X Posts on miscellaneous topics

This is a collection of my X posts on a variety of topics.

Advertising

The advertising industry is a cancer to society, and I wish advertising was illegal. Advertising emotionally manipulates people by targeting their emotional weaknesses, and does its best to manipulate people into buying things they don't need. Take a @MrBeast video for example. If there aren't enough people willing to pay enough money to see his content to cover production costs + salaries, then that is a sign that resources are being wasted and too much money/resources are being used to produce something that isn't worth that much to viewers.

Some will argue that advertising covers the cost and viewers get to see content for free, but not only do advertising agencies make a profit, advertisers aren't dumb, they are making a profit. Where does that profit come from? From the individuals who watch the content and are emotionally manipulated into buying shit they don't need.

Pushing people to have babies is a terrible idea

The #1 thing I disagree on with @elonmusk is his opinion that we should push people to have more children.

If I'm not mistaken, Elon believes that declining birthrates will result in bad outcomes for society. However, I don't think he's fully aware of the consequences of pushing people to make babies.

In particular, I don't think he's aware of how this impacts the children that will be born to parents who don't really want them, and only had them because Elon (and others) told them it's good for society. You're now adding new human beings to the pool of alive humans that feel deeply unloved and unwanted.

I think it's important to consider whether it'd be better to have 7-8B humans, most of whom are hopefully at least somewhat wanted and loved by their parents. Or whether it'd be better to have 7-8B of those humans, and 2-3B humans who feel deeply unloved and unwanted by their parents and by society.

I think the former will undeniably create a better world for all. Pushing people to have babies they don't want is a terrible idea.

The Meaning of Life

For anyone trying to find out the meaning of life: Imagine there was a meaning, a single purpose to life. Wouldn't you feel boxed in? What if you disagreed with it? I much prefer there not to be any meaning so that I can freely choose what I do. It's a big problem with humanity too. Everyone has a different opinion on what is best for the world and what kind of world they want to live in. There's a constant struggle to agree on one way the world should be and to push to get it there. This mentality breeds hostility and competition. Unfortunately 8 billion people are forced to connect and share one world together. I'd much prefer if everyone could create their own world, be in complete control over it, and then everyone can travel between worlds/dimensions as they please to visit or live in other people's worlds (with their consent ofc).

Google a criminal enterprise?

How come Google is allowed to make money off of people googling people that don't want to be googled? If @elonmusk were to not want anyone to be able to Google him (and I'm sure there are many celebs as well as "common folk" who'd prefer they could not be googled), he should be able to block Google from aggregating all the information available on him on the internet and selling that (via advertising) to the general public.

Google is literally making money off of gathering and selling information about people without their consent. If this is legal, it shouldn't be. If it isn't, Google is a criminal enterprise.