Yes, it's inherently tasteless and makes the world a worse place. No-one needs or wants the "help" of advertisers providing suggestions about what products they might want to buy.
Yes, even when searching. Of course, impartial help with the search could be beneficial (by definition of "help"). But advertising is by definition not impartial. I do not want my search results to be influenced by those who have a financial incentive to bias my search outcome. That's obvious -- surely you don't either?
> Out of morbid curiosity, do you get that ads fund most of the internet?
Yes. But that does not mean that we want or need advertising, or that it is not tasteless. It might mean that we cannot conceive of or achieve an alternative version of the world without advertising and with the internet.
More generally, I'd say it's important to make a clear distinction between statements of principle, and statements of pragmatic policy.
Oh, I don't think I'm well-informed enough to answer that question properly. Let's suppose by "capitalism" you meant allowing market forces to operate freely. No, I wouldn't say that's entirely tasteless, but yes it has tasteless aspects.
And a principle one is advertising, i.e. standing up and saying "Hey, I suggest you buy this, and here's why" when
(a) you have a financial motivation to encourage the sale
(b) quite obviously, that motivation corrupts your role as the recommender
(c) despite being educated people you make no acknowledgement of that corruption.
Ideally, the best way for consumers to choose between competing products would be for them to read peer-reviewed scientific literature comparing the merits of the products and their suitability for the intended use. That again is basically definitional -- that's what science means.
Now, do you think science should be conducted by people with a financial interest in the conclusions of each paper? No, you don't. And that's why you shouldn't have a hard time accepting that advertising is inherently undesirable.
> As a matter of principle, if you have something and don't need it, and someone else needs it, you should give it to them, right?
Yes.
> I'm just trying to understand your principle and where the boundaries of it are
Owning something which you do not make use of and denying access to others who would make good use of it is not a good thing to do.
> Why are people trying to sell something? Shouldn't they just give it to me?
I'm not arguing against the whole of free market capitalism, just advertising. We can still have a free market without advertising. A bit like how we can and do have democracies while severely restricting political campaign funding.
> And then scientists should determine which products should be made.
> And scientists should determine who is the best at making those goods and services.
> And scientists should decide who doesn't deserve to live or reproduce.
Scientists provide information. They do not enforce anything; they are not an executive branch of government.
"Science" is the word we use for the process of rationally answering questions about the universe. That includes comparing products. And comparing who is best at making goods and services.
If it were the case that there were a subset of people who didn't "deserve" to live or reproduce (for some definition of "deserve") then yes, we would want scientists to be involved in identifying that subset of people. The obvious example is criminal punishment. The USA and other countries decide that some people no longer deserve to live. (Other societies in history have sterilized people). Yes, of course we would want those decisions to be based on science -- science as the provider of information and as the process for arriving at conclusions from data; the legal system and government to actually execute and enforce things.
> ... So... I purposely tried to go too far. At which point do you think I went too far?
You didn't go too far. I think you confused two things: (1) scientists making information available to society, and (2) some group of people enforcing a policy.
Out of morbid curiosity, do you get that ads fund most of the internet?