create currencies whenever one doesn't already exist. It doesn't work in only one direction, that's my point.
        xapata 2y ago
        When it goes the other way, would it be more appropriate to call those gangs, not companies?
      - Supermancho 2y ago
        > It's misleading to claim that companies own their existence to governments It's misleading to point to exceptions as the rule. > companies can and have created governments If you are referring to a company as "a group of individuals" (vis a vis the dictionary definition), that's outside of this conversation. >> They give our licenses to establish companies. The original discussion is about corporations (and smaller business companies) as they exist in the US.

reaperman 2y ago

I suspect the downvotes are mainly due to the lack of something tangible to latch onto for a continuing line of dialog. The "and" in "Yes, and...". I wish more comments on HN were as well-presented as yours. "By doing both of these, you have diluted the core of your argument which is 'outdoor advertising is visual pollution' and has some 'safety concerns'." -> Indeed. It's difficult for me to find fault with this. Since childhood I've found billboards to be a very mildly dangerous distraction - increasingly so over the years as they've gotten colored lights, LED screens, animations, etc. And the proliferation of close-quarters digital ads which add audio feel particularly violating to me. When my Uber/Lyft rides have those tablets with unending ads, when gas station pumps insist on bombarding me with harsh noise from a too-small speaker driven too hard, etc. Pro-tip for the vast majority of gas station pump TV advertising screens that are in service at the moment in the USA - if it has four rectangular buttons (all/mostly unlabeled) next to the screen, the third button down is an unlabeled "Mute" button about 90% of the time. I have not yet found a mute feature on the newest models that are just starting to replace those.

cassepipe 2y ago

> profit maximizing at all costs is bad, or not well understood How is it not well understood ? It does not seem very hard to imagine what the consequences would be since it already happens sometimes... Or do you think abuse when scaled up can have unexpected good social consequences ? I would like to defend that brothel metaphor. You say the goal is to appeal to emotions (brothel bad == advertising bad) but it could be argued that the actual purpose is to be striking: It's unexpected so my brain will notice. To me this is just good storytelling and I didn't feel manipulated. Actually I would feel more manipulated if the metaphor was more discreet.