Who do you put in place to make the judgement? I don’t want you, you don’t want me. Once something is banned, it almost never comes back.
You earlier said that you’d be OK with a small business advertising something unhealthy but not big business. Not much incentive to the capitalists in society really is it?
There’s a level of cognitive dissonance about a standpoint that a business can operate (lets call it burgerqueen) but can’t advertise. Either a product or service should be available or it shouldn’t. If it’s available, it should be allowed for it to be advertised. There’s no question that smoking kills. There’s no question that stopping its advertising has saved lives. But is that fair to the manufacturers if their product is legal for sale? I’m not thinking about the good of the consumer here, I’m thinking about the business. That’s back to that personal responsibility thing that you reject. Booze advertising will be next, then meat, then cars as I mentioned above. You keep banning and I’ll point out how vanilla life will become. This does also seem to have a lot of left vs right about it. You know how I lean.
I don’t reject personal responsibility at all. But I reject conscious big-scale manipulation by massive multinational companies, driving millions of (mostly fragile and uneducated) people into addictions of all types. I’d support banning those, and my life wouldn’t be poorer because of it, on the contrary.
My last word on this. Enjoy your multinational companies, the flashy billionaires and their advertisment. If it makes you happy, who am I to argue?
The tobacco industry is a particularly salient example. It was shown over and over again that the tobacco industry knew how dangerous their products were, and suppressed this information, continuing to peddle their products to the public, and, unforgivingly, at children - knowing they were creating chemical addiction that would lead to suffering. It’s hard to think of a more clear example of pure corporate evil.
There is a certain misty eyed view of advertising that is stuck in the 1930s. The idea of a business politely letting the customer know their product exists, and would they mind awfully considering it next time they are shopping for a product in that range?
Advertising hasn’t been about awareness for decades. It’s brutally effective at bypassing the rational part of the brain and creating a need that didn’t exist before. It uses techniques that are psychological in nature and scientifically developed to impact on your wellbeing.
No-one is immune to this. If you have a brain you are vulnerable.
In my opinion…
There should be an absolute prohibition on any advertising aimed at children, both in placement of ads and also in tone and style. The advertising industry have deliberately weaponised pester power for decades to manipulate children to advocate for their products at their parents. This is completely unethical.
Products proven to be harmful to people (such as gambling, alcohol, sugary drinks and junk food) should be restricted to simple awareness campaigns and should not be allowed to associate their products to a particular lifestyle or type of person. (Eg. Alcohol ads showing how cool sexy people drink their brand) Similarly, the use of celebrities to advocate for harmful products should be prohibited.
No advert should be able to make exaggerated claims about their product, use invented scientific reasoning or deploy pretend scientists or experts to advocate for their product.
The idea that advertising should be unregulated is madness. The advertising industry has shown no ability to restrain themselves. Government should keep them in check.
Booze is one commonly used in this discussion but the data is not at all clear and cannot currently rule out that some low level of consumption may actually be beneficial (not interested in a debate on that, only raising the issue of the current lack of clarity in the evidence).
Furthermore, addiction is really a two pronged issue. Sure, booze and cigarettes have properties that make them inherently addictive, but there is also an element of addiction that is agnostic to the thing the person is addicted to. Anything your brain can create a positive association around can become addictive to to that person. From the counselling perspective we think about addiction as the compulsion to engage a behavior you know will produce negative outcomes in your life (a distinction form the chemical compulsion caused by the intake of substances, a distinction that helps make sense of “addictions” like shopping, gambling and porn). So, you’re addicted to running - you continue to do it despite being hurt and continue to make yourself worse, and spend so long on it that it produces marital strife resulting in divorce. Do we have to ban advertising of running shoes because its possible for that to play in someone’s damaging addiction?
Which makes my point perfectly. Wanting the government in charge of banning things is not a particularly good idea based on what they consider to be acceptable.
Sure. But there are things in society - like booze, fags, gambling - that are particularly addictive and particularly harmful. Alcohol addiction and misuse is a notable, widespread problem in society
It’s a stretch to suggest that addiction to running is a blight on society in the same way those are.
Besides, I am not saying that Alcohol shouldn’t be advertised - just that it shouldn’t be done in a way that glorifies those products.
I stumbled onto a couple of things on this. The £350m/week is a number that appears to have been plucked from thin air but the actual money going out, coming in, going to the NHS is stupidly complex.
I won’t drag the topic off further but I guess it does show the power of advertising and how it can lead people down alleys they may not wish to venture.
Agreed, but there must be some process in allowing things to happen or to stop them from happening.
Advertising is seductive and leads people into a life choice that at times they cannot manage.
Companies are there to sell their products and have limited morals or scruples in how they do that (bar a small minority of ethical teaders).
Watch Dopesick to see how a campaign was directly responsible for mass addiction.
I looked after a lady to was addicted to oxycontin, and her level of choice was decimated
Discussion on Newstalk yesterday surrounding gambling addiction and the requirement for controls to be put in place.
Very apt quote: “No alcoholic ever thought he could drink himself sober, but every gambling addict keeps betting as they think they can save themselves with one more bet”
Part of me has no issue with it, should the government be responsible for saving people from themselves? And the other part of me realises that given human nature, it would cause a horrific social crisis. You’d have months of chaos and a lot of funerals.
The other addictions mentioned in this thread cause social crisis and a lot of deaths so I don’t see where your distinction is. I thought you’d have been all for it, to see you sitting on the fence surprises me.
Easy to say legalise it all then all the crazies in society kill themselves quickly and cheaply. Massive long term reduction in crime as all the burglars (most) are dead at their own hands.
Believe me, there are positives. But then government has a responsibility to maintain order. From the top of the fence you see both sides of the divide.
It’s not that simple though is it. Hypothetical government legalises all drugs. Within a week the hospitals are bursting and have to cancel all non essential treatment. Those who don’t take drugs massively adversely affected. However in the long term you remove effectively the golgafrincham B ark from society.
Would do wonders for carbon emissions in the long term but you also throw children who currently have a shit life into absolute hell. But maybe better in the long run?
