Comment by rustcleaner | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rustcleaner | Hacker News Reader

Probably the best one-liner fix in law I can think of, is to make it a imprisonable felony to give money to someone or an organization for the purpose of speaking a particular message as their own, and accepting money in exchange for speaking a message as your own. Basically ban advertising, or at least make each commercial basically say "General Motors has paid us to tell you that ... ... ..." instead of the sexy seductive style we have today. Ads, if they are to exist at all, should be limited to factual/quantitative statements about performance and reliability, and must not use any suggestive/qualitative statements. We need to make the various pillars of modern advertising criminal offenses: the main one is the use of psychological/memetic trickery to spread and make memorable a message for commercial purposes, then there's the financial incentive to shit up our cyberspaces with sponsored messages. The only place I should EVER EVER EEEVERRR find an advertisement for (say) a plumber, should be in the local directory for businesses under the plumbing section, and the list must be sortable and filterable by basic transparent criteria (no hidden magic feed algorithms).

It is legal to swindle someone in this country, so long as they get swindled enthusiastically and don't think they got swindled. I think being induced to buy a hamburger at midnight by a well placed ad, instead of just reheating some left-overs, is a swindling even if your dependency on this model for your economic survival has you kneejerking on me! The goal is we all turn into self-sufficient economic agents, not be labor-cattle induced by advertising memes to go into interest bearing debt by a thousand little charges.

>"General Motors has paid us to tell you that ... ... ..."

Are we under the impression that people don't know that?

I think most people know what advertising is. I don't think that would change anything.

Very basic example nobody argues with. Did you know your local news station gets some stories to present as their own and they are paid to present them? You may, but many might find that to be a shocking revelation. I was maintaining cognitive accessibility in that example.

I don't think the news thing would surprise anyone either.

I think there's a weirdly patronizing approach that blames so much on advertising, and if by chance if folks got their way they'd be astonished to find that people make bad choices all on their own, and they know they do ...

I think it makes sense when people are quite literally inundated by ads. If you see a constant stream of advertisements, which thoughts are genuinely your own? What preferences would one have that haven’t been massaged in a direction by ads?

> I don't think the news thing would surprise anyone either.

People who you'd expect to realize this still read the news acknowledging everything they're till they get to a specific domain the news covers. A la Gell-Mann Amnesia.

>Probably the best one-liner fix in law I can think of, is to make it a imprisonable felony to give money to someone or an organization for the purpose of speaking a particular message as their own, and accepting money in exchange for speaking a message as your own.

You think you can make a law like this work with one line? I do not get the code-as-law people, or whatever it is you are coming from that has left you with this impression. No surprise you are also advocating people become "self-sufficient economic agents" too. It's gotta be simple, right? That's why you gave us the one line, after all.

"You don't actually want this cheeseburger, we are just telling you that you do" sounds like it would be a real buzzworthy campaign today to be perfectly honest. Do you leave your house?

At least in the US, you are going to run into problems with the First Amendment (eg Central Hudson Test).

Wouldn’t that just restrict paid endorsements?

General Motors making an ad campaign paying for broadcast does not equate to the station / channel endorsing a product.

How about a plumbing company buys a billboard and puts an ad for their services on it?

Pretty sure the courts would find this plan violates the first amendment too.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43595269

the chickens wish to be treated nicer by the factory farm infrastructure

the factory farm infrastructure does not notice; it cannot notice

I regret to inform you that the inmates run the asylum, so your proposal will go nowhere. Banning ads? Making Google confess 'We were paid to say this'? Forcing Burger King to admit they're tricking you into midnight cravings? Politicians funded by ads would outlaw that idea faster than you can say 'campaign donation'. Your felony-for-persuasion is bold. It's also delusional.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com