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The first comment (now) quibbles about the definition of advertising. The second comment (now) quibbles about the use of the word cancer. (there is benign canc

The first comment (now) quibbles about the definition of advertising. The second comment (now) quibbles about the use of the word cancer. (there is benign cancer). Advertising (whether it uses tracking or not) can be defined as the intention of convincing someone rather than providing information. Intent is to convince. PROPOGANDA. The intent is for the target/prey/victim to be unable to distinguish the truth value. So here we have a first problem. Is the intent of the first comment on HN "Most of the arguments .. are not about 'advertising' ..." made to help me understand the article better? Or are they made with the intent of causing to me doubt the article (or even not to read it). The same question can be asked about the second question. Ad infinitum and nauseaum. THAT is STAGE 1 social cancer. I can no longer trust the intention of posts on HN. STAGE 2 is that I can no longer trust the INTENTION of any media. Do I want a recipe for cookies? Use the "garrble" to search. Can I really believe that this recipe has ever been made by the person/bot/AI that created it? STAGE 3. Human societies and Communities are founded on trust. The ability to come to a common understanding of a situation and act collectively. STAGE 3 is when communities and societies no longer function. The internet has STAGE 2 cancer and some STAGE 3. Since our society in the US depends on the internet .... Well you cannot trust anything I say, I could be an AI for all you know. And probably my definitions are wrong, my understanding of stages of cancer is faulty, etc. Here is my 2cents. The article vastly underestimates the damage and dangers, but is definitely worth a read.

nh23423fefe 2y ago
> Advertising (whether it uses tracking or not) can be defined as the intention of convincing someone rather than providing information. Intent is to convince. PROPOGANDA. This is pointless moralizing pretending to be clarifying or demarcating. If I write an essay about climate change to convince you to vote/protest/purchase/boycott <anything> then I will use information to create an opinion in you. All communication exists to alter the experiences of your interlocutors. You can't hide behind "good intentions" to demarcate. Labelling persuasion as propaganda, is itself propaganda.
chefandy 2y ago
One of my least favorite tendencies of software developers is assuming they can pull apart non-technical/mathematic problems involving human complexity, even at a societal scale, with a series of logical thought experiments like they’re debugging software, and that their “bug fixes” and doc updates would tidy everything up with people as effectively as it does with processes. As complex as software can be, it hasn’t a sliver the complexity of human interaction on a small scale, let alone societally. The developer mindset often isn’t effective enough in reasoning about human behavior to make effective user interfaces for software they created. When you start classifying entire categories of human interaction and societal structures in concrete stages based on a combination of a priori reasoning, gut instinct, anecdotes, and ‘common knowledge,’ there’s a good chance your words are portraying the boogie men in your head rather than any of the very significant and consequential problems in our society. There are entire fields that study complex topics you casually wield in your assessment— they’re probably a good place to start if you honestly think your gut instinct about forum posts on advertising can be meaningfully generalized to societal structures on a whole.
- talkingtab 2y ago
  As is true for many people, I have found myself in the terrible situation of having acted with the best of motives, only to find later that my actions were harmful to others. The question is always, what do we do when that happens? How to we look at ourselves in the mirror? This is an ethical, not moral issue. One choice is simply denial, but I do not like myself when I choose that. Another is not to act because there is never a guarantee that our actions will not be wrong. The stand up choice in my mind is to own up to our mistakes and failures and fix things to the extent we can. We have developed a business model for the internet that is indeed a cancer on communities, on societies. On the lives of those around us. This was not with evil intent - which would be inexcusable. We just did not know better. But now we do. To ignore this fact, deny it, etc is understandable. But you now know this to be true or that it is possibly true. And in order to be stand up people we need to understand whether this harms others. And we fix it. And really is the Advertising business model the best we can do?
  - chefandy 2y ago

nh23423fefe 2y ago

> Advertising (whether it uses tracking or not) can be defined as the intention of convincing someone rather than providing information. Intent is to convince. PROPOGANDA. This is pointless moralizing pretending to be clarifying or demarcating. If I write an essay about climate change to convince you to vote/protest/purchase/boycott <anything> then I will use information to create an opinion in you. All communication exists to alter the experiences of your interlocutors. You can't hide behind "good intentions" to demarcate. Labelling persuasion as propaganda, is itself propaganda.

chefandy 2y ago

One of my least favorite tendencies of software developers is assuming they can pull apart non-technical/mathematic problems involving human complexity, even at a societal scale, with a series of logical thought experiments like they’re debugging software, and that their “bug fixes” and doc updates would tidy everything up with people as effectively as it does with processes. As complex as software can be, it hasn’t a sliver the complexity of human interaction on a small scale, let alone societally. The developer mindset often isn’t effective enough in reasoning about human behavior to make effective user interfaces for software they created. When you start classifying entire categories of human interaction and societal structures in concrete stages based on a combination of a priori reasoning, gut instinct, anecdotes, and ‘common knowledge,’ there’s a good chance your words are portraying the boogie men in your head rather than any of the very significant and consequential problems in our society. There are entire fields that study complex topics you casually wield in your assessment— they’re probably a good place to start if you honestly think your gut instinct about forum posts on advertising can be meaningfully generalized to societal structures on a whole.

talkingtab 2y ago
As is true for many people, I have found myself in the terrible situation of having acted with the best of motives, only to find later that my actions were harmful to others. The question is always, what do we do when that happens? How to we look at ourselves in the mirror? This is an ethical, not moral issue. One choice is simply denial, but I do not like myself when I choose that. Another is not to act because there is never a guarantee that our actions will not be wrong. The stand up choice in my mind is to own up to our mistakes and failures and fix things to the extent we can. We have developed a business model for the internet that is indeed a cancer on communities, on societies. On the lives of those around us. This was not with evil intent - which would be inexcusable. We just did not know better. But now we do. To ignore this fact, deny it, etc is understandable. But you now know this to be true or that it is possibly true. And in order to be stand up people we need to understand whether this harms others. And we fix it. And really is the Advertising business model the best we can do?
- chefandy 2y ago