[ryandvm]

"Mind rape" is obviously an attention grabbing way of putting it, but I tend to agree that advertising is essentially theft.

It goes something like this:

   * You only have a finite amount of attention. You cannot obviously "pay attention" to everything around you.
   * When someone takes your attention, they are consuming some of your finite resource.
   * Taking something from someone else is the very definition of theft.

Now obviously we have social norms around attention that allow for a reasonable amount of this non-consensual attention consumption. Things like, make your signage inoffensive, unobtrusive, and generally placed in a way that it is a net positive (the hot dog prices should be near the hot dog vendor).

But what we don't have, at least in the US, are strong laws and norms that protect people from this. Why does an lawyer get to steal my attention on the beach with a plane dragging a banner? Why does a storefront get to blast an ad at me when I walk by? Does anybody really think these examples are a net societal benefit?