The part that really struck me was framing advertising and propaganda as essentially the same mechanism - just with different masters. Having built targeting systems myself, this rings painfully true. The mechanical difference between getting someone to buy sneakers versus vote for a candidate is surprisingly small.
What's frustrating is how the tech community keeps treating the symptoms while ignoring the disease. We debate content moderation policies and algorithmic transparency, but rarely question the underlying attention marketplace that makes manipulation profitable in the first place.
The uncomfortable truth: most of us in tech understand that today's advertising systems are fundamentally parasitic. We've built something that converts human attention into money with increasingly terrifying efficiency, but we're all trapped in a prisoner's dilemma where nobody can unilaterally disarm.
Try this thought experiment from the article - imagine a world without advertising. Products would still exist. Commerce would still happen. Information would still flow. We'd just be freed from the increasingly sophisticated machinery designed to override our decision-making.
Is this proposal radical? Absolutely. But sometimes the Overton window needs a sledgehammer.
P.S. If you are curious about the relationship between Sigmund Freud, propaganda, and the origins of the ad industry, check out the documentary “Century of the Self”.
I can't because a world with magic and world peace is more realistic and believable.
It's impossible. How do you even define advertising? If you define it conservatively, then advertising will skirt through the loopholes. If you define it liberally, then you have an unfair, authoritarian system that will definitely be selectively enforced against political enemies.
And in all cases, you are self-imposing a restriction that will give other nations an economic advantage and jeopardizing long-term sovereignty.
Cigarette advertising “bans” are not legislated, IIRC, but a result of the various consolidated settlements of the 1990s-era lawsuits against the tobacco companies. They’re essentially voluntary, and it’s not obvious that a genuine ban would survive constitutional scrutiny. It might: Commercial speech is among the least protected forms of speech.
But at some point a line is crossed: Painting “Read the New York Times” on the side of a barn you own is bread & butter freedom of expression.