zlacker

>>iambat+(OP)
Advertising is a parasitic force on society. It sucks up your attention with a willful intention to change your purchasing behaviour, often knowing that the new behavior is worse for you.

If ads were merely about being informative, they would be boring. But ads want to manipulate, so they have to be flashy and appeal to your emotions.

They pollute your mental headspace, and have no place in a healthy society.

Let's ban billboards. And then let's follow that up with a general purpose ban on paid advertisement.

>>Taek+F1
What is an advertisement? Let’s see if we can define this before deciding on an all out ban.

>>whall6+B3
paid advertisement is easier to define, I think. If entity A pays entity B to show/tell me something, that's an ad.

>>Retr0i+N3
So when say Comcast owns a sports team and runs videos promoting the idea of buying a ticket to see that sports team it wouldn't be an ad because Comcast didn't pay itself?

I'm all for banning whole forms of advertisements (ex. Billboards) that don't actually educate the consumer about the product. But _all_ advertisements is too knee-jerk.

>>lesuor+34
Does public service announcement get exemption?

How about health ad ("Smoking kills") ?

How about mentioning a product in health ad (Smoking kills. Nicotine patches help you quit smoking)?

Traditionally, the government setup some regulatory body to oversee these kind of exemptions. These body often corrupt over time. Is a corrupted regulatory body better than no exemptions allowed?

Do we want the legal text cover all cases and become so dense that nobody can comprehend? Or do we want some simple rules and live with the possible unintended consequences?

and the most important question : People hate changes and some industries need to rethink their own business. How could we get people agrees on this in a democratic setting?