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[JuntaJoe]

Ugh. It drives me nuts. Talk about intrusion into your private space regardless of your wishes.

Ok, I won't be starting this thread off with a bunch of details to be picked apart.


No long winded sermon? :shock:


It's because in stuck in a quandary.

How can I support free market principles and freedom of expression and deny the right of advertisers?

It's a loop that keeps running around in my head.


But need to find a truly legitimate reason to break the loop and still stick to my principles.

So I come to my fellow noisemakers, hat in hand, questing for a rationale.

[Brf]

What do you have against advertisers? You can always turn the channel, throw away the newspaper ads, ignore the billboards, etc etc

[JuntaJoe]

Spam, stickers on grocery store floors, movie insertions, dangerous pharmacutical hype, and the idea of paying for cable and still getting commercials.

It's freakin' everywhere and driving society mores without our input.

They spend their time getting in your face telling you how to live.

And if you turn your head then they panic and hunt for another way to intrude.


Like I said this subject that has more emotional objection than intelligent rationale.

But I want that intellectual rationale if it can be found.

[Batchman]

I'll be blunt ... with your general beliefs, I don't think you can come up with any reason to forbid advertising.

The only possible solution I can think of would be to get enough people disgusted with the whole advertising thing that people would start avoiding things they see ads for.

Then it would become unfeasible to advertise.

Since I doubt there is any way this will ever happen, I think ads will unfortunately be with us forevermore.

[JuntaJoe]

One of the biggest reasons for my disgust is my libertarian bent.

It assumes that everyone is free to run their lives as long as you don't interfere with other's freedom.

But fighting advertising is denying free market economics.


Amazing, but true, yet it seems I have found a spot where libertarianism and free market economics clash.

[Brf]

I have no problem with cable-tv and ads.... since I can still change the channel.

Spam amd pharm hype is not "ads", since most of it is not from a legitimate company....

I remember reading a news story once where the reporter ordered from a spam that claimed to be selling drugs from Canada. It ended up that the drugs never even touched Canada.... I dont remember where they came from, but they passed through several coutries before reaching the US.

[JuntaJoe]

Oh no, I'm not talking about drug spam on the pc.

I'm talking those tv commercials whipping the idiots up to bug their doc to prescribe.

Caring for a medical condition is no place for hype.

Advertizing in medical journals is a fine idea. Doctors should keep abreast of treatment options.

Having the local busdriver decide he rates Plavix because he called the 800 number off tv is really bad medicine.

It's bad medicine hiding behind the rights of free expression.

The more our rights are distorted for ill gain then the more likely the populace will decide to curb the right.



As for cable commercials, yes you can flip over.

But why pay twice? You paid cash for a service and paying again with your time.

At some level that has to irk you. You just have decided there are bigger problems to worry about.


And that's why advertising grates on my nerves. I fully know they are shooting for an intrusion without raising my ire past the point that I demand action.

Like a gremlin always sneaking a small pebble into your shoe.

Stealth irritation. :evil:

[Brf]

JuntaJoe wrote: I'm talking those tv commercials whipping the idiots up to bug their doc to prescribe.

Hmmmm.... Yeah, you have a point there. Alot of those commercials dont even tell what the drug is for.... just that it will make your life better, supposedly. They should at least have to say what the drug is for.

[JuntaJoe]

Have you ever been given a prescription in the original packaging with the note covered in microprint concerning all the implications of a drug?

Now imagine the time you get in a 30 second commercial.

Reduce that time by the amount needed to verbally hype it and show those heartwarming scene of the good life.

It's like buying Miller Beer gets you hot bikini babes and wild friends hauling in pizza and wide screen tv's by the truckload.

That leaves some auction caller doing a voice-over 10 seconds to regurgitate that whole info sheet.


That's very bad medicine.



And then I pay $10 to see a movie in the theater with another $10 just for a Coke and popcorn.

What do I see?

Everyone in the movie prominently drinking Cokes instead of letting me see a movie.

Cripes, you'd think the advertisers should owe me a free Coke for that crap.



Walk into a food market sometime.

Microsized neon paper signs on the shelf labels declaring discount, special buy, closeout, and the like. So which color and designation mean it's on sale? Yellow, red, or orange?

Look up? See a drop display. Look left and see an endcap special. Just what the hell is that? Look down and trip over poorly applied floor stickers.



Billboards and taxi signs? Ok, I can live with them. But when I walk into a men's room and they put advertising over the urinals and I have to be solicited while I pee is a bit intrusive, no?



It just keeps wearing away at my patience like chinese water torture.

Let's hope I'm never told I'm terminally ill before I lose mobility and life anger.

I just might become a postman for my last day. :?

[s_stabeler]

TiVo's allow you to record w/o ads. another thing i have noticed, ads take up 1/3 of a programme's time slot. i.e. if a program is on for 1 hour, only 2/3 of that is the actual porogram. if you recorsd w/o ads, youy can fit more than 3 1-hour program onto a 3 1/2 hour tape. in fact, you can fit 5 onto that tape.

[Eddy]

I agree that advertising has become ridiculous in its pervasiveness, but I don't see what you can do other than what I do, which is to ignore it.

[estio]

JuntaJoe wrote: need to find a truly legitimate reason to break the loop and still stick to my principles...

I want that intellectual rationale if it can be found.

Joe you should be ashamed of yourself for thinking like this... I have an irrational belief. There must be some rational way to make it ok. It's very liberal of you... :roll:


There is a little good news for you, though. You can justify intolerance of much advertising and still defend free minds and markets. Advertising has a valid purpose in a free market. It disseminates information about pricing and availability that is used by individuals in making decisons. The problem is most advertising does not offer rational information. It's all emotional or on a sub conscious level. It's sneaky. Most simply, advertising is designed to pervert rational decision making. It is made to make us go against our own thoughts. Therefore it is evil and rational men should hate it. Joe, you're OK after all.

Just remember that advertising is the information highway for our wallets. :D

[JuntaJoe]

Yep, I expect my wanting to make desires into justifications is a pretty liberal thing to do.

You know, if it wasn't so "in your face" all the time then I might be more rational.

It's like a bee buzzing around your face.

Rationally, it's merely doing it's bee thing with little interest in you.

But it bugs the snot out of you and you swat at it.


I'm thinking the real problem isn't advertising or manufacturers.

It's the ad agencies.

They hype panic and solace for a living.

Purveyors of emotion. They make emotion a commodity to be traded like futures.


Ahh! Now I have a rationale!

Ad agencies are using liberal tactics to force rational thought out of the process and convincing us to resort to emotion.

Ooooh, I like that rationale! 8)