Once I came to appreciate the importance of my time and attention (and my right and responsibility to ration both for myself), I think that's when my distaste for advertisement and consumerism grew into a cold burning hatred. You burn away hours of your life and vitality striving and suffering to put food on the table, provide for your family, whatever. Every day you go in sick, every spike in blood pressure, is you giving a bit of yourself so that you can acquire the resources that you need to provide and live. Advertisers and marketers are not interested in providing you with utility for you to live your life better or as you choose, they are only interested in extracting your resources from you, at any cost. This means capturing your attention at every turn, watching everything you do to figure out your weaknesses, playing to your fears, insecurities, dreams, hopes, etc. All of this to extract resources from you; resources which are nothing more than an abstraction for your time, attention, diligence, and effort. They are attempting to leverage your human frailty to steal a part of you from you.
If you are in advertising or marketing: Kill yourself.
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Veinglory (veinglory@freebeerextremist.com)'s status on Saturday, 20-Dec-2025 21:41:26 JST
Veinglory
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SuperDicq (superdicq@minidisc.tokyo)'s status on Saturday, 20-Dec-2025 21:41:24 JST
SuperDicq
@veinglory@freebeerextremist.com I disagree. Not everything related to advertising has to be rampant consumerism.
There needs to be a way for companies to show the world that they exists and tell them which goods and serviced they are providing.
Not every company exists just to "extract your resources" by definition, that's a very nihilistic take. Some goods and serviced provided by companies are actually useful believe it or not.
But do we need to me strict about how we do advertising? Definitively. Especially ads that track people and invade your privacy need to go.
But the advertising that plays on your small town local radio station that pays the bills for them? Nothing wrong with that and everyone benefits. -
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SuperDicq (superdicq@minidisc.tokyo)'s status on Saturday, 20-Dec-2025 22:00:45 JST
SuperDicq
@veinglory@freebeerextremist.com Yeah that sounds more nuanced and I agree with that.
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Veinglory (veinglory@freebeerextremist.com)'s status on Saturday, 20-Dec-2025 22:00:46 JST
Veinglory
@SuperDicq
> I disagree. Not everything related to advertising has to be rampant consumerism. There needs to be a way for companies to show the world that they exists and tell them which goods and serviced they are providing.
You're right about this. But there's a difference between old-timey commercials that just list stats ("The new Toyota whatever: with x horsepower and four wheel drive....") or ads you might find in a newspaper (which you can simply ignore and pull out), and advertisements which are manipulative and near unavoidable, and try to sell you a mythos to manipulate your monkey brain.
> Not every company exists just to "extract your resources" by definition, that's a very nihilistic take. Some goods and serviced provided by companies are actually useful believe it or not.
You're right, which is why I was careful to use "marketing" and "advertising", not "companies". Businesses have a right to share information about their products with the world at large, so that consumers and make purchases, and businesses can thrive, the point is that these interactions and engagements need to be voluntary and respectful, and the vast majority of those interactions facilitated by marketing firms are not. This isn't a nihilistic take, it's simply an observation of the modern advertisement and marketing meta.
>But the advertising that plays on your small town local radio station that pays the bills for them? Nothing wrong with that and everyone benefits.
I don't have a problem with this in theory, either. If I see an ad about a mom and pop shop down the street that makes belts and shoes, I'm not only going to go out of my way to patronize them, I'm going to be willing to pay more. I tend to grab flyers from the boards at local shops so I can find out about new events and shops in my area. Unfortunately, the vast majority of advertisement through something like Google's ad network is nothing quite so wholesome. -
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Veinglory (veinglory@freebeerextremist.com)'s status on Saturday, 20-Dec-2025 22:11:02 JST
Veinglory
@SuperDicq Yeah listen man I have absolutely no problem with people or businesses trying to add value to the world, and getting paid for their effort. I just see motherfuckers working 60 hour weeks doing back breaking labor to raise their kids or whatever, and then I see them get mindfucked into burning their money because they've been enthralled to the "create insecurity -> call to purchase piece of mind" cycle of attrition for so long that they can't take a step back and breathe/reassess. It's maddening.
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SuperDicq (superdicq@minidisc.tokyo)'s status on Saturday, 20-Dec-2025 22:11:02 JST
SuperDicq
@veinglory@freebeerextremist.com Yeah definitely avoid any type of advertising that tracks you and invades your privacy or uses a "recommendation algorithm". Yes, that means completely avoiding mainstream social media.
Also traditional forms of advertising like tv or radio or newspapers, they tend to have much stricter rules on what and how they are allowed to advertise. -
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SuperDicq (superdicq@minidisc.tokyo)'s status on Saturday, 20-Dec-2025 22:12:53 JST
SuperDicq
@veinglory@freebeerextremist.com You know kinda like this.
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翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Sunday, 21-Dec-2025 19:40:56 JST
翠星石
@SuperDicq @veinglory >the advertising that plays on your small town local radio station that pays the bills for them?
If I hear advertising on the radio, I turn it off.
Advertising is inherently harmful and it really shouldn't be allowed - it really wouldn't be that hard to host a non-proprietary repository that lists all of the businesses in a country. -
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翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Sunday, 21-Dec-2025 22:01:59 JST
翠星石
@fluffy @veinglory @SuperDicq >at least some parts of it predate the invention of free software.
Free software wasn't invented - it was the original state of software - although much later software was often rendered proprietary and therefore a free software definition was needed.
>if your computer is a ead terminal with a free vnc into a windows machine, is it non-proprietary?
If the computer is GNUbooted and is running 100% free software, including VNC software, the computer is fully free.
Operating windows via VNC is still a proprietary activity even though windows is not running on your computer. -
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touch fluffy tail (Heroic) :verified: (fluffy@fsebugoutzone.org)'s status on Sunday, 21-Dec-2025 22:02:01 JST
touch fluffy tail (Heroic) :verified:
@Suiseiseki @SuperDicq @veinglory
at least some parts of it predate the invention of free software. so i wouldn't count on it. in the first place, providing source code is probably too difficult for the guys who run that. those sorts of people typically use zip files as version control.
i should point out that without making changes to the source of the data (the state dept) you only create a wrapper around the proprietary software. so i think that it is false to say "it wouldn't be that hard" - you are not actually hosting such a non-proprietary repository, you are simply providing a layer of separation from a proprietary one. if your computer is a ead terminal with a free vnc into a windows machine, is it non-proprietary? so in a way, it is merely an illusion, and must needs be, because your source of truth is a proprietary software. -
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翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Sunday, 21-Dec-2025 22:02:02 JST
翠星石
@fluffy @veinglory @SuperDicq But does the search interface require proprietary software or not? -
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touch fluffy tail (Heroic) :verified: (fluffy@fsebugoutzone.org)'s status on Sunday, 21-Dec-2025 22:02:03 JST
touch fluffy tail (Heroic) :verified:
@Suiseiseki @SuperDicq @veinglory
> it really wouldn't be that hard to host a non-proprietary repository that lists all of the businesses in a country.
in the usa, you can get that from the department of state. -
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KaiserKitty (kaiserkitty@clubcyberia.co)'s status on Sunday, 21-Dec-2025 22:05:01 JST
KaiserKitty
@SuperDicq @veinglory there’s no putting the genie back in the bottle one its own. Companies have learned psychological manipulation is the best tactic to sell things and they won’t stop using this tactic . Forest of Enchantment likes this. -
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翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Sunday, 21-Dec-2025 22:35:47 JST
翠星石
@fluffy @veinglory @SuperDicq >putting aside your dubious claim that free software - a proper noun which was defined in living memory - somehow predates (among other things) programmable computers
I didn't write that.
Software was implemented after programmable computers were first made and such software was free (free software). It was only much later that businesses started to make software proprietary and therefore required the development of free software again and a definition for that.
>the illustration provided was of a *dead terminal*
You wrote "ead terminal", so I figured it was some kind of free software terminal.
The only way to make a computer a dead terminal is for it to have restrictive proprietary software (for example, that restricts you from running anything but specific VNC software to a specific server.
If a computer is running 100% free software, you can make it do any computation - no proprietary master can decree that only specific VNC software to a specific server can be run.
>much like any interface to the state department. you are merely providing a free interface to a proprietary software.
We're interested in receiving and operating on data and not software.
If you can access data without running proprietary software and the data is under a free license, it is a simple matter to search and layout that that data however you would like.
>organizations such as this will typically provide their database to you for a fee. that's what the yellow pages did.
Unless there's a free payment method available, such database access is proprietary. -
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touch fluffy tail (Heroic) :verified: (fluffy@fsebugoutzone.org)'s status on Sunday, 21-Dec-2025 22:35:50 JST
touch fluffy tail (Heroic) :verified:
@Suiseiseki @SuperDicq @veinglory
putting aside your dubious claim that free software - a proper noun which was defined in living memory - somehow predates (among other things) programmable computers, you misunderstood the vnc metaphor. although it is not incorrect to say that a GNU-booted computer which runs a free vnc into a windows is itself a free computer, as you assert here, the illustration provided was of a *dead terminal* specifically into a proprietary software, and such a machine simply does not provide any functionality without the proprietary software which runs remotely. much like any interface to the state department. you are merely providing a free interface to a proprietary software.
organizations such as this will typically provide their database to you for a fee. that's what the yellow pages did. -
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SuperDicq (superdicq@minidisc.tokyo)'s status on Sunday, 21-Dec-2025 22:47:10 JST
SuperDicq
@Suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com @veinglory@freebeerextremist.com Your radio station wouldn't exist without advertising. How will you fix that?
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翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Sunday, 21-Dec-2025 22:48:12 JST
翠星石
@SuperDicq @veinglory You don't have to sell total radio station death to me (all of them play the same terrible songs on loop). -
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SuperDicq (superdicq@minidisc.tokyo)'s status on Sunday, 21-Dec-2025 22:49:49 JST
SuperDicq
@KaiserKitty@clubcyberia.co @veinglory@freebeerextremist.com You as a human being with a free thinking brain also have some personal responsibility to be wary of your surroundings and not become manipulated.
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翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Sunday, 21-Dec-2025 22:51:08 JST
翠星石
@SuperDicq @KaiserKitty @veinglory >with a free thinking brain
>Implying that most have a brain that has free thoughts. -
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翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Sunday, 21-Dec-2025 22:59:16 JST
翠星石
@fluffy @veinglory @SuperDicq >you can write your GNU-booted software into ROM, specifying the vnc credentials. it remains fully free.
That is no longer software - that is absolutely proprietary hardware.
>if your free software "cat-drawer-9000" doesn't have any cat drawing functionality,
GIMP can draw cats just fine.
>and is just an interface between itself and a proprietary cat drawer, you do not have a free software that draws cats. you have a free software interface.
Importing a drawing of a cat into GIMP for further work does not make GIMP proprietary. -
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touch fluffy tail (Heroic) :verified: (fluffy@fsebugoutzone.org)'s status on Sunday, 21-Dec-2025 22:59:20 JST
touch fluffy tail (Heroic) :verified:
@Suiseiseki @SuperDicq @veinglory
>The only way to make a computer a dead terminal is for it to have restrictive proprietary software
this is a false statement. to give a trivial example, you can write your GNU-booted software into ROM, specifying the vnc credentials. it remains fully free. you can easily contrive other similar examples.
>Unless there's a free payment method available, such database access is proprietary.
sure, you can pay with cash, drive there, and have them write the database onto the disk. how do you think the yellow pages did it in the 80s, do you think they used VISA and websockets? and to address your mistaken allegory - it doesn't matter how you pay for it because paying for the database access isn't part of the software you are providing: there is no difference in the software or its source code whether i pay with cash, card, bitcoin, or barter.
this should not have been so difficult for you to understand: if your free software "cat-drawer-9000" doesn't have any cat drawing functionality, and is just an interface between itself and a proprietary cat drawer, you do not have a free software that draws cats. you have a free software interface.
these may seem semantic or petty distinctions, but if you care about primary source data it is important to be aware of it. -
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翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Sunday, 21-Dec-2025 23:14:00 JST
翠星石
@fluffy @veinglory @SuperDicq >i used a software which has no free equivalent?
How you couldn't come up with an example means there really isn't a program anymore that free software doesn't implement best.
While there is a bunch of degeneracy that shouldn't be done that only proprietary software can do, the true solution is not doing that. -
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touch fluffy tail (Heroic) :verified: (fluffy@fsebugoutzone.org)'s status on Sunday, 21-Dec-2025 23:14:02 JST
touch fluffy tail (Heroic) :verified:
@Suiseiseki @SuperDicq @veinglory
>but GIMP can draw cats
would it be easier for you to understand if, instead of the example "cat-drawer-9000" i used a software which has no free equivalent? -
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SuperDicq (superdicq@minidisc.tokyo)'s status on Monday, 22-Dec-2025 00:02:25 JST
SuperDicq
@Suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com @veinglory@freebeerextremist.com Well just because you don't like what your local radio channels are playing doesn't mean that other people don't like them.
If you think something shouldn't be allowed to exist just because you personally don't like it that is kind of authoritarian. -
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SuperDicq (superdicq@minidisc.tokyo)'s status on Monday, 22-Dec-2025 00:04:31 JST
SuperDicq
@Suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com @veinglory@freebeerextremist.com The way I see it is people like what the radio channel is broadcasting and they do not mind that it is funded through advertising (or they would've stopped listening). It's all voluntary and everyone benefits, I see nothing unethical here.
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翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Monday, 22-Dec-2025 18:36:05 JST
翠星石
@SuperDicq @veinglory I didn't write that it shouldn't be allowed to exist.
I merely stated that I personally don't like x, thus I wouldn't care if x disappeared. -
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翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Wednesday, 24-Dec-2025 12:53:37 JST
翠星石
@fluffy @veinglory @SuperDicq Then come up with an example then. -
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touch fluffy tail (Heroic) :verified: (fluffy@fsebugoutzone.org)'s status on Wednesday, 24-Dec-2025 12:53:39 JST
touch fluffy tail (Heroic) :verified:
@Suiseiseki @SuperDicq @veinglory
>How you couldn't come up with an example means
this is also a false statement. it is not inaccurate to say that you hallucinated it.
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