Comment by bccdee

> No, murder is not comparable to advertising.

Sure it is. You made a sweeping statement about services in a market; those are both services subject to market forces. You say (supposing for the sake of argument that advertising is as harmful as the article makes it out to be) that a ban would be unacceptably authoritarian and ineffective anyway. Well, we ban harmful things in the market all the time. Such as murder.

> not once did I ever say the phrase "self-regulating"

No, you said the phrase "decentralized market regulation," which means the same thing as "the market regulating itself," and suggests the absence of any actual regulation whatsoever.

> nor did I argue against regulation of advertising

You said natural markets could only be controlled through authoritarian means, which is always worse than "decentralized market regulation." This is an argument in favour of deregulation.

> Ultimately, the vast majority of advertisements you see are for the products that are the most desired by people

No, they're for products with the largest marginal return on showing ads. That's why you often see ads for pharmaceuticals that only a tiny segment of the population will ever need—because they're highly profitable and thus advertising offers high returns.

> that advertising is a scam and intended to "misinform" is incorrect

Intended to *manipulate. Whether they inform or misinform is totally orthogonal to their purpose.

> Are some advertisements scams? Absolutely. The market is not perfectly efficient

The efficient market hypothesis applies specifically to asset markets. There's no real model of what an "efficient price" is for most consumer goods, services, or advertising campaigns, because those are not assets and do not retain market value after sale.

Anyway, this strikes me as a bizarrely dogmatic way to "debunk" the widespread presence of scams in our society. Multi-level marketing schemes have not gone anywhere, nor has the related category of self-help seminar grifts. You can keep a lie going for a very long time, and make a lot of money doing so. "Efficient markets" do not protect us from that reality.

> Guess I'm stupid

…

> and I need an authoritarian like you to tell me a smarter way to live.

Try a mandoline slicer, with the julienne teeth up.

> The market for kitchen knives is extremely competitive [even though] the advertising doesn't take the form of a 30 second TV spot[.] [...] How do you think certain brands even appear on the shelves of the stores you shop in? [...] it's more of an economic calculation

So you're telling me that, when it comes to cooking knives, the incentives at play mean I'm primarily exposed to advertising for scam products? Wow I'm glad we agree.