In many ways you actually cannot, in any reasonable way:
- You cannot escape surveillance unless you completely (and I do mean completely) withdraw from modern society
- You cannot protect yourself from subconscious manipulation by advertising and marketing firms that pay billions of dollars to find and exploit subconscious weaknesses that we all possess
- You cannot protect yourself from sweeping changes made (e.g. to legislation) made in response to the interests of lobbyists or bad actors, and in consequence from changes in the behaviour of others, in response
By learning the techniques they employ, a subconscious manipulation by them, becomes a conscious observation by us. Education defeats these methods. An argument could be made that more money will be spent to continually find deeper subconscious manipulations. I would wager, the ROI would diminish quickly.
I would rather be manipulated by private industry than controlled by government. I cannot out vote a majority, but I can out wit a billboard.
It does not. For example young women and girls, even when knowing that an image of a fashion model is photoshopped, still exhibit drops in their self body image.
>I would rather be manipulated by private industry than controlled by government.
In many cases these two things are the same, due to the prevalence and efficacy of lobbying
>I can out wit a billboard.
Lots of people believe this, but it is false.
In the natural world traits that are wasted on futile efforts are eventually not selected. In the human world, traits that a ripe for manipulation in a free market would result in lower purchasing power. Thus, less ability to afford children and pass on the traits. Subsidizing via regulations or direct support prolongs the subterfuge we are discussing here. Perhaps, in perpetuity.
> In many cases these two things are the same, due to the prevalence and efficacy of lobbying
The reason there are lobbyist is because we have granted those being lobbied control. Take away the control and the lobbying is pointless. More rules and regulations = more lobbying.
This is mostly nonsense
How is it mostly nonsense?
>Take away the control and the lobbying is pointless.
This social anarcho-darwinism nonsense doesn't refute my point that you are susceptible to influence and coercion.
You cannot "protect" yourself as the previous poster baselessly asserted.
Another way of saying this is that you would rather be controlled through methods which are subtle, novel, and difficult to put a finger on than through methods which are overt and fit traditional narratives of control.
Let ads and content feeds exist, but make it illegal for them to be casually viewed by anybody who hasn’t given explicit consent to be exposed to deceit and manipulation. I’m dead serious. It’s a sham that you can cannot drive on public roads without viewing billboards, or get to municipal service announcements without traversing twitter or FB.
Vermont is a great example, which banned billboards, and is adjacent to New Hampshire, a similarly sized and situated adjacent state. Driving into NH after being in VT for a while, it is immediately jarring just how offensive and ugly even a few billboards make the place.
It is a damn reasonable regulation, and more states should have it. No one is going hungry because they can't put up a billboard (especially the damn bright flashing digital billboards).
There's surely some ways you're unprepared to protect yourself. Since you're unaware, you wouldn't be able to thank them. Ignorance is bliss.
Said every smoker of tobacco. :)
That goes for gambling, smoking, prostitution, drinking, drugs, et al.
Education, therapy and taxation are about the only things that have been shown to work reasonably (eg not spurring massive crime outcomes) to introduce effective limiting forces or properly respond to the consequences of excess.
Outlawing gambling is just as insane as outlawing alcohol, smoking, drug use.
The idea that governments may not be able to (completely?) protect people does not invalidate the the idea that people cannot protect themselves.
A more modern example might be people's failure to plan for their financial future or to value critical thinking enough not to be persuaded by charismatic bad-actor shysters to do bad things
No thank you, I can protect myself.