Advertising is harmful to society

"Rebuttal 1: It doesn't discourage rational thought, it leads it somewhere else! Like, you see a commercial that advertises young inventors and how they make so much money, so naturally, you want to think of ideas to make an invention to earn money! This invention might do the world good. Lets go to another commercial. Game stop has a sale on video games! This may make you finally realize what you want to do with a college education! You love video games, so you want to make them for other people to enjoy! Also, dishonest advertising may lead to you researching the topic, and writing a well thought out article stating which is the best! You could also ask the company about their rates and see if it is too high and see it's quality." Saying that an advertisement may trigger the occasional productive string of thought does not disprove that advertisement discourages rational thought, nor does it refute the evidence I provided that advertising leads people to purchase products for reasons other than quality and price. Also, saying that dishonest advertising is good because it gives you the opportunity to research the products is like saying that it is good to be lied to because it gives you the opportunity to discover the truth. "Rebuttal 2: That poll you stated, are just opinions. not cold, hard, undisputed facts! Also, isn't consumer culture good?"The irony of this is that my opponent opened his R3 speech by saying, "I will now try to render your 2nd round false. I am going to use common sense to disprove everything." But that aside, while I agree that the poll I referenced was a presentation of opinion (because that's what polls are), that does not mean that it may be overlooked. Expert opinion is certainly a valid source in debate, and parents are without a doubt the best source available on the behavior of their children. If my opponent would like to succesfully discredit the poll, he must do so by presenting an alternative poll or study. Your question of "Also, isn't consumer culture good?" shows me that you did not bother to fully read my R2 speech. Within it, I quoted sociologist Prof. Amitai Etzioni at length on the difference between consumerism and consumption, and why the former is harmful to society. "Rebuttal 3: People want what people want! Anything is possible if you put your mind to it! You forgot to mention that girls want to be thin anyways. Name 3 women who actually not want the thin bodies? They see them not just in advertising, but in everyday life." Actually, society's aesthetics of beauty are extremely fluid and subject to change by media influence. Women who were "plump" or "buxom" were once considered to be attractive in American culture, while slender women were considered to look sickly.[1] There are many cultures even today that consider a heavyset woman to be more beautiful than a slender one.[2] Also, the point of the article was not that girls developed a desire to be "thin" because of advertising, but rather that they developed a desire to be underweight to the point of it being dangerous to their health. ConclusionMy opponent failed to adequately rebut my contentions showing the harmfulness of advertising to society, not only because he failed to properly source his arguments but because the "common sense" he attempted to argue from was horribly flawed.I would like to close by reminding Con that he may not raise new arguments in this final round.Please vote Pro.Sources1. http://www.uni-regensburg.de... 2. http://en.wikipedia.org...