Predatory Citizenship: a treatise*NOT on resistance

or Predatory Citizenship: a *treat-us on resistance

Having grown-up in the 60s and 70s in Connecticut thus being raised by Yankees who were both wise investors and simultaneously cheap I followed a similar set of behaviors.

Of course, in them their olden times we were still considered citizens instead of doing our part as consumers. As hungry vampire-like consumers we and everybody else did our duty by buying stuff. We forgot we were citizens, but I won’t go into the boring-tale-of-woe lecture about the reasons.

As a cheap Yankee I learned strategies for repelling products that were maybe good ones advertised on tv. Now with products that are click bait that intrigue me I actually use a writing tool, wow — I mean a pen or pencil to write down the name of the product. I put it somewhere, where I might find it again. I might even think about said product -if i really need it and blah, blah, blah, apply other egghead type criteria like being an AI camera examining the “product” from every possible angle, etc. Okay — a tad nerdy too. I don’t use Google anymore to do research, ’cause the way i figure it — since they’re using predatory capitalism on me, I’m defending myself from their BS by using predatory citizenship on them.

I use Duck-Duck-Go to research stuff because the browser isn’t supposed to track you like Google does. I found a product on YouTube that looked bogus — an immersion toothbrush. Put your teeth in it and it’s supposed to brush your teeth super-fast. Ordinarily I don’t fall for this kind of crap, but i had some thoughts about future products. One of them was a form that a dental hygienist would put in your mouth, made from a mold of your mouth — silly (not that other kind of mold — ew). They’d inject this specially programmed nanite paste-mix into the molded frame for your mouth and gums. 20 minutes later deep cleaning of plaque above and below the gum line. Eventually it would be made for home use (coming to a dentist near you in 5–10 years) and home to you after your insurance has bled you dry. The review on the immersion toothbrush by a non-profit reported that the product was bogus and no one had made an immersion toothbrush that worked — yet.

By the way my dad accidentally taught me how to repel advertising. We were watching TV when an ad comes on (no TiVo, no mute and no remote) so we watched it because we either not bright enough to turn it off or just lazy. My dad remarked — “That might be a good product, but I would never buy it.” “Why not?’ I ask. He launched right into it on and on and finally because: “Advertisers lie to get you to sell their product. So, I’m not to buy a product even if I think it might be good because they’re lying and trying to get me to spend my money.”

And since it was the 60s and questioning authority was hip, for a few minutes I thought my dad was cool for bucking the system. He was cool until I bucked his authority and it was the 60s.

Link for piece on future inventions and human advancements: https://the-kai9.medium.com/