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The violations that the average human has been unknowingly a victim of, courtesy of the advertising industry, are in my estimation so insurmountably numerous th

The violations that the average human has been unknowingly a victim of, courtesy of the advertising industry, are in my estimation so insurmountably numerous that I automatically consider someone working in advertising ontologically evil. More so than, say, someone working on face recognition at Lockheed Martin.

vizzier 2y ago
You remind me of the bill hicks bit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h9wStdPkQY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h9wStdPkQY
- adiabatichottub 2y ago
  Alas, all he wanted was to rid the world of all these fevered egos, tainting our collective unconscious and making us pay a higher psychic price than we imagine.
idle_zealot 2y ago
Frankly, advertising as a business sounds evil on the face of it. It's fundamentally a way to turn money into ideas in people's heads. The fact that in order to accomplish this dubious task some of the world's best-paid professionals are pioneering privacy violations and psychological manipulation tactics only adds to the shit pile. To be clear: creating media for the purposes of spreading an idea is not inherently bad. What's bad is having an industry built around planting ideas in human minds, regardless of the validity or broad utility of those ideas. And to head off "but then how will people learn about <PRODUCT>?" People buy marketing material, coupon books, attend conferences for the things they care about, and if necessary research options when they need something. A market does not need the feature of shoving information about available products and services in everyone's face to function well. And if you're someone who likes seeing ads, great, open up the yellow pages or digital equivalent and look at all the ads you want. How will ad-supported services like mass social-media sites fund themselves? Not my problem, maybe they don't and they shit down. What a shame.
- portaouflop 2y ago
  If you put it that way software as a business sounds evil on the face of it (and probably mostly is) - I guess it’s so intertwined because most software companies are just advertising companies with extra steps. But at least Ads i can avoid - the fucking software eating everything I can’t avoid unless I become a hermit.
add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
This is nonsense. We all have no choice but to patron many businesses in our lives. We're adults and we understand the information coming from the first party about how great it is is biased. It is still helpful to hear certain facts. Like, a new pizza place happens to exist in town now. The commercial isn't hypnotizing me into going there, I have free will and can form an opinion with information from different sources, weighting them appropriately. Commercials are often annoying, sure. I like cable with a DVR because I can skip 100% of commercials and the stream can't make them unskippable. But there's no sense in overreacting to the general concept of advertising. When I go on a date and a woman tells me about herself I understand she may be emphasizing the good and downplaying the bad. It does not make her evil. It's normal for anyone to do.
- adiabatichottub 2y ago
  I can only speak for myself, but... It's not the concept of advertising I'm against. It's the data collection that could easily be used for nefarious purposes. We can look at history in the last 100 years to find many examples how data like this can be abused. And for those of us in the US, the politics are getting pretty spicy, so the threat is worth taking seriously.
- myvoiceismypass 2y ago
  For me at least - it feels like I am now living in a Black Mirror episode and eventually personalized ads are going to be playing inside bathroom stalls when you are taking a dump.
  - chgs 2y ago
    90% of people are probably on their phones consuming adverts while taking a dump. We’re already there.
- spencerflem 2y ago
  When is the last time you've seen an ad and been excited about it? Essentially nobody is against a local pizza shop putting up a flyer. But most (almost all) ads are by companies like Coca-Cola, who simply want to beat you into submission to associate whatever it they want with their product. Beach Summer Fun == Coca-Cola. Childhood Wonder == Disney Resorts. etc. etc. You can form an opinion based on facts, but almost all advertising is not about presenting you facts to consider. Its about forming an impression for you. To me the most sad part is that it's all worthless. If Pepsi does better than Coke, I DONT CARE. And yet, tens of thousands of our fellow citizens toil away hours every day to try to convince us one way or another. And in the process make the world uglier and more hostile.
soared 2y ago
[flagged]
- defrost 2y ago
  Addressing just what you regard as a logical point, a great deal of expensive weapons technology (eg: nuclear weapons) serve as an unused deterrence, a good deal more acts to hold a line and can prevent the killing of people advancing to others. The error is more akin to the assumption that, say, intelligence is similar to height and that one person is definitively smarter or not than another just as one may be definitively taller or not. Weapons tech and advertising tech are apples and oranges, each with their own spectrum of pro's and cons.
- profile53 2y ago
  I’d argue digital ads kill people just via indirect means. Think of all the “dangerous” ads - fast food, alcohol, weight loss and plastic surgery, unnecessary medications, even guns. All of those things kill people over different time horizons and circumstances. Would individual people have bought the stuff without ads? Maybe, maybe not, but on a statistical level I’d guess it would be significantly less. So arguably ads do kill people and probably more than Lockheed Martin’s weapons do each year.
- m463 2y ago
  isn't that like saying that rocket motors or inertial reference units don't kill people?
maeil 2y ago
This extends to the mainstream social networks. Bytedance, Meta, X. Google is barely better, since they're an ad company, working for them is working for the ad industry. I'm sure many a reader here working at the named places will scream "But I'm only working on the Meta Quest/Gmail/something I consider unharmful!". Now think about how you feel about that argument when someone working for the defense industry claims the same. Those don't claim it as often though; IME, unlike those at the above companies, people in defense tech are more likely to be honest, open and aware of the ethical trade-off involved.
amatecha 2y ago
Related: https://www.wheresyoured.at/never-forgive-them/ https://www.wheresyoured.at/never-forgive-them/ "You are the victim of a con — one so pernicious that you’ve likely tuned it out despite the fact it’s part of almost every part of your life. It hurts everybody you know in different ways, and it hurts people more based on their socioeconomic status. It pokes and prods and twists millions of little parts of your life, and it’s everywhere, so you have to ignore it, because complaining about it feels futile, like complaining about the weather." "It isn’t. You’re battered by the Rot Economy, and a tech industry that has become so obsessed with growth that you, the paying customer, are a nuisance to be mitigated far more than a participant in an exchange of value. A death cult has taken over the markets, using software as a mechanism to extract value at scale in the pursuit of growth at the cost of user happiness."

vizzier 2y ago

You remind me of the bill hicks bit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h9wStdPkQY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h9wStdPkQY

adiabatichottub 2y ago
Alas, all he wanted was to rid the world of all these fevered egos, tainting our collective unconscious and making us pay a higher psychic price than we imagine.

idle_zealot 2y ago

Frankly, advertising as a business sounds evil on the face of it. It's fundamentally a way to turn money into ideas in people's heads. The fact that in order to accomplish this dubious task some of the world's best-paid professionals are pioneering privacy violations and psychological manipulation tactics only adds to the shit pile. To be clear: creating media for the purposes of spreading an idea is not inherently bad. What's bad is having an industry built around planting ideas in human minds, regardless of the validity or broad utility of those ideas. And to head off "but then how will people learn about <PRODUCT>?" People buy marketing material, coupon books, attend conferences for the things they care about, and if necessary research options when they need something. A market does not need the feature of shoving information about available products and services in everyone's face to function well. And if you're someone who likes seeing ads, great, open up the yellow pages or digital equivalent and look at all the ads you want. How will ad-supported services like mass social-media sites fund themselves? Not my problem, maybe they don't and they shit down. What a shame.

portaouflop 2y ago
If you put it that way software as a business sounds evil on the face of it (and probably mostly is) - I guess it’s so intertwined because most software companies are just advertising companies with extra steps. But at least Ads i can avoid - the fucking software eating everything I can’t avoid unless I become a hermit.

add-sub-mul-div 2y ago

This is nonsense. We all have no choice but to patron many businesses in our lives. We're adults and we understand the information coming from the first party about how great it is is biased. It is still helpful to hear certain facts. Like, a new pizza place happens to exist in town now. The commercial isn't hypnotizing me into going there, I have free will and can form an opinion with information from different sources, weighting them appropriately. Commercials are often annoying, sure. I like cable with a DVR because I can skip 100% of commercials and the stream can't make them unskippable. But there's no sense in overreacting to the general concept of advertising. When I go on a date and a woman tells me about herself I understand she may be emphasizing the good and downplaying the bad. It does not make her evil. It's normal for anyone to do.

adiabatichottub 2y ago
I can only speak for myself, but... It's not the concept of advertising I'm against. It's the data collection that could easily be used for nefarious purposes. We can look at history in the last 100 years to find many examples how data like this can be abused. And for those of us in the US, the politics are getting pretty spicy, so the threat is worth taking seriously.
myvoiceismypass 2y ago
For me at least - it feels like I am now living in a Black Mirror episode and eventually personalized ads are going to be playing inside bathroom stalls when you are taking a dump.
- chgs 2y ago
  90% of people are probably on their phones consuming adverts while taking a dump. We’re already there.
spencerflem 2y ago
When is the last time you've seen an ad and been excited about it? Essentially nobody is against a local pizza shop putting up a flyer. But most (almost all) ads are by companies like Coca-Cola, who simply want to beat you into submission to associate whatever it they want with their product. Beach Summer Fun == Coca-Cola. Childhood Wonder == Disney Resorts. etc. etc. You can form an opinion based on facts, but almost all advertising is not about presenting you facts to consider. Its about forming an impression for you. To me the most sad part is that it's all worthless. If Pepsi does better than Coke, I DONT CARE. And yet, tens of thousands of our fellow citizens toil away hours every day to try to convince us one way or another. And in the process make the world uglier and more hostile.

soared 2y ago

[flagged]

defrost 2y ago
Addressing just what you regard as a logical point, a great deal of expensive weapons technology (eg: nuclear weapons) serve as an unused deterrence, a good deal more acts to hold a line and can prevent the killing of people advancing to others. The error is more akin to the assumption that, say, intelligence is similar to height and that one person is definitively smarter or not than another just as one may be definitively taller or not. Weapons tech and advertising tech are apples and oranges, each with their own spectrum of pro's and cons.
profile53 2y ago
I’d argue digital ads kill people just via indirect means. Think of all the “dangerous” ads - fast food, alcohol, weight loss and plastic surgery, unnecessary medications, even guns. All of those things kill people over different time horizons and circumstances. Would individual people have bought the stuff without ads? Maybe, maybe not, but on a statistical level I’d guess it would be significantly less. So arguably ads do kill people and probably more than Lockheed Martin’s weapons do each year.
m463 2y ago
isn't that like saying that rocket motors or inertial reference units don't kill people?

maeil 2y ago

This extends to the mainstream social networks. Bytedance, Meta, X. Google is barely better, since they're an ad company, working for them is working for the ad industry. I'm sure many a reader here working at the named places will scream "But I'm only working on the Meta Quest/Gmail/something I consider unharmful!". Now think about how you feel about that argument when someone working for the defense industry claims the same. Those don't claim it as often though; IME, unlike those at the above companies, people in defense tech are more likely to be honest, open and aware of the ethical trade-off involved.

amatecha 2y ago

Related: https://www.wheresyoured.at/never-forgive-them/ https://www.wheresyoured.at/never-forgive-them/ "You are the victim of a con — one so pernicious that you’ve likely tuned it out despite the fact it’s part of almost every part of your life. It hurts everybody you know in different ways, and it hurts people more based on their socioeconomic status. It pokes and prods and twists millions of little parts of your life, and it’s everywhere, so you have to ignore it, because complaining about it feels futile, like complaining about the weather." "It isn’t. You’re battered by the Rot Economy, and a tech industry that has become so obsessed with growth that you, the paying customer, are a nuisance to be mitigated far more than a participant in an exchange of value. A death cult has taken over the markets, using software as a mechanism to extract value at scale in the pursuit of growth at the cost of user happiness."