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What if we made advertising illegal?
What if we banned all advertising? Not regulate it—abolish it. This proposal would transform manipulation machines, and maybe save democracy itself. A thought experiment worth considering.
Think about what's happened since 2016: Populists exploit ad marketplaces, using them to bypass traditional media gatekeepers and deliver tailored messages to susceptible audiences. The modern advertising apparatus exists to bypass rational thought and trigger emotional responses that lead to purchasing decisions. I think there's a world where we'll look back on our advertising-saturated era with the same bewilderment with which we now regard cigarette smoke, child labor, or public executions: a barbaric practice that we allowed to continue far too long because we couldn't imagine an alternative.
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