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[–]HopeThatHalps 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

The sad fact is, if something is unethical, but legal, you are free to do it. It might be a basis for a boycott, but boycotting advertising would be absurdly difficult. I think we also have to acknowledge how effective advertising is towards commerce. There is the pessimistic view that it's manipulative, but it is genuinely informative, too, and the economy literally collapse if advertising was ended all together. Some business models, like google, are based entirely on adverstiting. You would have to pay for your search engines and free email accounts. TV and radio wouldn't exist.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

You are right, banning things is not always the answer. What we need is to educate common people. For instance, we don't have to ban advertisements despite the paradigm that they are manipulative; we have to teach people to acknowledge that advertisements can manipulate them and teach them not to let advertisements mess with their heads too much.

This could render the advertisements useless because their very purpose is to "convince" people to like the product but, we have to try to make the best situation possible where there is minimum or no harm coming to either party.

[–]HopeThatHalps 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

we have to teach people to acknowledge that advertisements can manipulate them

That's a good start, but since advertising works on the subconscious, that might not make much of a difference. I think more research has to be done with regard to deciding that ads are a public health nuisance. Any solution we come up with now would be based around a limited understanding of how it psychologically effects people, because like a lot of what we know, succesful advertising comes from trial and error rather than a deeper understanding of how it works. It would touch on "thought crime".

[–]cant_even 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

You would have to pay for your search engines and free email accounts.

...if you wanted them. There are millions who remember when they didn't exist, and some of them could live without them again.

[–]HopeThatHalps 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

You mean visit the local library and work your way through the card catalog, or files full of microfilm to gather information? You mean like lick envelopes and stamps and deliver it to the nearest parcel receptacle, and then wait a week for it to get where it was going? You have to be a card carrying ludite to think for a moment that we could be better off living in the past.