Art of Climbing Trees

News Media / Social Media / The Internet / Advertising

No news organisation can be owned by one person. In its place there may be forms of open-source community owned and community verified news in a wiki-news style platform with the support of journalist/reporter-facilitators. If media claims to be ‘news’ it must deliver ‘Scientific journalism’¹⁵⁷, with a mandate for presenting source documents and show through-line of thinking. 

As with all activities, there will at least no longer be much to gain financially from individuals or groups misleading one another. 

The internet will be funded by GloWS. Online storage may be rationed via TEQs to avoid enormous energy consumption by the internet. 

With no profit motive, social media can facilitate the purity of connecting people. Algorithms that provoke polarisation will be made transparent and easy to manage individually. Equally, personal data collection and resale will be fully customisable, and data may only be used for science and for understanding ourselves. Users can choose whether they see advertising online. 

The argument for the right to advertise is ‘Upholding freedom of speech’. My argument flips the coin: ‘Freedom from speech’. This is both freedom from visual/psychological pollution and also the behind-the-scenes pollution of influence, which advertisers wield over media organisations, for example. Advertising revenue is intertwined with nearly everything we do, but it needn’t be in Eutopia.

I’d like to curb lifestyle-associating advertising and see more plain and simple information about what is on offer. However, lies, emotional manipulation, story-telling and censorship are tricky to untangle. Similarly, I’d like to prioritise advertising for utility for our salvation, and art, but who decides? 

I recommend an end to advertising in public spaces to discourage excessive consumption; to give the retail addicts a break and curtail visual and psychological pollution. (Instead, trees or art, or nothing, can take its place). If we need something, we can go looking for it. The move will also level the playing field between small local businesses and corporations. Levelling could also be achieved with a queued rationing system for advertising space/time rather than money. 

A business’s dwindling TEQs budget may eventually curtail the pervasive dominance of advertising, so legislating on this kind of pollution may not be a priority.

Please try using the (efficient) ‘Six Thinking Hats’ method of parallel thinking for sharing your ideas.
It helps us to organise our thoughts and feelings. Wear the Black Hat for critisism/doubts; the Green hat for creative suggestions; the Yellow for positive responses, Red for gut feelings; White for information. I am wearing the Blue Hat now, when I say we are here to design Eutopia.

Simply write ‘Black’, ‘Yellow’, ‘Green’, etc, before your given response. Then, start a new paragraph for ideas of a different coloured hat.