What if we banned all advertising? Not regulate it—abolish it. This proposal would transform manipulation machines, and maybe save democracy itself. A thought experiment worth considering.

The idea feels like sci-fi because you’re so used to it, imagining ads gone feels like asking to outlaw gravity. But humanity had been free of current forms of advertising for 99.9% of its existence. Word-of-mouth and community networks worked just fine. First-party websites and online communities would now improve on that.

The traditional argument pro-advertising—that it provides consumers with necessary information—hasn’t been valid for decades.

  • buddascrayon@lemmy.world
    248·
    7 hours ago

    I would argue that what this article is advocating for isn’t a definitive end to advertisement per se. Truthfully that would be impossible.

    What we truly need are iron clad privacy laws that impose unbreakable regulations with destructive fines when violated by companies and organizations.

      • RangerJosey@lemmy.mlEnglish
        7·
        5 hours ago

        If fines aren’t a percentage of quarterly or annual earnings they don’t matter. Ten million to a company earning billions isn’t even a rounding error. But 30% of their gross. They’d respect that. They’d have to.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      5 hours ago

      “We need a large group of ideologically committed bureaucrats willing to impose policy in the face of a defiant, intractable established opposition” is simultaneously true and not terribly helpful, unless you can show where these people are coming from.

      Like, we’ve seen instances of this happen before. Elon’s DOGE is a great current example of a group of ideologically dedicated barn burners. The OG FBI was another great example of a department effectively founded to militantly oppose a well-financed and popular opposition. FDR’s court appointees (and his arm-twisting with the threat to further pack the courts) could be considered another.

      But who in the modern political system wants to go head-to-head with multinational corporations (other than the Trump Tariff goons, I guess)? Dems are Pro-Business. Republicans are Pro-Fascist Business. There is no leadership, outside of a handful of die-hards like AOC and Bernie - who could conceivably be both willing and able to execute on these kinds of reforms.

      I wish there was. But this is just pie-in-the-sky dreaming until you can find a municipal or state government with the kind of people engaged enough to rally for it and seek promotion to the federal level on this kind of platform.

      • Initiateofthevoid@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        3·
        5 hours ago

        But who in the modern political system wants to go head-to-head with multinational corporations

        Very few people currently in the modern political system could or would be willing to take them on, true. But we have 2026 to start filling the next House and a third of the Senate with people who would be up to the challenge. We need to primary strong candidates and we need to platform third-party candidates wherever they can actually win.

        To those who say “there will be no more elections” - yes, that’s what they wanted, but what they have actually done was dismantle the government and set the US careening towards economic collapse. With Trump’s brain failing and his administration making idiotic mistakes left and right, we shouldn’t assume they’re going to get everything they wanted exactly how they wanted it.

        These are unprecedented times, but the 1930s were unprecedented times too.

        Progressive government by its very terms must be a living and growing thing, that the battle for it is never-ending and that if we let up for one single moment or one single year, not merely do we stand still but we fall back in the march of civilization.

        Then-governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, May 1930

        • buddascrayon@lemmy.world
          1·
          1 hour ago

          FDR also came into the presidency after a devastating economical collapse which we are just one ecological disaster away from experiencing.