Fair enough. Seems like there were more than a few hasty assumptions made in this thread.

Yeah.

Okay, then I understand your position. I don't share it (you may have guessed as much) but it's clear.

I think our ethical systems diverge here. I see the specific advertisement climate as intense social coercion and borderline brainwashing, and I don't consider the question of volition that clear-cut in the first place. We interpret everything that happens to us, because we really can't not. Since neural makeup differs between individuals, we interpret the same things differently. Logic suggests this will influence the outcomes, creating a different range of choices for each person.

...I could go on, but I get the sense we're both aware of the other's stance on the matter, we just don't agree with it. It sounds a bit dickish to say you're entitled to your opinion (because that's the sort of thing assholes tend to say when they really mean "your opinion is worthless"), but yeah. I suspect we'll keep disagreeing on this issue, which is OK by me. A world without differing points of view would be a pretty bleak place anyway.

PRECISELY. Hence, such reductionism is a bad thing.

It seems our principal difference can be illustrated by the trolley problem. My favored solution is the utilitarian one, whereas you I believe would see that solution as the greater evil. Right?

What's that to do with the price of fish? For a comparison to be made, the two choices must be even remotely equal, and they are not. Your choice is trivial because there is little pressure on you to make one.

Shit, as of this moment I just scarfed down some food from yesterday, because I was hungry and I chose not to accept that. I purposely made lots of extra food last time, so it was just a matter of putting it in the microwave. Does that mean I get to sneer at some starving peasant in Burundi for failing to summon the fortitude necessary to do the same? Of course not.

Tl; dr: Of course we can make it all about personal choice if we reduce the argument itself to a caricature. The real world is much more granular.

The gist of your reply clearly was that freedom was a goal unto itself, in the service of which you'd accept casualties. In short, I have a hard time seeing the functional difference.

Yeah, the former was a low blow, and I debated to myself whether to include it. In retrospect I should have been less harsh.

This is my central beef with your position. I understand what you're saying, but I feel you reduce the argument to absurdity. True, if we go by the most reductionist interpretation possible, then everything a person does must be their (and only their own) complete responsibility, and any amount of coercion, compulsion, or what have you becomes irrelevant. I just can't see why that needs to be the favored interpretation. To me, it seems not just detrimental to a functioning society, but actively spiteful. It feels almost tailor-made to shatter cooperation between people.

Initially, I (wrongfully) assumed you chose that interpretation from a desire to harden your heart to the suffering of whoever you didn't personally appreciate. In light of what you wrote, though, I'm getting the sense you genuinely seem to approach it as an ethical standpoint. Is this a valid observation?

I disagree. I have far too much experience with the effects of trauma not to recognize it. I may have used emotionally charged words ("self-torture") for effect, but I stand by it. When people have been socialized to such an extent that their brains are literally wired to be unable to see themselves as anything other than grossly obese (even when weighing in at 80 pounds and reeking of ammonia from far-reaching starvation) then it's no longer a simple matter of choice, because given that skewed lens, of course they're going to ride that endorphin high of starvation and do all they can to reduce a bit more.

These are among the more grotesque examples, of course, but the extreme makes for a clear example of what I mean.

Rebuke noted; I'll have to admit to some amount of myopia. Anyway, I'm not talking about a few people with anorexia tearing down society. I'm talking about the entire shebang, whether it's racism or sexism or classism or whatever and allowing the fruits of those things to run rampant throughout a society. In short, I tried to clarify my position of what I feel is necessary for a functioning society.

Allright. Then we're in less of a disagreement.

Then your position is internally consistent. I may not agree with it, but it's honest.

"Slew of mere advertisements" is fine. Okay then. Now, you asked whether I would support banning an advert if the ad was demonstrably linked to harm in a significant group. *ponders* Sadly, I think there would definitely be some point where I'd be ready to consider the harm extreme enough to justify outright banning... but it'd have to be pretty large values of harm for that to happen.

I don't see how the society I advocate would be described as emotionally-driven, particularly given the fact that it's you who in this thread uphold abstract ideals as ends unto themselves. In contrast, my position is utilitarian in this respect; I find the notion of checks and balances on any power to be profoundly rational. Absolute freedom implies the freedom to impinge on the freedom of others, and as we see, this is exactly what tends to happen. The strong eat the weak unless somehow constrained. Social mores is soft power, but it's rank delusion to claim that it's somehow voluntary or nonexistent.

The society I advocate is one in which entrenched power structures are to some degrees prevented from running roughshod over the bottom percent in the name of unrestricted profit. It is functionally equivalent to preventing a company from welding the doors of its factory shut to keep workers from going home. Laws and restrictions stamped out such practices, and no doubt said companies must have chafed at this blatant disregard for their freedom to work their employees like medieval serfs. But that's the tradeoff you make when living in a society that is fundamentally interconnected.

Your acceptance of casualties in the name of freedom is also noteworthy in two other respects, in that (a) you're plainly not among those actually affected and (b) the wording of it strongly suggests that as long as the rallying cry is freedom, any excess could be justified. Do you really wish to take that position? It rarely ends well.

You have not proven that their own actions are to blame in any way, shape or form. Racism inflicts measurable harm. Sexism inflicts measurable harm. And as stated repeatedly, pressuring others into self-torture inflicts measurable harm. If people are hurt as a matter of course by a phenomenon, then it is in the interests of society to address that issue, or society unravels. Most civilized countries have accepted this.

At the very least, it would be honest.

Now you're bandying syntactics, and poorly.

In the case of video games, no correlation between them and wholesale violent behavior has been established by any reputable study, so this is a false equivalence.

Your use of the word "too" implies that I support either censorship or banning of photoshopped pictures. Had this been the case (as opposed to you putting words in my mouth, which is what you're now doing), then your argument would hold water. Predictably, I don't and it doesn't. I support restrictions, such as labeling. You know, as per the OP?

Ah, I see. You think this is a voluntary decision, much like depression after repeatedly being called a "fucking nigger" by everyone and his dog would be the foolish decision of a black person in America during the sixties. Intriguing.

Btw, I once again note your attempt to reduce a multitude (the entire advertisment culture) into a single instance ("a mere advertisement") to bolster your position. Maybe I should let it slide out of pity; maybe you really do believe that a single advert by itself had that effect. I doubt it, but hope springs eternal.

Because neither banning nor censorship was part of my position in the first place. You would know this, had you not been too busy erecting strawmen to actually read what I wrote.

Conversely, if the Israeli military openly (and unapologetically) had worn t-shirts exhorting the murder of children pregnant women (1 shot 2 kills, wohoo!) from my people and at the same time claimed the right to police my people, I'd probably be in a bit of a huff myself.

Thing is, while I don't want to pull things down to a golden mean fallacy here, the fact of the matter is that Israeli and Palestinians both have a history of abominable behavior. I do think Israel, in claiming to be a democratic and justice-driven country, should be held to a commensurate minimum standard, but I could say the Palestinians aren't entirely innocent.

But I won't. Why? Because the idea of "Israelis" and "Palestinians" is a myth. They don't exist as monolithic blocks of like-minded people. If we look closer, we'll find people on both sides who are actually moderate, and while they're mostly ignored by the media, they do still exist. Indeed, the most heroic of these people are the ones on both sides who meet and engage in actual dialogue.

Shouting invectives and calling for harsh punishment of the Other is, of course, much safer and more satisfying.

If a documented correlation existed between that class of advertisment and wholesale instances of self-starvation, psychosis and malnutrition, then YES, that class of advertisment should be curtailed by a sane society. Knowingly distorting the terms (substituting "some insane person" for a significant portion of the population and "all advertisements should be banned" instead of "conclusively-proven-to-be-harmful advertisments should be banned") does not change that fact.