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Resisting Social Media and Advertising (and Why It's so Hard)

https://tilvids.com/w/8kJQcsfFCxYLUc3ZikJaXm

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16 comments

Neato

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You all see ads?

aceshigh

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Yes. Apparently that’s a thing.

Nougat

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Eh ... maybe a lot of people are just coasting through life and not thinking too hard, just letting things happen at them. Whenever I see an advertisement (which is honestly not very often anymore, and generally happens on accident), my first thought is "Somebody spent a lot of money to produce this ad and get it delivered to my eyes. People don't spend a lot of money for no reason; they must want some of mine, and I'm not going to give them any."

That's all ads are, people - essentially anonymous strangers - asking you to give them money. When you think about ads in those terms, it requires zero effort to not give strangers money.

Of course, a product or service is being offered in exchange for that money, but said product or service is necessarily less costly to produce and deliver than it is to purchase. There is always profit, and sometimes that profit margin is quite high. Remember, too, that "profit" does not mean the compensation that labor and administration receives for their parts in producing and delivering the product or service. Profit means money that goes into owners' pockets, whether those are private or public owners. Those owners receive compensation simply on the basis of their status as owners, separate from any work they put into production or delivery.

That's capitalism. When you buy a thing, part of the profit margin of your purchase is basically just giving money to the owners because they are owners. This means that the purchased thing costs an amount of money representing a fair exchange of value, plus another amount of money that you get nothing in return for.

I know this line of thinking has kind of skidded off the runway, let me bring it back: Always remember that every purchase you make in a capitalist system includes in part your giving money to someone who is very likely more powerful and wealthy than you, for which you receive nothing in return. When you remember this, it is obvious that most advertising is designed to increase that wealth transfer, and not to increase equitable exchange of value.

sugar_in_your_tea

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I honestly don't care too much about wealthy people getting richer, that really doesn't impact me at all, I just care about whether a product has good value. An advertisement means the product doesn't stand on its own, so they need to put it in front of my eyes in order to sell it. As in, I wouldn't find it any other way.

So I ignore all ads, outside of coupons, when I look for discounts on products I need anyway. I don't buy things because they're on sale, I buy more of something I need because it's on sale (I have plenty of storage space at home). If a product is worth buying, I'll find it when searching for solutions or from recommendations from friends (who found it in their own research).

So I block ads because they can only cause my harm (tracking my personal data and whatnot), and I don't feel bad because that's not how I buy products anyway.

linearchaos

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People have been ignoring wealthy people getting richer since the the days of Rockefeller.

The influence of the rich over government is becoming substantially stifling. The supreme Court right now is a prime indicator that this is becoming a problem that will affect us all.

sugar_in_your_tea

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"The rich" don't have that much control over government, that power tends to come from larger lobbying groups. It just so happens that many rich people run large corporations, but the lobbying would happen even if those corporations were run by less wealthy people. The interests of these groups don't often align with the interests of the public at large.

The problem is that large lobbying groups (corporations, unions like police and teachers unions, PACs, etc) have a lot of influence in governments, not that rich people exist. The focus, then, should be on fixing issues surrounding lobbying (e.g. campaign finance reform) and reducing the benefits to that lobbying (IMO, reducing scope of government so lobbying accomplishes less for powerful groups). That's a very complex topic and there aren't any good solutions, but rich people getting richer isn't the problem here, it's a symptom of the problem.

PowerCrazy

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Yes lets "reduce the scope of government" so that the people who spend billions on lobbying, can instead use those billions to create their own fiefdoms. This is a good alternative.

sugar_in_your_tea

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Reducing the scope of government doesn't mean removing the regulatory power of the government, it just means focusing the government on its essential roles. For example, instead of complicated emissions standards with tons of loopholes, implement a carbon tax and increase it to reduce total pollution. Instead of safety regulations for automakers, hold leadership of companies criminally liable for negligence and charge massive fines for incidents.

In other words, simplify government to price in negative externalities instead of directly trying to prevent those externalities, and the market will correct to eliminate those costs. The more complex government policy is, the more opportunity there is for corruption (it's often cheaper to create a loophole than fix the underlying problem).

PowerCrazy

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Who do you think wrote the "loopholes" into the law? The fossil Fuel Lobbyists. Those weren't oversights. It wasn't like some selfless senator was crafting legislation, and wouldn't you know it, he accidentally defined a light-truck in a way that SUVs still qualify. Aw Shucks.

As far as criminal liability for corporations, do you think that our current representatives just don't think of these "unique" and possibly even good ideas? No! They are PAID by lobbyists to pass the laws that the lobbyists have written specifically for the industry they are representing. Your entire premise is combination of just-world fallacy, and a healthy dose of the wisdom of the markets. But you are absolutely wrong on both accounts.

sugar_in_your_tea

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our current representatives just don't think of these "unique" and possibly even good ideas?

I think our electoral system is broken, so whether our representatives think about them is irrelevant, it's not getting passed unless it fits with the party strategy. And sometimes the party strategy is to cozy up to the fossil fuel industry or whatever.

I'm under no illusion about that.

My point is that this isn't some problem inherent to "rich people" and making rich people poorer won't solve the problem. The problem is a huge mess of issues that all work together to reward backroom deals, and that's the kind of thing larger organizations like corporations, labor unions, and PACs have the time to deal with. And that's the nature of things anytime there's high stakes, like with government power.

Everyone will have their pet solution(s), be it electoral reform, campaign finance reform, term limits, etc. Those are all well and good, but as long as there are rewards for hiding loopholes in the legal code, it's going to be a problem. So my solution is more of a perspective that we need simpler, more easily audible laws, and the way we get that is by restricting the types of regulations we can enact (e.g. the government shouldn't define the difference between a light truck and a passenger vehicle, all vehicles would pay a carbon tax, as well as a weight-based road fee). Unfortunately, that's not possible until we do some of those reforms (my preferred starting point is electoral reform, such as ending FPTP), and even then it's going to be an uphill battle.

Regardless, my point about rich people not being the problem stands, they're merely a symptom of a larger problem.