Why advertising should be illegal (catchy title pending)

Free will and nerds getting too good at advertising

Do we have free will?

Scientists and philosophers have debated the topic for centuries but I’m here to cut the cheese. You don’t have free will because when I hit a double hesi pump fake reverse layup in your face there’s nothing you can do about it.

All joking aside, like all of life’s real questions it isn’t clear. It’s in the boring gray area of sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t. I used to declare definitively that we don’t have free will quoting superciliously the 1980 study where a neuroscientist named Benjamin Libel asked the participants to sit in an empty room with only a table and a button in front of them and to push the button whenever they felt like it. Here is an excerpt from a paper I found on it from Science daily.

‘neuroscientist Benjamin Libet further tested the relationship between the RP (The readiness potential, a brain signal that precedes spontaneous, voluntary movements) and conscious awareness or intention of voluntary action. His highly influential results showed that approximately 200ms before his subjects pressed the button, they were aware of an urge or the intention to act, something Libet referred to as the W time, and yet the RP consistently preceded W time.

Libet suggested that these findings showed that even before we make a conscious decision of voluntary action, the brain was already unconsciously activated and involved in planning the action. ‘

Breathing may change your mind about free will (2020) ScienceDaily. Available at: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200206080449.htm (Accessed: 19 December 2024).

Basically we think we’re choosing to press the button when we feel like it but something has already made the decision before us…. much like a ‘mutual’ breakup (please take me back) .

However this is merely pressing a button and if the outcome of the decision is the same as the thought we have in our head and this RP signal just got there before us aren’t we still doing what we want ? I don’t know.

What it does prove is that there’s numerous physical background processes that influence our decisions . There’s the obvious like hunger. If you’re hungry you might get that take away you don’t need or take the chicken out of the oven too soon and end up eating a surprisingly delicious half cooked very slimy chicken which causes you to meet God on the toilet bowl (Just me ?) . It’s these primal lizard brain urges that hijack our rational mind and cause us to make decisions that are not in our best interest.

Mass advertising

This is where I argue that mass advertising should be illegal or at least it’s subjects are entitled to renumeration or to be educated and aware of what’s happening.

But not all advertising. Local advertising is not so bad especially for free national TV that is supported completely by ads and tv licences. Or wee johnny putting his ad in the paper to advertise his egg business. These are obviously fine. I’m talking about billboards in cities that display different things depending on what time of day and clientele are looking at them. They know what to advertise based on data you haven’t realised you have sold. Companies can build predictive models for the whole population from information taken from 10% of phones. This data can be used to predict when certain groups of people will be in certain places. Clear channel is an advertising company in the UK and owns thousands of screens within London City and they work with the German data company adsquare to build these predictive models and can predict where and when certain groups will be with accuracy . Clear channel says it knows when to show specific ads in order to target 18-24 cinema goers, people who eat out frequently and parents who have recently visited a department store. You may be able to keep your information secure if you’re cautious. But these companies pull information from people who may not be as diligent as you but who act like you and have similar habits and thus these models are able to infer what you might like too.

It’s mass manipulation without consent

Advertising works, that’s why they do it . It’s designed manipulation of our primal limbic system* (One of the oldest parts of our brain, home to the amygdala and the memory of your French teachers ass ). Advertising preys on our need for status, acceptance and the desire to rent a peasant to deliver you a Kebab at 3am.

An individual who educates themselves on how advertising works might be able to escape its clutches however people are busy and some people are stupid. It’s the modern jungle. The slowest capybara is eaten by the anaconda. The capybara that gets up and does his push-ups and reads his Dostoevsky is too sharp and will survive.

But the weak are vulnerable. We have to protect the weak. Once you enter a city you are assaulted constantly without consent. What if I don’t consent to this constant flogging of wares. Is that the price for entering a city ? My attention is being taken against my will. Then you open your phone and there’s ads built especially for you by web scraping algorithms. Every game you played, holiday you took, book you bought , groceries you bought for dinner , bus trip and wank all collected to build a digital profile of you just to sell you shite you don’t need.

It is an attack on our privacy.

REVENGE OF THE NERDS

Nerds are finding the most effective way to do things . Remember when Fortnite was good at the start and then the sweats got too good at building and ruined it for everyone. Then everyone had to play the game the one way, the most efficient way or just get demolished. That outcome isn’t too bad . Fortnite was ruined boo hoo but when much smarter people than a Fortnite incel are working together on the best ways to get people to do what they want ie. buy shit we don’t need , then we have a problem.

Regulation is needed. The more we learn about the brain the better they will be able to manipulate it. They won’t stop until we’re human batteries powering their overly opulent lives . Like the car battery from Rick and Morty. Or eventually they’ll come up with something so good and we’ll never leave the house. We’ll just be getting sucked off by a super milf robot dressed as Hagrid.

We’re doomed the sex bots are going to get us.