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
I think this is deeply and fundamentally wrong.

Advertising is how small and new companies can reach customers. It's how monopolies are broken. It's how progress reaches the masses.

Yes, it is willfully intended to change people's behavior. So are many of our posts on HN. That is an important purpose for communication!

>>Burnin+T6
The difference is that we’re reading these comments willingly. A great deal of advertising is imposed on people who don’t want it.

If I don’t want my behavior swayed by HN, I can stop reading it. If I don’t want my behavior swayed by advertising, I can... close my eyes every time a bus goes by, avoid any public place with an operating television, and never check my mail?

>>wat100+ya
Yes? Unfortunately others can communicate to us without our consent. That could be ads or someone writing you a postcard, or yelling on a street corner. All of those can influence us and not all of them are welcome but I don’t think it’s reasonable to think we can live in a world where we can fully control it without becoming hermits.

>>bearco+kb
And plenty of times a lot can be done to mitigate those, not being able to fix every chance, doesn't mean we should'nt try to fix what we can

Germany has a ban on coldcalling, Sao Paulo on outdoors advertising, Chile on Mascots / Kid Targeted Branding on Cereals

We can expand on those, I won't say neccessarily kill all advetisement, but we could certainly do a lot better than the current climate