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  • Requiring agreement to some unspecified ever-changing terms of service in order to use the product you just bought, especially when use of such products is required in the modern world. Google and Apple in particular are more or less able to trivially deny any non-technical person access to smartphones and many things associated with them like access to mobile banking. Microsoft is heading that way with Windows requiring MS accounts, too, though they're not completely there yet.

  • Conflicts of interest. Sometimes illegal, but not nearly as much as they should be (almost always)

    Like congress members being allowed to trade stock, which can then be affected by their vote

    Or one of the specifically carved out exceptions to the medical kickbacks laws is for the people who negotiate drug prices for pharmacies

  • When you are in a political position you are not allowed to lie.

    • We have to develop the technology to perfectly detect lies and give everyone who wants to be in office a collar which gives them seizures when lying.

      Every Parlament around the world would look like a Harlem shake gone wrong.

  • Small print, excessive legalese and outright deceptive language in ads, agreements and such. All the "free" (not really free) trials, "unlimited" (not really unlimited) plans, "best value" (according to the producer and their mum) deals and shit like that.

    There really should be a law prohibiting that - if reading through terms and conditions for using a damn website or a toothbrush or whatever requires 4 hours of free time, a magnifyibg glass and degree in law, such t&cs should be illegal. Same for disclaimers and such in ads - any 4pt text displayed for 2 seconds on screen should automatically result in a massive fine.

  • Social- and greenwashing proposals.

    "By buying [unnecessary product] you will help [marginalized group] to gain a livable income and also send their kids to school instead of sending them to [work place with - even for adults - horrible work conditions]. Also, when buying [product] we will save [arbirtary area] of [rainforest/ coral reef/ mangrove swamp] that would otherwise have been destroyed [but not by us]. Additional to that, your purchase helped us to save [arbitrary ammount of CO2 - at least in a completely hypothetical scenario]. While using [product] you will make the world a better place."

    As a customer there is barely any way you can ensure or check that these things are true. It cannot be possible to save the enviroment while buying stupid products like, for example, internet-of-shit-devices which will be phased out in no time or single use products made from plastic or other harmful materials that are not recycleable.

    All these claims are just an indulgance trade - like it is done for centuries in a religious context. It is just that you have an excuse to consume more, because they to something to help people/ enviroment. If there was a product that would have been advertised as: "Well, we irretrieveably destroyed 100 km2 of nature, and for each single product in average two workers died and at end-of-life this product will fuck up the environment once more - also it will impair your health just by existing", it would be horrible - but at least it would be honest.

  • Surprised to see no one has said cigarettes yet. Not only are you poisoning yourself, it's harmful to everyone else around you that has to inhale that shit.

    • In the same vein, driving gas cars

      • I would vastly prefer that gas cars be phased out. But I believe that this is a bit different:

        Cigarettes don't offer any benefit beyond making you "feel good." And you don't need cigarettes to feel good, and, in fact, literally any other option is better for both you, and everyone around you, save for harder drugs.

        Gasoline cars, while poisonous to the world around us, also offer us far greater benefits: supplies and logistics, we can carry goods further, wider, and faster than we ever could without them. And because of that, without them, sure we'd pollute a lot less, but then we'd have a far harder time carrying critical resources to more remote parts of the world where trains and planes can't reach, and people would starve or lack critical medicine.

        As it stands, EVs are not a reliable substitute. They're getting there, I want them to get there, but I disagree with the notion that cars should be made illegal as things currently stand. I don't think it's nearly as cut and dry as cigarettes are. I can only hope to live long enough to see a world where gas powered cars could be outlawed without leaving hundreds of millions of people high and dry.

    • Lying if you're a politician. You should be in a state similar to "under oath" in court, but at all times.
    • Advertising. I should have the legal right to not be advertised at. I should have the right to not have to accept advertising in order to access services, especially so if I already pay a subscription to that service. I cannot put into words how much I loath and despise advertising and advertisers. I hate them. Hate, in the real sense of the word.
    • Loot boxes in video games, whatever age group the game in question is aimed at, but especially so in kids' games.
    • Microtransactions in video games for anything other than non-essential/non-advantageous items, like cosmetics. Even then, their presence should upgrade the PEGI rating to adult/18, regardless of the actual content of the game. This might help prevent their inclusion at all.
    • Whatever the fuck is going on in Gaza right now.
    • Shielding police or soldiers from prosecution for crimes they've committed. If you stand in the way of the due process any other citizen would face, you should be heavily penalised for that. Like, the murderer soldiers who carried out Bloody Sunday are currently being protected by the British state and its lackeys, and I cannot fathom why. Cops in the US who murder people are frequently protected by unions and get to retire rather than be fired etc. All of that shit should be illegal. Get the fuck out of the way of due process.
    • Naziism and related nonsense like Holocaust denial. Germany already has laws about this, but that shit needs to be legally smothered in its crib everywhere.
    • Conspiracism surrounding public health issues like vaccines and masks.
    • Climate denial.
    • Slave labour in prisons.
    • Private prisons.
    • PACs and donations to PACs.
    • Lobbying.
    • Joe Rogan.
342 comments