Advertising is inherently predatory. I'm well aware of the arguments like "we're providing customers with useful information about things they might like to buy," but that's a lie. It's using propaganda and persuasion techniques that were discovered in the early 20th century and have been increasingly perfected. And that's just the first order effect. The higher order effects of advertising are even more pernicious. Advertising has destroyed far more lives than guns ever have. That's not hyperbole, the opioid epidemic is the result of predatory advertising and lobbying by pharmaceutical companies such as Purdue Pharma.