Comment by dwiel
5 years ago
I tend to agree with this line of thinking, but I wonder if banning advertising wont have similar difficulties. There will be more sneaky product placement, anonymous donations to podcasters who tend to promote certain products/beliefs/etc.
I say this not because I think we should just give up and not ban advertising but because I'm curious how it might be done effectively.
Almost certainly the same influence patterns would emerge in different forms elsewhere, perhaps even more insidious forms!
Hence, why I think it really is (one of) the hardest challenges of our century: How do you eliminate or severely restrict influence vectors?
Who/how determines what qualifies as good/bad influence or reality?
Should positive (however defined) influence be allowed/promoted?
Not sure this one is solvable as it would require a global optimization vector which we don't (and maybe can't) generate.