Influencers are Not your Friends
02-11-2025
If the word "influencer" doesn't trigger your threat analysis we are wired different. Not that they are truth tellers or have any special gifts usually, other than the grift of the moment. Social media companies are the biggest of all, in that they will do whatever it takes to get clicks and likes, and in the end, money rfom all of it's users. Who can blame them, I mean just like a hustler on the street with a pair of dice and a fist full of twenties, you want some of that, and think you are going to somehow beat someone who spends their time hustling.
Several come to mind as people nobody should really be listening to for facts or god forbid voting advice, and yet millions tune into a podcast where they make a gazillion of dollars with your ears, eyes and dollars. Influencing you to do things you would probably not do otherwise, but since they said it was true, why not?
The Consumer is killing the planet
01-10-2025
The fact of the matter is that economic growth and consumers endless hunger for stuff is killing the planet. Group you purchases so the amazon truck comes once a week instead of the next day is still forcing the product to be driven or flown great distances from where they are made to the end user. The items have to be packaged, so trees, or at best recycled cardboard is needed. And int he end most things people buy end up in landfills sooner than expected.
Getting people to stop ordering stuff seems impossible. It is part of our society, a part that needs to be amputated.
Advertising or marketing is to blame, supercharged with the Internet and data collection making target marketing as accurate as a laser pre-staging product for when the ads run and people click, transferring their money for the material. For the fossil fuel burning transportation. For the tree based packaging and god knows what it takes, slave labor, child labor, robot labor to make.
Go order a new tee shirt to show you support the climate. Can you see how wrong this is? Fashion should be criminalized. Do people need fake plumes of feathers to attract mates, or can we just be reasonable and admit people fuck and get on with it. Personality should be your measure, not the size of the house or car or closet a coupling will bring.
Read a book instead of doom scrolling sparkly funny flashy displays convincing you always to buy something. What would the Internet be without commerce?
Obviously people need to eat and be clothed, but should some people's resources and habits be able to ruin the planet for all?