The industry is full of tiny little battering rams like subliminal advertising. Each attempt yields success or failure, rinse and repeat. The refinement at this point is unfathomable.
Manipulating people for money is ethically suspect. And the whole industry is an arms race: people spend money on advertising mainly because their competitors do.
If we banned all advertising tomorrow, consumers would still get about the same outcomes, especially now that the Internet makes it easy to find products and product information. Well, the same outcomes except they'd have circa an extra $1k/year in their pockets, and would spend a lot less time watching ads.
And if there's anything which recent history has shown conclusively beyond doubt, it's that people can be relied upon to give each other reliable and accurate information about people and products. Especially online.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_WhatsApp_lynchings
[2] https://www.vox.com/2018/7/19/17594156/whatsapp-limit-forwar...
[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5489284/
[4] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/16/amazon-flooded-with-thousand...
That's surely what would happen if we banned advertising. One can already get plenty of great product information without advertising, and from the same kinds of sources you link.
What if you're advertising the historical equivalent of a vacuum cleaner over a brush? A dishwasher over washing up liquid, a car over a carriage, a savings fund that invests ethically over one that doesn't, a cheaper, faster municipal broadband over a monopolistic inferior broadband, the examples are innumerable. A progressive political party over a corrupt incumbent?
I agree in general that advertising should be curtailed from the present level, but I don't agree that it's fundamentally unethical.
If you've got to rely on word of mouth, even with the internet, it will take a lot longer for good, useful products/ideas to spread.
If advertising were vital for learning about new products, nobody would use open source software. Nobody would use Hacker News for that matter. They do, which should tell you there's something wrong with your theory.
Hacker News is literally advertising / lead gen for YCombinator.
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/21810-it-is-difficult-to-ge...
Apologies for yet again picking a nit, but PR doesn't involve paid placement of a message. Neither does lobbying, media relations, inbound marketing (Hacker News), messaging, positioning, or getting an intern to stand with a sandwich board through the street. You could run a coach and horses through that definition of advertising.
That line runs between "let's think about this as an interesting thought experiment" and "let's do this!" - People can and are manipulated even when they know they are being advertised. That has been shown time and time again. Advertising is psychological manipulation with another name.
We can't abandon and block ads completely. If we did that, we wouldn't even get to be aware of products which might really make our lives better. How do we figure out the healthy balance out? I would argue that the current laws around advertising are pretty decent but they could be made better and adapted for social media platforms.
The Electoral College is what really violates the principle of "one human, one vote".
Changing a vote is hard. They only needed to make someone vote (or not) to make a difference, which is much easier to achieve
No it really does not if you understand what a Republic of States is. We are the United States of America. A republic of states. Not "America the great democracy" like people seem to want it to become.
A federalist nation of independent states is what the constitution created, and what we should be protecting. There are many things that would improve our elections (Wyoming Rule, No Gerrymandering, Proportional Electoral College, Instant Run Off Voting, and returning the Senate to the States just to name a few) but a national popular vote for President is a TERRIBLE idea, and would rip this nation apart and in the long run likely result in another civil war.
let me Guess you live in CA, NY, or Texas?
Because with out the Electoral College, the rest of the states do not matter.. the Elections will be decided by about 5 states in the union, the very thing the Electoral College was designed to prevent and is every much just as relevant today as it was when there were only 13 colonies
As to civil war.... You do understand that most of the private guns in this nation are in the Red States, and currently if National popular vote is enacted the Blue States will effectively control government at the national level (which is most likely why you support it, chances are you are a democrat and are tried of the Republicans having any power so if NY and CA can control the nation that would be grand for you) . Which will most likely mean extreme pushes to the Authoritarian left including Draconian gun control laws and seizures... Which will bring about all out civil war
//For the Record I an neither R or D, I am small L libertarian.
This doesn't really make sense: without the Electoral College, states as entities don't decide anything. You could say the people in five states will decide the (presidential) election, but there's nothing special about them other than population density. A vote in California would be exactly the same as a vote in Wyoming.
> if National popular vote is enacted the Blue States will effectively control government at the national level
Do the Legislative and Judicial branches not exist? Eliminating the Electoral College has no effect on the former whatsoever, and it affects the latter only insofar as the Legislative branch fails to be a check on the Executive for the purpose of nominating judges.
True, Democrats would have an edge in presidential elections — but only because the general population leans Democratic. If Republicans want to win elections, maybe they should have to convince more people to support them, rather than essentially gerrymandering the presidency with a system that divides the country up into arbitrary districts and allocates votes thereto?
Not really no, not as a check on power anymore anyway
Congress has given most of their authority to the Administrative State via vague open ended laws that are more complex than a Tolstoy novel that allows the same law to "mean" opposite things when used against the citizens by the Administrative state
The Judaical Branch has stopped following the constitution as written instead injecting "world opinion" and other non-sense into their decisions
>Eliminating the Electoral College has no effect on the former whatsoever, and it affects the latter only insofar as the Legislative branch fails to be a check on the Executive for the purpose of nominating judges.
False and False. The President has all kinds of power today over both, the president should not but eliminating the Electoral Collage will make that situation worse not better as it is often the Democrats that give power to the Executive then bitch when republicans use that power when a republican is elected. Most of the powers Trump is using today where given to the President by Democrat controlled congresses
>You could say the people in five states will decide the (presidential) election
Thank you Captain Nit Pick, it is clear that is what I meant from the context of the conversation
> but there's nothing special about them other than population density.
That is what is "special" about them, Urban area's have different needs and politics that Rural area's and Urban area's should not be allowed to disenfranchise rural area's which is exactly that you are advocating for.
Might as well just end the very concept of Statehood, elminiate states all together and just have 1 National Government with zero state governments. I am sure you would be fine with that as well.
We are a federalist nation for a reason, and today with the Electoral Collage a vote in CA means exactly the same as a Vote in WY. Each state chooses who they want to to be President, then if that person whens the approval of enough STATES they become president. National Popular vote eliminates the Federalist style of national government.
Depending on party. In California, which is reliably Democratic in presidential elections, a Democrat vote counts and a Republican vote doesn't. In Wyoming, which is reliably Republican in presidential elections, a Republican vote counts and a Democrat vote doesn't. Thus, the same vote means exactly the opposite in California as in Wyoming.
It baffles me that many Americans are ok with the current rule-by-simpsons-paradox that we have.
Because of the electoral college, combined with the cap on the size of the house, less populous states are overrepresented in the house, Senate, and presidency. That's not what the founders intended, and it's a mistake that should be corrected.
Better reforms include
* Enacting the Wyoming Rule
* Eliminating Gerrymandering, I want to use the other non political division to choose congressional districts. Counties, Postal Codes, Phone Area Codes something else
* Proportional Electoral College: Each Congressional District will vote for the President instead of Each State
* Instant Run Off Voting: First past the post needs to end.
* returning the Senate to the States
These are just a few reforms that I support
I think any argument against the Electoral College has to also include an argument against the Senate. Or is two senators/state acceptable?
The founding fathers clearly considered the effects of having large population centers and attempted to account for it in the House.
A system with no representation for the smaller states would lead to exactly the same scenario that caused the U.S. to be founded. Popular vote would always decide in favor of urban centers and rural citizens would be neglected yet expected to pay taxes.
Please don't rewrite history to support your political opinions.
> Popular vote would always decide in favor of urban centers and rural citizens would be neglected yet expected to pay taxes.
The point is that disenfranchisement of a large group of people would lead them to seek action against the government. You could pick the Civil Rights Movement if you think the Revolution doesn't fit the bill for some reason.
Yes and my point is that the comparison isn't apt.
> The point is that disenfranchisement of a large group of people would lead them to seek action against the government.
You mean like how those in urban centers are disenfranchised under the current system? "When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression" seems to apply.
Taxation was a reason, but even just a basic reading of the Declaration of Independence shows there are "a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism"
As such it was "their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security"
I don't think I said anything about the sole reason being taxation. What I said was that limited political representation was not the issue, a complete absence was. I'm glad we agree on that.
As in other federal countries, it makes sense to elect one purely by popular vote, the other by giving each state equal representation.
To pass a law, you'd then need 50% of people and 50% of states to support it.
This is a simpler system for elections, and keeps the power of people and states more balanced.
e.g. Germany uses a very similar system (Bundestag being elected by popular vote, Bundesrat being chosen by each state).
Given the amount of guns in general circulation, I am not sure this calculus really matters. There is kind of a limit to how many guns you can hold at once.
Did we really not know that prior to 2016?
Did we really not know prior to Snowden that the NSA, GCHQ and all the others spied on the populace? There's a market difference between knowing in the abstract and understanding it as "this is happening. Right now. Here."
But conversely, it was well that Obama used data analytics to enhance his campaign[1], using techniques extremely similar to Cambridge Analytica's[2].
The important difference being users of the Obama for America app opted into sharing their data for political purposes, whereas CA claimed to be a personality quiz to secretly harvest data for political purposes.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewel_v._NSA [1] https://www.technologyreview.com/s/509026/how-obamas-team-us... [2] https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/mar...
The advertising industry comes from war propaganda from what I understand. So using advertising to sell goods is actually much more recent than using these methods to manipulate political views...
If this kind of advertising is able to make people act against their own interest to the level claimed with this political meddling, how is this somehow more acceptable on an economic level which directly impacts individuals?
At least for most people the consequences of the election are more distant, whereas if people are tricked into making poor purchasing decisions they could be looking at directly losing hundreds or thousands of dollars. Certainly a large amount over their lifetime.
I can't see how this is any better, and I personally think it's worse. Is the only justification that poor purchasing decisions directly impacts the easily influenced people (one could unpleasantly spin it as getting what they deserve), whereas political decisions hit everyone?
(Not saying I completely buys this, but there is a major difference here).
As they've always done through the media? The hardest thing to swallow, for some people, is that democracy is deeply flawed, and these things openly show it. Until now they've been free to ignore it.
If you study a bit of History, or look beyond the western world, you will see how terrible the alternatives are. And you will see that democracy is something worth fighting for. Democracy is not flawed, it is hard. We have to fight for it, and the next generations will have to fight for it, and so on. It's real life.
I haven't resigned myself to living in a Black Mirror episode.
got a link or reference? would love to read more
And why it is so extremely dangerous that people are trying to destroy those checks and institute a direct democracy with things like the national popular vote.
In the US, the constitutional amendment process simply requires enough people in enough states to make an amendment happen. The people of the US could turn the US into one gigantic direct democracy should enough people so democratically vote.
The fact that most people in the US seem satisfied with a representative democracy rather than a direct democracy hardly seems reason to say that the US is not a democracy at all.
All of those checks and balances at every level of government were established by either the people themselves or by representatives of the people on behalf of the people. They were not put in place by some king or dictator. The checks and balances could be undone anytime enough people wanted to undo them, up to and including voiding the current Constitution and starting over if enough people wanted to. Maybe this kind of democracy should be distinguished from a true direct democracy -- like maybe an acquiescent direct democracy, where as long as you keep doing what the people want they won't take back direct control or something.
But the fact of the matter is that the sovereign of the United States as a whole and of each of the states individually is and has always been the people, the demos, δῆμος -- from whence democracy (δημοκρᾰτῐ́ᾱ) comes.
I mean, it says it right there at the beginning of the establishing document, "We the people ..."
The US could not turn itself in to a direct democracy with a vote of the people. The US Constitution would have to be amended and there is no mechanism in the US Constitution that would allows a direct vote to turn this nation into a direct democracy
>In the US, the constitutional amendment process simply requires enough people in enough states to make an amendment happen.
No that is not how it works at all. Either Congress would have to propose Amendments or 2/3 of the states would have to get together at a convention to propose them
Then they would need to be ratified by 3/4 (not 50%) of the states to be adopted
A direct Democracy would only require 50%+1 of the people in a nation wide vote. That is not how our constitution works and there is zero mechanism for such a vote to happen
>The checks and balances could be undone anytime enough people wanted to undo them, up to and including voiding the current Constitution and starting over if enough people wanted to.
This is all true, and has been over the years. For example on massive check on federal government power was that the Senate was not to be popularly elected by citizens, instead the Senate's purpose was to represent each states government's interest in congress, not the people. The House was "the peoples house", The constitution was amended to make the Senate a popularly elected position just like the house. This resulted in a MASSIVE expansion of Federal power, and the loss of State Sovereignty and pushing us closer to the nightmare that would be a direct democracy aka mob rule
Who in your mind does the voting on the representatives that would be proposing and voting on the constitutional amendments? I didn't say that it would only take a simple majority of voters to turn the US into a direct democracy. I said it would take enough voters to turn the US into a direct democracy. It would simply take enough voters to turn state legislatures into machines to produce the amendments to turn the Constitution into a direct democracy through amendment.
I never once in my reply said that it would take a simple majority.
>>In the US, the constitutional amendment process simply requires enough people in enough states to make an amendment happen.
> No that is not how it works at all. Either Congress would have to propose Amendments or 2/3 of the states would have to get together at a convention to propose them
Yes, this is literally how it works. If enough people of the several states voted for enough legislators who were committed to amending the Constitution such, that is all you need.
The process is more involved, yes, as you've laid out. But all you need is enough voters to do it. Those voters might have to go through the process of populating their state legislatures and the federal delegations with the right representatives to do it, but the sole requirement is that you have enough voters who want to do it.
> Then they would need to be ratified by 3/4 (not 50%) of the states to be adopted
Yes, again, this is just another way of saying that you need enough people. States can ratify by public referendum or by action of the legislature. Either way, you just need enough people. (E.g., [0])
> A direct Democracy would only require 50%+1 of the people in a nation wide vote. That is not how our constitution works and there is zero mechanism for such a vote to happen
I never said a single, nationwide vote. I just said you need enough people voting.
> This is all true, and has been over the years. For example on massive check on federal government power was that the Senate was not to be popularly elected by citizens, instead the Senate's purpose was to represent each states government's interest in congress, not the people. The House was "the peoples house", The constitution was amended to make the Senate a popularly elected position just like the house. This resulted in a MASSIVE expansion of Federal power, and the loss of State Sovereignty and pushing us closer to the nightmare that would be a direct democracy aka mob rule
I agree with this (except the moralizing about mob rule -- I don't have much opinion on whether direct democracy would be good or bad). All I'm saying is that if enough people wanted to, the progression to direct democracy would be unstoppable. All it takes is enough people (voting for the right legislators, etc etc yes yes the process itself takes more than a simple vote).
Edit: I am not saying whether the US voters turning the US into a direct democracy would be a good thing or not! I don't claim to know one way or another. I am only claiming that they could, if they wanted to. End edit.
I'm sorry that I was not more clear in what I wrote.
I was merely trying to point out that in a nation where the people themselves retain the ultimate power (sovereignty) to direct their own form of government, regardless of how the government is constituted at any given time, then you cannot realistically call it anything other than a democracy.
[0] https://ballotpedia.org/Ohio_Ratification_of_Federal_Constit...
What we in the US have is a representative democracy / republic that is also rather decentralized federation (states and state's rights) as well.
The US is a democracy. 🇺🇸
The Senate was appointed by State Legislatures, this was changed with the 17th Amendment
The President is Chosen by Electorial College not a democratic vote (which I support BTW)
The Judicial Branch is Appointed for Life.
> Republic: 1. A commonwealth; a state in which the exercise of the sovereign power is lodged in representatives elected by the people. In modern usage, it differs from a democracy or democratic state, in which the people exercise the powers of sovereignty in person. Yet the democracies of Greece are often called republics.
So historically, a distinction was in fact made.
Here is Alexander Hamilton (a republican in the classical sense of the word) making the distinction very clearly:
> "We are now forming a republican government. Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments. Those who mean to form a solid republican government, ought to proceed to the confinges of another government. As long as offices are open to all men, and no constitutional rank is established, it is pure republicanism. But if we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy."
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alexander_Hamilton#Debates_of_...
Even in the days anything more insidious would happen over direct mailing, or direct spam through the mailbox. Even knowing what magazines someone subscribes to is not obvious if you don’t catch the mail staff or check the garbage, which would be roughly equivalent to stalking someone online and checking their accounts followings and network.
I think as long as people are trying to build communities, there will be channels to get what other people are thinking/reading/discussing. It will be more tricky with true direct one direction messaging sending “orders” to an army of followers of an ideology.
CNN et al which all have questionable at best propaganda/war drum records are still pointed to with appeals to authority.l, etc.
But now we see that those same instruments can be used to not only change shopping decisions but also democratic decisions, which is not okay in my opinion and should be prosecuted and be punished with severe penalties.
Otherwise, the whole point of democracy (one human, one vote) is useless, as the rich can simply buy ads to influence enough people to follow their goals.