Yeah, he truly outdid himself today...
 

competition bad! god forbid we should be allowed to decide what we want to buy for ourselves.

logos just make it faster and easier for us to decide on the quality of products, and to remember that decision later. and why is knowing a list of shakespearean characters any more valuable than knowing a list of cereal spokesthings?
 

Usually it takes a trip to another country or a severely neglected community in the US to realize the things Scott pointed out in his column. I know that you love to simplify what people you disagree with say with frequent usages of "or some such," or some such, but he's not making an invalid point at all. A thing called public space does exist, and it is already restricted--take a look on restrictions on tobacco advertising toward children, for example.

Scott is pointing out the simple fact that commercialization of public space does have an effect on the way we think and behave--socially and politically. Whether that's good or bad is something that is up to every person to decide, but you can't deny it's there. And, contrary to what you've said, Scott's argument against the total obliteration of public space by commercial advertisements is not a simple "assertion," unless you mean an assertion of the public's control over public space. Especially when he points out the influence this type of commandeering of public space has on our political system, the purity of which should be one of our main concerns, I think that it is kind of silly to simply discard what he has to say by saying he's autistic--as if autistic people can't have opinions about public issues.
 

His assertion is that it's bad. That somehow he can't think if he sees corporate advertising. He doesn't point out the influence of it on our political system, and I'm curious where you read that. Yes, big companies can communicate more. That's why, when we see McDonald's arches, we vote for... war? Where was he going with that? I don't know.

If anything, the only relation between advertising and thinking was streamlining routine thought, so that he could instantaneously determine what is available where and for how much, which should (but apparently doesn't) free up his mind for more important critical pursuits.

Then, somehow, lots of logos is equal to vast corporate control of politics. This control may exist, but does it really come from a fucking logo on a sign? Is his position that effective communication through logos is identical to effective communication of political views? If that was his point, he sure didn't spend much time talking about it.

Instead, in his magical world, his thoughts take up physical space and are "crowded out" by signs. Seeing something on a sign cripples his thinking ability because... why? Again, I have no idea. Autism was the only thing I could think of.

Similarly, I have no idea what a "pure" political system would be, or what purity even means in that context. Government restriction of which viewpoints can be displayed in "public space" does not purify anything, in my view.
 

yaman:

public space? you mean the space that is owned by mcdonald's et al? should berkeley then also ban you from wearing logo t-shirts or flying flags in your window?