Comment by oliwarner | Hacker News Reader

Comment by oliwarner | Hacker News Reader

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I'm perennially confused by the opinions expressed on HN and this is is no exception; the range alone is quite amazing.

I am with you.

I think advertisers —and the people implementing their work— are a net bad, at all ages. They are actively and openly trying to force influence on people to get them to spend money. Why would you want that for yourself, let alone your kids?

"But they'll never learn!" - the hell they wont. You don't need to cut your leg off to know it'll hurt. Talking about this stuff, as you have, is the perfect way to expose them to what's actually going on. The unfettered "Let them learn their own way" nonsense doesn't do it justice.

"My kids are fine!" is an anecdote, not an argument. How about one of the dozens of reviews of the impacts of junk food advertising on diet, spurring record rates of childhood obesity? https://www.apa.org/topics/kids-media/food.aspx

I don't get it. Your right to hold your own opinion is an important thing. Letting people (and now AI) openly influence you is a stupid decision. Letting them do the same to your children is much worse.

And what I originally came here to say was that I applaud you getting your kids on real computers. The education system —in general— has given up on educating computing because "kids know how to use everything". 20 years ago, we were taught how to use office productivity apps (eg MS Office), mostly worked into other lessons as part of the (eg) data collection (eg Bio, Geography).

Ask today's school leavers to make you a pivot table.

Edit: The only place I might deviate from you is internet access. I've got a few years before self-learning is a thing for my children, but when they're ready, I'll be more than happy to give them access to Wikipedia and other sanitised (read: ad free, "people aren't the product") learning resources.

>I think advertisers —and the people implementing their work— are a net bad, at all ages. They are actively and openly trying to force influence on people to get them to spend money. Why would you want that for yourself, let alone your kids?

Because you want to learn about new products in some way, don't you? You also want companies to create new products, don't you? Advertisement is a necessary part in both of these. Few things spread fast enough with word of mouth alone.

>"My kids are fine!" is an anecdote, not an argument. How about one of the dozens of reviews of the impacts of junk food advertising on diet, spurring record rates of childhood obesity? https://www.apa.org/topics/kids-media/food.aspx

The article does not claim that it's a causal link. They quite clearly say that it's a correlation. The causal link could even be the other way around.

>Letting people (and now AI) openly influence you is a stupid decision. Letting them do the same to your children is much worse.

How do you propose that you or your kids learn knowledge? That's letting other people influence you.

My guess is that your kids will pick up these "negative influences" anyway, but they will never tell you.

> Because you want to learn about new products in some way, don't you

Since when is somebody shouting about their random product the only way I can learn things? Active discovery is still a thing.

Make something, make details available. If people need it, they will find it and buy it.

> You also want companies to create new products, don't you?

No, I want better products that I actually need, not more, or just newer.

> They quite clearly say that it's a correlation. The causal link could even be the other way around.

We're reading different things if that was your takeaway. You sound like an asbestos salesman in the 50s.

You seem to hold your own mind in pretty low disregard, needing to be spoon fed to discover. You can be more than an idle consumer.

>Since when is somebody shouting about their random product the only way I can learn things? Active discovery is still a thing.

Sure. Let's say you want to learn about a new product through "active discovery." What do you do that doesn't involve other people telling you that it's good?

>Make something, make details available. If people need it, they will find it and buy it.

Discord became so popular because it's good, right? Not at all because they advertised and sponsored the hell out of things, right?

>No, I want better products that I actually need, not more, or just newer.

And with no advertising nobody is going to bother improving their products, because nobody new will be able to compete.

>We're reading different things if that was your takeaway.

It says quite directly that research has found associations. That's a correlation and not causation.

>You seem to hold your own mind in pretty low disregard, needing to be spoon fed to discover. You can be more than an idle consumer.

I've tried making things and found out the hard way how difficult it is for whatever I made to be found.

Look, I disagree.

Not only is is painfully obvious that you can still compare things, the drive to improve is a natural side effect of still being able to compare on factors. Advertising isn't part of this loop. It's there to buy influence.

Most of the crap I buy on Amazon or Ebay, or in the supermarket; that is to say, 90% of my purchases don't involve advertising. I bought them because I wanted them.

I've been paying for Youtube Premium (was "Youtube Red") for a while. While there are product placements and sponsorships in videos, not having to watch ads placed in the middle of videos is awesome. It makes YT a million times better, it isn't something you realize fully until you start watching a video on somebody else's phone/laptop/etc.

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