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Monday, 16 February 2009

Irritating Ads

Have you ever thought about those TV commercials that target drunk driving? You know, if you have had a few then take a taxi, sleepover, get a sober mate to drive you home.

Also those ones that the fire brigade do; don't drink and fry, if you are having a few drinks then order in takeaways as some huge percentage of house fires are caused by drunk cooks.

Don't drink and drive. Don't drink and fry.

Is it just me or is the problem not actually the driving or the cooking?

4 comments:

  1. IMHO the problem with these ads is the nanny state telling people how to look after themselves.

    Drink-driving is interesting from a classical liberal perspective, because drink-driving does not violate the non-aggression axiom. Therefore I believe that drink-driving should be legalised:

    http://kiwipolemicist.wordpress.com/2008/12/04/drink-driving-should-be-legalised/

    Doing so would remove the "need" for the egregiously Orwellian police checkpoints:

    http://kiwipolemicist.wordpress.com/2008/08/31/police-checkpoints-breach-the-civil-liberties-of-the-many-to-catch-the-few/

    Remember that the biblical principle is punishing the wrongdoer, *not* preventing the wrongdoing - see the comments on the drink-driving post.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Indeed, it's not driving/cooking that's getting us in trouble. However, I think, as the other (less annoying, IMO) kind of ads say, "It's not the drinking, it's HOW we're drinking."

    But then again, the level of effect these ads (annoying or not) actually have on people is hard to estimate. If even one person is made to 'stop and think', then that's good. But I fear that a person who's about to get pissed and do something stupid is not going to stop and 'remember the ad' telling them not to...

    As for 'nanny state', how so? I'd think 'nanny state' would be more along the lines of total prohibition or something?

    ReplyDelete
  3. I was trying not to go there on the issue of whether the state should be running such campaigns in the first place as I believe you while I can see KP's point I think one could construct a libertarian case for the state playing some role in criminalising driving practices that are more-likely-than-not to cause harm to others as it is a complex issue if you are going to go down that route, as my point was that the reasoning in the ads was flawed.

    I too find the other ads, "it's not the drinking, it's how we are drinking" irritating. Clearly in the examples shown in those ads it is not how they are drinking that is the problem but rather what they do when they have drunk too much.

    Again, the issue is drinking too much and its effect on one's capacity, NOT the practice of driving, frying or the method one uses to consume (how).

    ReplyDelete
  4. Or the other adds which tell you to "take one for the team" and be a sober driver. Apparently not getting drunk is on par with being tackled and one does it only so so everyone else can get pissed.
    Its hard to cohere this with "its not the drinking its how you are drinking"

    ReplyDelete

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