Not at all. I draw the line at consent. Nothing wrong with HN showing me your comments. I came here to see comments. If they started showing up while I'm watching a video somewhere else I would feel violated and swiftly block them. Nothing wrong with showing me products when I open a store app. That's what I opened the app to see. Showing me products while I'm trying to read an article is a violation.
Advertising is by definition noise. Superfluous. Information I did not ask for. Irrelevant stuff that someone paid money to put in front of me. Information I explicitly ask for is not advertising, it's simply information.
My cognitive functions are inalienable, they are not theirs to sell to the highest bidder, nor are they currency to pay for services with. I have attention deficit disorder. It's hard enough for me to focus without these corporations trying to grab my attention. I consider their attempts to do so a violation of my personal integrity. I consider ad blocking to be justified self-defense. I will literally do everything in my power to avoid looking at ads.
Most online advertisements are as intrusive from a mental attention perspective as a door-to-door salesman is intrusive from a personal space perspective. Yet, the former is somehow considered acceptable even in societies where the latter is completely taboo.
I always try to make sure my online contributions are worthy of the valuable attention of their readers they take up.
> Is hearing or seeing any idea that you have not previously consented to likewise mind rape?
I'll bite: yes. If you show me images of goatse or mutilated bodies in a war zone without my consent that’s mind rape. Same with bring politics forcibly into the workplace, showing Fox News (or MSNBC or whatever) at the bbq joint while I’m trying to eat or at the gym while I’m trying to exercise, or screaming at me in protest while I’m trying to access family planning services.
Just like women have the right to walk down the street in whatever clothing they want without getting raped, I have the right to experience the world without constantly being bombarded by commercial and political mind rape.
> If not, where do you personally draw the line?
Consent is implicit via set and setting. If you want to challenge peoples viewpoints go to college or start a poker night with a bunch of philosophically diverse neighbors who like to argue politics. If you want to shove ads down everyone's throat, go join an influencer support group.
Everyone else deserves to live free from constant mental assault.
> And, just as importantly, who do you feel should get to decide in the general case?
>Just like women have the right to walk down the street in whatever clothing they want without getting raped
Do men, and lesbian and bisexual women, have the right to walk down the street without seeing a woman dressed in a way they find distracting?
I think you will say that they have no such right. But if so: What makes this form of attention-grabbing behaviour (wearing a skimpy dress) acceptable, and the other form (advertising) unacceptable?
This example highlights that (a) we are, in fact, capable of managing distractions to quite some degree, and (b) in both cases there is another party involved whose interests oppose our own, but whose rights nevertheless also need to be considered.
So, I think there’s a massive difference between ads in de-facto public spaces where consent is impossible, and ads in an environment where there’s full affirmative consent.
I'll bite. Is hearing or seeing any idea that you have not previously consented to likewise mind rape?
If not, where do you personally draw the line? And, just as importantly, who do you feel should get to decide in the general case?