The world would be a far better place if advertising were greatly restricted - not just because it's annoying and bad for privacy, but also because it's bad for economies. Advertising is why you could work hard at a career your whole life and make less money than Kim K would for farting into a walkie-talkie (or less theoretically, less money than Karl Lagerfeld's cat made for posing on car's dashboard), and it also fuels much of the IP industry's work-once-get-paid-forever business model. It should be restr
Scott Adams used to do a thing called 'Overly Simple Answers to Complicated Problems' or something similar. (Yeah, he's a wacko conspiracy theorist now, I know, just roll with it.)
My overly simple answer was to eliminate most government agencies, and put all your money into one agency that governs truth in advertising. That's it. You can say anything you want in your ad as long as it's demonstrably true, vague claims and small print not allowed. That also means that you could talk shit about your competitors as long as it was true.
So Pepsi could say, "Coke products are made in sweatshops and directly contribute to 30 deaths in manufacturing plants a year," in their ads, as long as that was a verifiable truth, and the truth in advertising agency would make sure that it was a valid claim, like a super-Snopes. And so in an attempt to make an end-run around that sort of negative advertising, Coke would clean up their worst offences so their competitors couldn't make those claims. And the agency would also be making sure that user agreements were simple and easy for an average person to understand—advertising that your credit card has low rates is meaningless unless the terms of the contract are easy to understand. And if the claim was unverifiable or unknowable, you wouldn't be allowed to make it. No 'maybes' or 'probablys' allowed.
All that to say that advertising is very often the art of lying, and you could impact a lot of the world just by making sure that everyone that advertises to you is telling the absolute truth at all times.
(Being an overly simplistic solution, I know this has all sorts of other issues, like companies colluding to not bring up the worst stuff in an attempt to cover up their sins. But it's an interesting thought experiment.)
Advertising should be greatly restricted (Score:5, Interesting)
The world would be a far better place if advertising were greatly restricted - not just because it's annoying and bad for privacy, but also because it's bad for economies. Advertising is why you could work hard at a career your whole life and make less money than Kim K would for farting into a walkie-talkie (or less theoretically, less money than Karl Lagerfeld's cat made for posing on car's dashboard), and it also fuels much of the IP industry's work-once-get-paid-forever business model. It should be restr
Re:Advertising should be greatly restricted (Score:3)
Scott Adams used to do a thing called 'Overly Simple Answers to Complicated Problems' or something similar. (Yeah, he's a wacko conspiracy theorist now, I know, just roll with it.)
My overly simple answer was to eliminate most government agencies, and put all your money into one agency that governs truth in advertising. That's it. You can say anything you want in your ad as long as it's demonstrably true, vague claims and small print not allowed. That also means that you could talk shit about your competitors as long as it was true.
So Pepsi could say, "Coke products are made in sweatshops and directly contribute to 30 deaths in manufacturing plants a year," in their ads, as long as that was a verifiable truth, and the truth in advertising agency would make sure that it was a valid claim, like a super-Snopes. And so in an attempt to make an end-run around that sort of negative advertising, Coke would clean up their worst offences so their competitors couldn't make those claims. And the agency would also be making sure that user agreements were simple and easy for an average person to understand—advertising that your credit card has low rates is meaningless unless the terms of the contract are easy to understand. And if the claim was unverifiable or unknowable, you wouldn't be allowed to make it. No 'maybes' or 'probablys' allowed.
All that to say that advertising is very often the art of lying, and you could impact a lot of the world just by making sure that everyone that advertises to you is telling the absolute truth at all times.
(Being an overly simplistic solution, I know this has all sorts of other issues, like companies colluding to not bring up the worst stuff in an attempt to cover up their sins. But it's an interesting thought experiment.)