People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.
You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.
Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.
You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.
– Banksy
Wery much in the spirit of make it personal from "altered carbon"
"The personal, as everyone’s so fucking fond of saying, is political. So if some idiot politician, some power player, tries to execute policies that harm you or those you care about, take it personally. Get angry. The Machinery of Justice will not serve you here – it is slow and cold, and it is theirs, hardware and soft-. Only the little people suffer at the hands of Justice; the creatures of power slide from under it with a wink and a grin. If you want justice, you will have to claw it from them. Make it personal. Do as much damage as you can. Get your message across. That way, you stand a better chance of being taken seriously next time. Of being considered dangerous. And make no mistake about this: being taken seriously, being considered dangerous marks the difference - the only difference in their eyes - between players and little people. Players they will make deals with. Little people they liquidate. And time and again they cream your liquidation, your displacement, your torture and brutal execution with the ultimate insult that it’s just business, it’s politics, it’s the way of the world, it’s a tough life and that it’s nothing personal. Well, fuck them. Make it personal."
The “A plot” was closer to the book than the “B plot”, but the A plot was weakened too. The digital/virtual torture scene has the single most glaring omission. However, thematically the Hollywood version of Quellism is the single biggest change, as it alters the motives of many characters. Event by event the “A plot” is close to the book, but it tones down the raw anarchy of the book.
> Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.
Funnily enough, you can say the same thing about Bansky's art:
> An artist who defaced several works of famed graffiti artist Banksy has been charged with the crime of vandalism -- which is pretty incredible since Banksy's collection is itself an act of vandalism
What are you gaining by arguing this? What point are you trying to make? Do you really think an artist who hand-paints pieces on walls is comparable to a corporation that copy-pastes their flashing, carefully targeted, profit-seeking message onto dozens of billboards overlooking a highway? Are their motives and the results of their work not wildly different?
Your second example is valid. But your first example is a complete strawman. Bansky didn't sue, the property owner did, because they liked Banksy's thing and didn't like what the vandal did.
Banksy is a commercial enterprise, though. There is a financial benefit to putting their work in places where the public is forced to see it. By raising their public profile, they're also raising the prices they can charge for other work. It is, in a very real sense, advertising.
I'm a fan, but there's still a point to be made here. Banksy works on public sites do function in part as ads.
I think it's critically different from advertising because the art is also the product itself. You're meant to enjoy the art for what it is. An ad on the other hand, is meant to encourage you to buy a separate product; this can be effective even if you absolutely hate the ad.
A more apt comparison would be a company giving out free samples. If you get a free sample of a delicious new cheese brand, you might talk about it to others and raise their public profile. But that only works if the cheese is delicious. On the other hand, an ad might just rudely scream "KRAFT MAC AND CHEESE" at you for twenty seconds in hopes of subconsciously leading you to buy their product when you see it in the store later that week.
Trolling as protected speech is an interesting perspective. I’ve often felt that trolling is part behavioral issue and another part free expression. I wonder how these lines blur as they cross over into the digital realm.
> “Though I find him as annoying as many others do, I find him equally and strangely compelling,” Belisle wrote. “He is, in his own way, a placeholder. He prompts me to remember that not all hear the same music I hear; or respond the same way.”
> In a phone interview, Belisle, who specializes in family and preventive medicine, said The Whistler is breaking down barriers that people put around themselves, forcing people to notice what is right in front of them. He is, she said, a reminder that everyone marches to the beat of their own drummer.
> “The best thing you can do is have compassion for other people whose songs are not the same as yours,” she said.
And his quote in the top post is hypocritical, at least the advertisers pay for displaying the ads, banksy appears to use the anarchist non payment approach.
Maybe all his revenue goes to charity but I sense an artist complaining about capitalism while laughing to the bank.
A lot of times people who loudly yell "fuck the system" are also quietly using the system when it suits them, that's my point. Bansky is no "dismantle the capitalism" hero or whatever pedestal people have him on.
I hear you; the copyright case especially shows that he is no paragon of anti-capitalism. But I think it's worth maintaining that (1) some things are worse than other things and (2) motive matters and (3) imperfect people can still make good points.
I have never, ever felt like a piece of Banksy's art, or any original piece of visual artwork for that matter, is being shoved down my throat. They're quiet, static, relatively low in number, and easily avoidable & ignorable. I've never felt distracted or distressed because my local coffee shop has a new mural on their wall, and nobody has ever forced me to walk through an art museum in order to get to the grocery store. On the other hand, advertisements are loud, moving, insanely numerous, and totally non-optional. My local subway and subway stations are plastered in advertisements; if I want to transit anywhere, I must endure them.
Plus, the motives are different! Sure, Banksy or $artist_name likely want folks to find their art appealing and then compensate them somehow, via buying copies, commissioning new art, spreading their reputation, whatever. But advertisers do not care if you found their ad appealing; they just want you to buy their product. In fact, many ads are purposely obnoxious or abhorrent just because it's an effective way to bring your attention towards their product. How dystopian is that?
And yes, there's some irony in Banksy, as someone who occasionally benefits from copyright law, to be making this point. But that doesn't make him wrong! And, it'd be far more ironic if, I don't know, Sergey Brin or someone else who use hugely benefited from advertising and copyright law were making the point.
Multiply it times a billion. One Banksy is tolerable, a million people graffiting their opinions everywhere would be truly awful. Therefore what Banksy is doing is immoral.
I disagree with the scale multiplier being a metric of morality. If one ice cream truck drives down my street, it puts me in a good mood even if I don't want to buy any ice cream from them. A continuous parade of ice cream trucks would be maddening. But that doesn't mean the ice cream truck driver who actually exists is behaving poorly.
One Jesus of Nazareth is tolerable, a million people preaching their opinions everywhere would be truly awful. Therefore what Jesus was doing is immoral.
>I hear you; the copyright case especially shows that he is no paragon of anti-capitalism.
Does it, though? The linked TMZ article suggests the lawsuit was filed by the Los Angeles DA on behalf of the property owner whose property lost value because of the defacement. It doesn't appear that Banksy himself is involved in the lawsuit.
It is similar to the logic of nations desiring peace but having an armed force for defense. If you are attacked and you refuse to engage in that system, disarming unilaterally, you may avoid violence, but at a loss of other values. Using the system judiciously can enable you to disengage from it in the longer term.
The tradeoffs for choosing this path will be different for different situations, but I don't think it's fair to say that taking advantage of rules you claim to hate is always clear-cut hypocrisy.
Proxy wars are a wrinkle in this logic whereby strong belligerents pick their battles so that they have plausible deniability; deniable wins and losses, deniable assets and capital, deniable aims and goals. Deceit and détente have a fractious relationship, but often serve complementary purposes - managing perception of reality and control of time and space via control of individuals and groups.
The personal is political. Weak sides challenge stronger opponents all the time, just usually not militarily. By situating yourself in opposition to power structures, you may reframe the debate and win it on its merits in the minds of the public, thus causing friction when status quo attempts to reassert itself.
Defense forces in some places serve in other defense capacities outside of military conflict. I would say they are quite desirable even in places you mentioned
This argument, most of the time, is just bad and not smart. "If you hate capitalism, why do you use iPads? etc." It's dreck and it should stop because it's rarely constructive.
Sometimes it's a necessary tool. Sometimes people are experimenting. Sometimes people do actually sell out.
The problem with this argument is that it tries to shut down the above questions.
Details matter, and bad arguments like the above rarely help.
All these points are doing the stupid thing of presuming a clear controllable definition of capitalism; when in reality, no "ism" is a controllable unified entity.
People will always and forever make mutually beneficial trades, probably with money.
Now, will people also always have the opportunity to freely invest sums of money in imaginary chopped up pieces of a corporation without fear of financial liability should they cause a great deal of harm? Maybe not, because Gamestop is teaching us a lot of things.
Regardless of what happens, the dumb thing is presuming that these two things are both the exact same thing called "capitalism."
>There is no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism.
That's such a useless statement that even were it true, it proves the parent's point. That moral judgement doesn't lead us closer to a world without capitalism. Go to any haven of anti-capitalism and ask for a link to the manual they have for getting from HERE to THERE. Not even a theory on how to dismantle what we have.
FWIW personally I think capitalism is the worst system, other than all the others. Rein it in, set principles in stone for what we expect and demand from our system, but markets shouldn't magically disappear because we've lost control once.
So I'm not trying to defend Banksy specifically here...
>So you called that artist a "vandal". Would you also call Bansky a "vandal"?
He can be both, "vandal" and "artist" aren't mutually exclusive.
>Some people find unapproved grafitti objectionable. How do you feel about that?
I'm not answering for the person you're responding to, but for me, I'd say I feel fine about that. There are people who find nudity in art objectionable; who object to the Mona Lisa; to surreal art; to abstract art; to land art; to a specific artist; to an artistic medium. There's always going to be someone who objects to some form of art, so I'm not sure what you're getting at.
Objecting to unapproved grafitti is not about "is it art". it's about property destruction. If you disagree then I'll be happy to come over to your house and paint whatever "I want" on your house, your car, and TV, your computer, your sofa. If you'd be upset that I painted your stuff then you agree with the people who see it as property destruction. If you'd be upset for your own stuff but not when that stuff belongs to someone else then you're just being hypocritical.
Did you read the linked article? [1] The only thing that matters is if the property owner likes it. If the property owner likes it, it stays up, if they don't, they file a vandalism case with the city.
Banksy is a vandal, as I'm sure anyone would admit, himself included. I am equally sure that there have been times when property owners haven't liked his work and have tried to report him for vandalism. But given he doesn't make a habit of posting videos of his actions online and bragging about them, he doesn't get caught/attributed.
Yes. I like Banksy drawings, really. But Banksy was vandal when Banksy drew his thing on the same wall again and again, while owner quite clearly did not wanted that and kept repainting the wall again again. And to be frank, he was also asshole about it.
If someone tagged my front door I'd be quite angry about it and clean it off.
If someone spent 6 hours with a ladder carefully painting the entire outside of my house with a beautiful mural I'd still be upset that they painted my house without my permission but I'd probably leave it there.
advertizers vandalize the sensory experience across the board, they pollute our cognition with conditioned and conditional thinking, they remove our choices in a clandestine style, they reduce the world to a penny mill so the lunch is free while the consumers back is the table for a feast by candlelight
Your TMZ article is about the Los Angeles DA filing a lawsuit on behalf of the property owners who lost value on their property when Banksy's work was defaced. It doesn't appear that Banksy, himself, is involved with the lawsuit at all.
You can follow his own advice and deface any of his pieces you're forced to see until he stops doing it to you, morally. I wouldn't touch the legality of it with a 10 foot pole though.
Fuck that indeed. Very strong message here, and I love it. I wish I could take all those ads and shove them into their asses. But what is being suggested here? What's mine to take? If I see an ad, can I reuse the artwork? No. If I see a car, I can't just copy it's design. Can I just paint over it, or rip it apart? No, that would be vandalism. As much as I hate ads, THEY have re-arranged the world by paying for it in a free market, and we must respect that. Soviet Union had very little ads. So, yes, we must ask permission until we figure out a better way.
You shouldn't do it publicly and with your name and face with it. You aren't legally allowed to.
But that is far away from "can't". Hardly anyone is going to stop you from drawing a moustache on a poster or from stickering a snarky remark over an ad or from spray painting your opinion about some advertised product on said ad.
It's not just a word, it's a law, from UK's Criminal Damage Act 1971: "A person who without lawful excuse destroys or damages any property belonging to another intending to destroy or damage any such property or being reckless as to whether any such property would be destroyed or damaged shall be guilty of an offence."
But whether we should change that law is probably an off-topic here. All I am saying is that we must respect the law. If we don't agree with the law, we must try to change it, and not just go about destroying each other's property.
They manage just fine. About 8-9 months ago they were used to find a couple of vandals who were destroying bus stops at night. The cops traced them from camera to camera and sent a patrol car as a welcoming party.
There are still ways around that. A small act of sabotage is not worth the enforcement for most police agencies, unless you live in a very fascist country. So a small precaution might be enough to avoid it.
Most cities have mask requirements and many cities like SF won't even followup on these types of crimes. The more cameras exist on street corners the less likely the police will get involved.
There's no "logic" at all here. All I did was point out how the other person didn't even make an argument.
Nor did you. You just appeal to some popular notion that everyone already agrees with ("treat humans like humans"). Then you suggest this is the same as the other thing, again giving no reason.
Maybe you really can give reason to someone, who abuses people, not to do it. To treat humans as humans. But you would have to delude yourself to think you already did it here.
You are making an argument here, that the other person didn't make an argument; that means you were applying logic.
Your logic is that there's nothing stopping you from breaking societal norms and doing whatever you have the physical capability to do. Therefore, you can destroy property you don't like (advertisements). You can extend that logic to say that you "can" abuse humans.
But your logic totally misses societal context. When someone says "can", they aren't talking about pure physical capability. That's why no one in their right mind will say "I can stab you".
Social norms can be accepting of such activities if you surround yourself with a like minded group.
Living within whatever social norms exist is common but progressives and activists try to break the social norm. Taboos are real and get broken everyday.. cousins date, 70 year old women and getting together with 20 year olds, there are mothers who hate their kids.
Each social rule broken can have punishments.. wearing white after labor day can get you not invited to a social event. But that doesn't mean you should imprison yourself trying to live within other people's rules. Drawing a funny face on an ad has a low punishment rate, low chance of being cast out of society vs stabbing someone randomly. You can reject some rules and follow others. It has always been your choice.
Sorry to say, you have failed to comprehend the thread.
> Your logic is that there's nothing stopping you from breaking societal norms and doing whatever you have the physical capability to do. Therefore, you can destroy property you don't like (advertisements).
Who said anything about "societal norms"?
You are just inventing things. You invent an appeal to social norms, then you invent a reply to it.
In fact, all I did was point out how no justification was even given for a claim.
I didn't make any logical response to the non-argument (which wouldn't make sense to even try), instead I made a meta-response ABOUT the fact of non-argument.
The parent comment, by context, was inferring from societal norms. You yourself now say you pointed out how there is "no justification was even given for a claim." That means you are ignoring the parent comments context, which is societal norms. The justification is implied to be societally defined normal behavior. You can ask anyone why they shouldn't steal - it would be related to societal norms / morals. But then your answer, by analogy, would be to discard those arguments.
> I didn't make any logical response to the non-argument (which wouldn't make sense to even try), instead I made a meta-response ABOUT the fact of non-argument.
The assertion that it was a non-argument is based on the rejection of its context.
Are you saying that the only reason to treat other humans well is because the law says you must?
I would say that is precisely backwards: one should treat other humans well, for a variety of reasons. We write that down in law as a shared agreement. But the law is not itself the reason -- it springs from the reasons.
Well the OP's post was based on rejecting all those "reasons" you're talking about. Those reasons can also apply to other things like not doing theft, not burning down other people's properties, etc.
I don't understand you. You're saying we can go about, say, murdering people and we are fine with that as long as we don't get caught? Is breaking social agreement acceptable if enforcement fails? If my personal ethics allows me to break the law, but enforcement fails, can I still claim to be a positive element of the society?
What I am saying is that society has agreed not to damage each other's property, has agreed to a certain principle. The society has, basically, agreed that enduring outdoor ads is acceptable, while enduring random property damage is not, as there are no exceptions for ad vandalism -- that's what I call to respect here -- agreed principles. If we don't agree with that, we must change the law. If society we live in is ripe for the change, then it should be possible. If not, we have no moral right to do property damage while leveraging all the benefits of living in that society.
Well, if we can't agree with the rule of law then what, we're back to a primitive society? I don't think homo sapiens culture is, at this stage, advanced enough to thrive in a primitive community, how attractive that may sound. In a few hundred or thousand years, perhaps?
You are fundamentally mistaken about what "the rule of law" is. The rule of law is not based on "agreement" but enforcement. Even the veneer of agreement is based on enforcement. Historically, this has taken the form of enforced religion. Today, enforced school attendance serves a similar role.
If you're saying that everyone should/must follow the law in all circumstances, that's an extreme position few people would agree with. This would mean inform on Jews to the Nazis or returning slaves to their owners under the Fugitives Slaves Act, to take an example from a democracy. That's even without considering that many laws are somewhat indeterminate, internally inconsistent or at odds with other laws.
If you're saying that there is an a priori moral presumption that laws should be followed, maybe because they represent (possibly) some sort of societal consensus, than that is a closer question, but it doesn't resolve the question of whether the legal rights of the advertisers ought to, in a moral sense, be respected.
Note though that even the US judiciary doesn't make much of a legal mandate with no penalties attached (see the last Obamacare case to reach SCOTUS).
Interesting examples. I would say that Germany at that point was a rather undemocratic society, with all the terror by the Nazis. Can we consider slave-owning society democratic if it includes slaves? This makes me wondering if the position of respecting the law as a form of social agreement is untenable in an undemocratic society. But then again, democracy is a spectrum...
Coming to your question, I don't know. When do legal rights end and moral rights begin? Something I'd really like to read more about. I remember enjoying Michael Sandel's lectures online and then reading his book. Would really like to find something in his style on this topic.
Or painting flowers, which could indeed be treated as vandalism, but that way would also attract too much public attention to the cause, which is something the higher powers would avoid as much as possible.
Banksy is talking about moral right, not legal right. This is obvious unless you're being intentionally dense. He is saying that you have cosmic permission to perform acts of vandalism to advertisements. As long as you don't get caught, you're alright with your chosen deity or whatever.
It's a pretty strong philosophical argument in that direction, in my opinion.
If you're disagreeing with that point, you should be explicit. You're arguing that these companies are paying for the advertising, but they aren't paying you to throw the rocks at your head, they're paying the building from which they obtain their vantage point. I don't think that actually qualifies as "paying for it", morally.
I am afraid extending personal "moral rights" to the domain of property damage is a risky avenue to pursue. Who defines what's moral? I also don't agree with that the failure of enforcement by the society automatically grants anybody a moral right to break the law. What about all uncaught murderers? Actually, it is interesting we transverse to physical damage here. I wouldn't equate seeing outdoor ads to receiving bodily harm, to a theft of a piece of "consciousness" or attention - eh, maybe...
I don't know much about philosophy, but what if we can assume that legal rights end and moral rights begin only when we deal with someone's natural rights, is this tenable? If we take the Declaration of Independence as a starting point, as long as there is no danger to our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, we should not deem ourselves as being in the power to judge what property we can damage ourselves. Sounds like something I could live with.
You are not arguing the point. Billboard advertisers do not transact with you for your attention. They are trampling all over your property without consent. The argument is that you have a right to prevent that from happening. That doesn't extend to a moral right to burn the building down, I obviously have no moral right to go no further than what is necessary to reverse that.
Thank you, this pretty neatly covers what I would have liked to add but couldn't find words for.
I find it pleasing to approach his approach as works and displays of art. Are they explicit calls to aggressive, rebellious arms? Maybe. Is he selling out from commercializing on his art? Perhaps. I don't really care to respond directly to either of those questions here.
Mainly want to give a shoutout to his Barcode stencil, which made a really big impression on me so far (I haven't finished the Banksy book that I found it in) and that I think is pretty fitting here. Looking around on the web, it seems there are variants, but the one with the leopard is great.
Breaking laws comes with punishments but we are still free to break laws. In some situations, there may even be an ethical imperative to break the law.
Seems like perfectly curated marketing. But I do admit I am outraged when a row of stupid fucking scooters blocks my entire running path, when it’s clearly a location no one would ever rent a scooter, rather they are there to deliberately block the path for no other purpose than obnoxious exposure of their brand.
I’d love for there to be DAOs to combat those scooter companies, say for example by blocking the executives’ front doors, cars, garages, offices with giant billboards or vending machines.
Scooters are great. No scooter every meaningfully impacted my life in a city. Cars, on the other hand. Boy, if you hate scooters laying around just wait until you hear about these things clogging up every road. Drivers leave them on the street over night! Their personal property and they just...leave them parked all over the city. And they're way bigger than scooters. They block the roads. They're loud. They pollute. And they actually kill people! It's crazy! Tens of thousands of people every year!
The only reason you're commenting here about how much you hate scooters and not how much you hate cars is that cars were here when you were born, so they look to you like a natural feature of the universe, while scooters are new, so there's a lively debate about them. But there's really no comparison. Cars are the much bigger problem.
Is you best argument "what about cars"? Scooters are a problem because they go fast among pedestrians. Cars usually don't, and when they donit is usually labelled terrorism.
I think a good comparison is a bike:
Bikers usually stay either on the road or on a bike path. When they go in pedestrian zones, their rather bad manouverability make bikers go slow or get off.
Just one week ago I was hit by a scooter going over 20km/h in a crowded pedestrian zone. Shit like that has become common, whereas the number of times I have seen someone do that on a bike can be counted on one hand.
Yes, because cars and scooters occupy and compete for the same space and the difference between them is so large that anybody who thinks scooters are the bigger issue is in my view either totally blind to the problems with automobiles or lying. I don’t acknowledge a third possibility. Cars are orders of magnitude more problematic in cities than scooters. That’s not hyperbole. They are literally orders of magnitude more problematic.
If you’re locked in a room with a lion and a kitten and I hear you complaining about the kitten, then I’m going to think you’re either very confused or lying.
Of course cars are more problematic. That doesn't diminish any problems with scooters. The thing is they are regulated. A car driver has obligations written in law.
In my home country they can't even decide what to classify e-scooters as.
If I were to try to ride a bike as people do with scooters I would be stopped - not unlikely by the police. Would I park it the same way some responsible (and presumably drunk) citizen would throw it in the river.
I think the reason why this space is unregulated in my home country is because bikers use their common sense, because biking is a lot harder than using a scooter. I wouldn't go 25km/h in a pedestrian zone because sooner or later I would probably hit someone. When I am on a scooter I have to really think before I drive.
I don't think cars and scooters compete for the same space. Pedestrians, bikes and scooters compete. The vast majority of people going on scooters do so instead of walking, biking or going on public transport.
If I could decide all city centres would be void of cars and people could bike and scooter on the old car roads to their hearts delight. Until then I would prefer scooters to be driven responisbly, either through regulation or common sense.
In my 34 years alive I have never been hit by a bike, yet in the last 3.4 months I have been hit by a acooter twice. Once in the back on a pedestrian street when the driver turned a corner and wasn't expecting me to stand at a bus stop. The other time on a bike because the scooter driver did not follow the most basic traffic regulations ("the rule of right" - the obligation to let someone coming from the right to pass if no other instructions are given).
this might not be the best site to start that particular argument on because you will find a lot of people who would sign exactly what you're trying to say sarcastically, namely that cars are a menace to urban life and cities that get rid of them should be applauded.
And if you've never been annoyed by scooters you are lucky, because when that craze started in my city not only were people driving them like maniacs, they left them on sidewalks to the point where people were so pissed off they just started to throw them into the river.
> if you hate scooters laying around just wait until you hear about these things clogging up every road.
I love whataboutism.
I’m very fascinated to know how you live in such a fashion that you purchase food and other products that sustain your life that in no way utilize roadways. Or are you just virtue signaling and personally contribute to this road traffic you hate so much and is the real “problem” by purchasing things from the supply chain?
Roads are made for cars, so it’s expected cars use them for legal purposes like driving. What wouldn’t be expected is if companies began littering roads with their shit products and marketing which blocked the roadways and put drivers at risk of accidents. If I saw companies creating traffic through illegal littering and marketing that obstructs the roadway, that would bother me.
Side walks, running/bike paths are also made for specific purposes, those lawful purposes don’t include companies littering them with their commercial products and marketing.
As a meta point “whataboutism” is a very stupid concept. We obviously evaluate things by comparison to other things and by their relationship to other related issues. Cars and scooters compete for public space and are directly comparable. If you’re locked in a room with a kitten and a lion and I hear you complaining about the kitten, then it’s not “whataboutism” to explain to you that you’ve got bigger problems.
Second, roads predate cars by thousands of years, so, no, they weren’t “made for cars.” Some actual roads existing today predate the cars on them by hundreds of years.
Third, the supply chain argument is very lazy and easily refuted. Most of the problematic car usage in my neighborhood has nothing to do with the supply chain. We can get your products delivered without building cities primarily for individual automobile traffic.
The most important detail in this discussion is that cars existed when you were born and you were raised in a society where they were normalized. Therefore, you regard them as a natural, unchangeable feature of the universe. Scooters are new, so you expect a lively debate about their use. This is the detail that informs everything about our disagreement.
> Cars and scooters compete for public space and are directly comparable.
You seem to have a very difficult time understanding nuance.
I didn’t complain about scooters, I complained about companies dumping their commercial scooters on pedestrian paths specifically for obnoxious marketing purposes.
A scooter is fine if you want to own one and you don’t use it to obstruct pedestrian paths for commercial/marketing purposes. But to start dropping your commercial products and commercial marketing in the middle of paths (or roads for that matter) is the problem.
You brought up roads and cars and traffic as the “bigger problem”. Now you're suggesting the roads you are talking about were not built for cars. Are the roads you brought up with all those cars and traffic not made for for vehicles? Or you are taking about vehicles clogging up ancient Roman roads?
I’d like to engage you but you seem like a troll. Good luck with that.
In one Dodge Charger ad they literally show a sign that reads “share the road” impaling a tree as their car blows past at a speed that’s not legal on any road in the country you’d find that sign on.
The fact that their automobiles kill and maim pedestrians and cyclists at a regular clip is a feature of their marketing campaign. It’s so preposterous and brazen that I still sort of can’t believe it exists.
The automakers know their cars are used irresponsibly and they literally feature that in their marketing. I’m sorry I just can’t get upset about a scooter lying on the sidewalk by comparison.
The road outside my house was there on the oldest deeds I have, from 1830. Was that built for cars? What about the roads in town that were mentioned in writings in the 1400s?
You tell me are cars and traffic a big problem on that road? Would it be a problem if companies started dumping their products/marketing on that road to obstruct it?
The main problem on the road in town is parked cars obstructing it. They closed the parking spaces for covid so people could walk along it without being squished and things were far far better.
Sadly they have reintroduced the ability to litter the road with your car and it’s gone back to being rubbish. I don’t go to that part of town any more.
You specifically brought up the road in front of your house. I find your claim you don’t go to your house anymore because of cars entirely disingenuous.
I mentioned two roads. One which doesn’t allow parking and is great (in front of my house, not designed for motor vehicles, takes about 50 cars a day), one which is town which was great when parking wasn’t allowed but is now rubbish.
> I’d love for there to be DAOs to combat those scooter companies, say for example by blocking the executives’ front doors, cars, garages, offices with giant billboards or vending machines.
Interesting. I don't think one can legitimise just about anything with DAOs. But DAOs do represent a form of group think, an in-group, a collective, so that's there too.
I wonder if GreenPeace / Amnesty / XR / Anti-FA et al have experimented with DAOs.
Well crowdfunding makes sense, but as a DAO members could use the token to apply their own adverts on the billboards attached to the scooter executives’ houses, cars and offices. Not sure what type of utility those non-profits could build into a token.
Still I’m not opposed to it being a traditional non-profit, it might be possible to obtain 501(c)(3) tax exemption as a charity under the purpose of “combating community deterioration.”
There would be noting wrong with ads if they were always opt-in. Even if that included all the privacy-invasive tracking. You want ads, you turn them on.
What is infinitely more invasive are ads that are on by default, that do not give you the choice of not seeing them in the first place. The audacity to push an idea on to you feels like a shovel across the face. If you are lucky you can opt-out (on the web usually with an ad blocker) and in the case of ads in public spaces you are just out of luck.
Then why is Coca Cola allowed to promote their proven harmful sugar juices in that space, but am I not allowed to oppose that promotion in the same space?
What is allowed and tolerated in that public space is skewed, an unfair. Certainly not balanced.
> Then why is Coca Cola allowed to promote their proven harmful sugar juices in that space, but am I not allowed to oppose that promotion in the same space?
You are certainly allowed to. Pony up for the ad space if you want to promote the opposite, or advertise something else entirely.
Selling harmful things is profitable. Opposing harmful things is expensive. Because of this asymmetric warfare, and because we are human beings more concerned about other human beings than concepts like brand awareness, it seems like regulating the messaging in pubic spaces makes sense.
> Selling harmful things is profitable. Opposing harmful things is expensive. Because of this asymmetric warfare, and because we are human beings more concerned about other human beings than concepts like brand awareness, it seems like regulating the messaging in pubic spaces makes sense.
Nothing I stated made any sort of judgement about whether or not something should or should not be advertised. The original statement (quoted in my previous response) was that someone opposed to an advertisement was "not allowed" to oppose that promotion.
Quite frankly, nobody should be in charge of regulating the messaging. That sounds like top-down control which does nothing but solidify the positions of people/organizations that are already in power and can afford to lobby for such regulations. It's often known as regulatory capture.
There are clearly groups of people that "oppose harmful things" (which is quite vague, but I digress), and have carved out parts of the market that agree with them (e.g., organic foods) and are quite profitable.
I am not allowed to use Advertising Channels to defame a brand. I am not even allowed to mention a brand. At least, this is how it is in my country ("enforced" by Reclame Code Commissie) where a committee that oversees the Ad industry can prohibit advertisers from using that infrastructure.
Basically: if you propose a billboard saying "Coca Cola Is Proven[cite] Bad For Your Health" you won't be granted any space.
And even if you find a space not monopolized by such committees, you'll be taken to court by expensive lawyers over defamation or trademark infringment or any other silly thing.
> I am not allowed to use Advertising Channels to defame a brand. I am not even allowed to mention a brand. At least, this is how it is in my country ("enforced" by Reclame Code Commissie) where a committee that oversees the Ad industry can prohibit advertisers from using that infrastructure.
Perhaps you should reassess your messaging.
It seems to have become very en vogue over the past 5-10 years to just simply attack someone/thing that one doesn't like, as opposed to providing useful information and allowing people to make up their own mind, or putting the effort in to develop/provide an alternative.
Ultimately though, if your speech is being restricted, you have a government problem.
If I sounded like that, I should have spent more effort. Sorry.
What I was trying to bring across, is that it is "public space" which implies it equally belongs to everyone. But that this is not the case for what you are allowed to advertise. Corporations, or at least "those with connections and/or money" are allowed to be heard a lot more than anyone who lacks these connections or funds.
I call that "skewed". A fair and level "public space" would give anyone, regardless of how much money, connections or lawyers they have, the same ability to present their message.
I am not saying that this would always be a good thing; because this probably means far more advertising noise. It would probably turn our streets into a printed version of twitter. Ugh.
I am trying to say that in order to make this less skewed, "those with money, connections and/or lawyers" should also not be allowed to use that public space to deliver their messages. That is a level playing field too!
A paleo fan will think the same about a vegan/carbs ad, and so would an anti-vaxxer about a conventional health poster.
Harmful ideas can, and will reach those who are susceptible to it. I think the right way to oppose harmful ideas, is by gaining the education that would allow you, and others in society to judge such ideas.
The alternative of forbidding ads in public, is essentially censorship and making society even weaker as one way or another, harmful ideas will reach each and every one of us, and when they do, the less susceptible we are, the better.
Because whoever owns the space where they're placing the billboard lets them?
What if coca cola decided that they didn't like the color of your house, should they be allowed to change it because it can be seen from the public space?
> What if coca cola decided that they didn't like the color of your house
I'm quite certain that if I painted my house white and red with silver curly letters on it spelling "Cola is Sugar" there'd be multiple laws that expensive lawyers can help enforce.
Those laws (trademark, libel, etc) practically grant large corporations from taking over public space. In my country there's committees (seated by advertising industry) that monopolize the space and enforce this in even greater detail. Hell, we even have committees that tell what color you are allowed to paint your front-door (Schoonheidscommitee). This latter, however, is democratically ruled (local govts) so something that Coca Cola has no seat in.
So the answer to your question is: yes. They already can, while the opposite is not possible.
But the question itself is actually a false dichotomy. Me being able to oppose Coca Cola on their own turf: by running a campaign against them, does not imply that Coca Cola can automatically then decide the color of my house.
Sao Paulo made all billboards and ads illegal. It's a thing. People can do it if they want. I'm pretty sure they don't allow billboards in some states in the US.
I live in Israel where there are constant conflicts about what is OK to be shown in public, especially between the religious and non-religious.
In Jerusalem for example, some ultra-orthodox often vandalize any kind of poster that shows a woman in it. They just tear-out/spray over the women on the poster. Some are ridiculous cases where they defaced a poster of an old woman who survived the holocaust:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/female-holocaust-survivors-por...
Even other groups could be pissed by posters that include things about women's hygiene or show models in swimsuits. In their eyes these are things they make a lot of effort to block from the eyes of their families, and having it in public breaches the culture and education they try to maintain. This is by itself interesting as public adverts can penetrate the most strict censorship that religious groups and cults maintain.
Seculars on the other hand can also be pissed about anti-abortion adverts, religious propaganda, scientology, etc. and ask for them to be banned.
As someone who's trying to be a "free-thinker" and tries to promote it, I think there's no point in hiding in a bubble, blocking yourself from seeing other ideas, even if they're crappy advertisements. All of this as long as the adverts/ideas fit within the aesthetics of the city they're in.
The risk of doing so is essentially losing free-thinking and some sort of communication with isolated social groups.
Can we make a distinction between postings for different purposes, though? For example, commercial, political, and public education. Do a Coca-cola billboard, a sign advocating a piece of legislation, and a poster about the local library all get the exact same level of deference?
Yes. There are laws in some countries for example that make the advertising of Tobacco illegal. That's a form of censorship people can say is reasonable, but it can also be a slippery slope towards harsher censorship around other things people might find harmful - the female body, sugar, gambling, abortion, meat, etc.
The question is if you want to give the government such a broad spectrum to censor, in which they'd start judging whether or not a product might be deemed potentially harmful.
Without getting into the politics of the personhood (or lack thereof) of corporations, we can say at least that it's not quite that simple since there have been places (is Sao Paulo one?) that have banned outdoor advertising. That means the representatives of the people there came to a consensus that corporate marketing is not on equal footing with the expression of other ideas.
I really, really love quotes like this, which make me look at a prior belief in a different way with more context and nuance, and I really like comments that introduce me to them, so thanks for that.
For a long time I've defended the concept (if not the implementation) of advertising on websites as a contract between someone getting something (the user's use of the site) and what they're paying for it (attention bandwidth), with the only caveat being that the current way we serve ads is horrible for both privacy and security. That latter point is how I have justified to myself running an ad blocker.
Often I've equated online advertisements to physical ones, and also noted that what we consider "ads" online is fairly narrow and in a way that helps us justify vilifying them. Advertising can be helpful, and not just in the "I didn't know about that product until I saw the ad" way, but in the way that every store name above or on the door is an advertisement, and in it's most minimal form, a purely useful informational one (the sign advertising restrooms is "advertising" that). There is, necessarily, a spectrum along which advertisements run, from informational or coercive and manipulative, but it is a spectrum, and it is important to note what it is we object to, because "advertisements" is a poor substitute for what that is and unless we identify it, we're doomed to inadequately deal with it.
The idea that very public advertisements in the real world is an interesting one, because we're often presented with them even when using only public resources. Going into a store and seeing advertisements is one thing, you chose to go there and they control that area, but to be confronted with something while on public thoroughfares is another thing entirely. In some respect I totally agree, why should they be allowed to push these images and sounds towards me?
On the other hand, this makes me think of Home Owners Associations and people trying to control their environment (if we assume this is something to be prevented, and not just something we can assume is public domain to remix and use at will if presented in that public manner). In any case, it's an interesting additional context to the idea of advertising in physical and digital ways and how they relate and I'll be thinking on it in the future, so I thank you for sharing it.
