Consumers

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(I was writing my last post, and I had an overwhelming urge to break off on several different tangents.)

I watch a large amount of televsion, much more television than I really should be watching. Unfortunately, I have to give alot of credit to the screenwriters and marketing wizards, because they really know how to "hook" you into vegetating in front of a screen. Companies that use Television as their medium of advertising spend over one trillion dollars a year for commericals, and they have been very effective in getting defenseless people to make frivolous purchases that they otherwise they would not have made. If they hadn't succumbed to impulse and bought that new outfit or stereo, then they could have saved their money for something important or worthwhile such as thier retirement or children's college. How can one person stand against the billions of dollars being spent to bombard them with attractive offers to buy things that they can live without and will probably break within five years anyway?

I kept track of the time I spent watching TV in a journal over the last year and I realized, much to my horror, that I had invested 22 hours a week(almost a full day) in front of a TV. Angry with myself, I wondered what more worthwhile endeavors might I have undertaken with that time and I could have improved myself as a human being. In the summer, when I watch Cardinal baseball games, I spend even more huge chunks of my day just sitting in the chair. The other main shows I enjoy are Boston Legal and FRASIER, and I also spend hours just randomly flipping through channels just to see if I might be missing something good. As I watch alot of programming, I also watch a ton of commercials.

As a little boy, my parents would buy me tons of toys, like little remote-control cars and such, that I had no interest in playing with. They probably spent 10,000 dollars on toys but I would have much rather had that money put into a college account(I had approximately 62$ when I graduated high-school.) But the toys they bought seemingly broke upon exposure to the earth's atmosphere and just wound up in gigantic, untouched piles of plastic detritus in the corner of my room. I was far more interested in books and my toys for "make believe" went untouched. The kids my mom brought over to try and play with me seemed somewhat interested in those toys, but I just let them play with them and stuck to my reading.

My parents and the vast majority of NT people I know place an inordinate value on having large amounts of "stuff." The mysterious central cultural heads broadcasting to us have us convinced that once something we own becomes even slightly dated, we have to run out and buy the new, updated, better version. We are convinced that we constantly have to be one step ahead of our neighbors and have the new line item before they manage to acquire it. In my house right now, we have 6 televisions, 4 computers, 6 stereos, 2 microwaves, 3 pianos, and about 2000 articles of clothing; and only three people live in our house. Do we really need all of this consumer stuff? NO. All we are doing is putting a huge drain on the world's power supply and we are throwing away our money to buy junk we don't need. In a couple years, as our current technology becomes outdated, my dad will be back up at Best Buy or Sears bringing home some more massive electrical monstrocities.

Corporate leaders are waging a strikingly successful campaign to convince us that our value as people is based on the things we own, how much money we make, and our physical attractiveness. These marketing experts are very saavy and they know how to push our buttons and manipulate us in to doing their bidding and handing our money over to them. They know how to get us with heuristics, testimonials, and bandwagon affects, and they can disguise it in a way that we don't even realize it hits us. It costs car companies about 700$ to build an average sedan, and with the right consumer pressure, we turn around and give them 20,000$; a grossly unequal transaction. Then, the vehicle loses $4,000 of its supposed "value", the moment it is driven off the lot! We can buy a microwave at Sears for $400 that we will the thrift store will eventually resell for $25. I would love to see a massive, riotous crowd protest outside of Ford Headquarters with torches and Molotov cocktails, demanding a fair price for a fair cost, but the proletariat will only be seriously incited to insurrection when they are starving or we have lost a World War.

Nothing we can buy at a store besides basics like food and hygiene items are essential to our survival. Our ancestors, as recently as 1900, would laugh hysterically at the feminization/demasculinization of our society and shake their heads at the trivial things that we preoccupy ourselves with in our lives. Our pioneer ancestors survived by their wits and thrived on a self-sufficiency that is unfathomable today. The main issues that we deal with today in government were considered in the 1920's to be "Women's issues." For better or worse, in 2009, we are a country controlled by special-interests and the meek. The old concepts of what it means to be strong and masculine are being destroyed, because it is no longer necessary to survive to have those outdated qualities. The 21st century is a culture tailor-made for females to thrive in, and males are being repressed because being tough, rigid, and a hunter goes against the sensitive and egalitarian postures our schools teach and we are required to adopt if we want to assimilate into society. Women don't need a strong man anymore to provide for them because they are being elevated by cultural favoritism and natural selection and they can take care of their own needs.

I mentioned in a previous post that I felt that our society was ready to experience a massive paradigm shift the likes of which we have never seen before; ten times greater than 476, 1789, 1865, 1945, or 1991. I feel that a defining aspect of this massive cultural change will be a complete takeover of the U.S. government and most positions of leadership in America by women. In todays High Schools and Colleges, women hold most of the leadership positions such as body president and regulate the social lives of NT peers when sitting on student council. The millenial generation will only have experience with female leaders and thus will choose from a pool of overwhelmingy female candidates for political office in the 2030's. Previous generations of students chose only male class officers, whom then went on into national politics.

Women already make up campus majorities in college and the birth rate has actually evened out in the last 10 years from 55/45 male/female to an even 50/50. Perhaps our bodies are sensing that men are becoming obsolete so we are subconsciously passing down X chromosomes. In my extended family, for example, I have five sets of married cousins and they have produced a total of 15 daughters against two sons. One of my cousins has four young girls and no boys, and another had three daughters until they finally had a son. Many other people who I talk to report that it seems like their families produce nothing but daughters an only have an occasional boy. Girls of this generation will move towards getting professional degrees which will enable them to make much more money than their male spouses and they will naturally be able to dominate fields such as business and law, with the rate they are taking over college campuses. Guys, on the other hand, appear to be moving into minimum wage jobs or into trade fields like construction or drafting. But in a declining service economy, old manufacturing jobs will be hard to come by.

So we are gearing up for a couple centuries of female and minority rule in America. Perhaps it will be a golden age of peace and tolerance. Perhaps not. At least, if there are a ton of unattached educated females who can't find compatable men to marry, it will be easy to date. But it will be a service society with only service, interface, occupations, so it will still be virtually impossible for an AS person to hold a job. Because we have been transitioning to a service economy since 1945, that is why Autism and AS have emerged, the inability of non-social individuals to adapt to a socialized and urbanized society. It was much easier for an AS individual to hide on the obscurity of a farm or to maintain a predictable factory job. There was no pressure in rural areas to conform, and there were only a few consumer products available that one had to worry about having to purchase so he could keep living. In the old days, one with AS could just "disappear" into the night. It was also much easier to find a spouse in those days or to just get sex at a brothel, instead of having to go through the complicated social courtship rituals we have these days that AS men can not possibly carry out.

We live in a completely absurd cycle of life where we spend hours working at jobs we detest just so we can earn cash to buy stuff that we don't need. I would rather have free-time and "go without", and just make enough money to provide for my basic essentials. But such an attitude is incongruous with our modern culture. Employers see this and are on the lookout for unmotivated individuals such as myself. When I go into a job interview, employers can see, before I even open my mouth, that I am not "with them." I walk with them and breathe their air but I am not one of them and I never will be. These job managers are trained to spot unmotivated young men such as myself, and I might as well have the words DONT HIRE ME tattooed on my forehead. But at least I will break the ridiculous life cycle of overwhelming responsibilty and needless stress to achieve a false goal built on lies. Our society is 85% artificial and I don't want but a small part in it.

I don't gain the gratification from making a purchase that is expected. It has been shown that when an NT person hands over cash to by an item, blood actually rushes to the brain and they incur a mild "high." I feel sick when I spend money. Before I buy anything, I ask myself, "Do I really need it?" I think about how I will feel afterwards when I have handed over hard-earned money for a plastic item that will just sit on a shelf and collect dust. Filling my house with junk is stupid, because I am still a self-sufficient hunter-gatherer at heart, and I don't need material things to be happy. A man has to hit rock bottom to view society objectively; not merely exist on the periphery or fringe and still retaining his creature comforts. One can't begin to really understand life if he can keep retreating to a safe place. It is only when one has nothing that he can cast off his shackles and begin to grow. The things we own control us. Our houses tie us down in one place and our vast possessions hinder any freedom of movement we might have. If we want to, we can not just give everything up and start over, because we have all of our inorganic plastic objects we have to take with us. So we become sedentary and fat, living in our little fireboxes, getting false comfort from our "stuff."

D

BBC Documentary covers this: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 3825999151

you may be shocked to find the people behind it are very similar to the people who sell solutions to problems that it causes in society.

Thanks for the video ! !!

The TV has been nicknamed "idiot box" and "boob tube". boob is a word that USED to have the more general meaning of idiot, and the device that you look at with old fashioned TVs is actually the top of a TUBE.

A world run by minorities, or even women, will NOT necessarily be more peaceful. HECK, look at places where minorities(GRANTED they aren't minorities THERE, but you are dreaming if you think they will be better where they are minorities.) DO rule, like africa, cuba, etc.... Look at places where WOMEN ruled, like ancient england, etc.... BTW I don't include the current England, because the queen's role has been relegated to one of like head of state. The female monarchies in most places, perhaps all, that are here today, have been watered down. And that is certainly NOT because they are women, so I am not claiming it is.

No offense to ANYONE, including her, but current england has a lot of things to make it clear that the queen is not the absolute ruler she once was.

So it is clear that minority or female rule will not, on the whole, be better. It has proven that it can certainly be worse than the rule of many male whites.

As for the ratio of male to female, are you sure you aren't comparing live births to viable people? More baby boys tend to die than baby girls. Still, there are several observations....

1. The ratio has always changed.
2. Fertility IS going down IN GENERAL.
3. The viability of all chromosomes is probably degrading, but the Y chromosome has suffered most, according to some reports I have read.
4. They have a lot of drugs now that interfere with fetal development, and have a MORE profound affect on males. Ironically, one of them is propecia! So a MALE that takes the drug to try to look better to women could be endangering his chances of having healthy sons! Females might disregard the VAGUE warnings, though the LATEST one is certainly clearer!:

It USED to be worded like:



and destroy their chances of having a healthy son. BTW that coating earlier wasn't there!

Also, women DO have perhaps 70% of the ability to have a child. THEY have the first cell, of sorts, half the genetic makeup, the ability to hold the child during gestation, and an easy way to provide for its nutrition. Still, there IS that missing ability. If males died out, women would need invitro implantation with something akin of cloning. That would be a LOT of trouble, and probably frought with disaster. Also, the current societies generally don't even allow any sort of trials. The human race would probably die out.

Since 1900, there have been a greater percentage of male live births, but since females have a longer life expectancy and can expect to outlive males by about seven years, the gender balance of population has stayed about equal.

I am not arguing that a gynocracy or a government by "metics" would be superior to our old status quo. I identify as a conservative and I am quite apprehensive about our changing demographics. You are mistaken if you think that I am at all looking forward to the "next wave." Historically, majority populations do not take well to being ruled by different ethnic groups. People like their leaders to look like them and have similar names. The future forecast has red flags popping up everywhere.

However, the minority popluation of this country is expected to constitute a majority of the populaton by 2045, and I actually expect that milestone to come sooner, what with increasing immigration and the trend towards mixed marriages. As more minorites and liberals gain political power, some current blocks to immigration could be repealed. Minorities already constitute the majority of the population in the 25 and under age group in this country. In the countries you quoted like Cuba and the African dictatorships that you cited as having dysfunctional governments; it is true that those places are poorly run, but the ruling governments there(with some execptions), are the majority ethnic group. Even though they are black/latin/Asian and would be minorites here, they are the majority in their homelands.

It is really just a matter of being mature enough as a culture to run a responsible administraton. Sub-Saharan Africa is developmentally where Europe was in the 1500's, only the Africans have machine guns and some modern technology to assist them in carrying out cultural genocide. Post-Medieval Europeans did not have such luxuries of modern technology to administer such mass killings during the Wars of Religion. It would be folly to forecast such a grim future along the lines of what is taking place in Rhodesia/Zimbabwae and the reversal of fortune that is happening to the Boer population of South Africa after the fall of Apartheid. No matter what happens, it is too easy to look at some charts and see in which direction we are going. Since the mass introduction and acceptance of birth-control amongst the population since between 1950 and 1980, most of the middle class white populaton has adopted this technology to help them with family planning and this has drastically slashed the birthrate of the white population. The more affluent you are, the smaller size of family you create. Impoverished people are apt to bear more offspring, with all the implications.

im not a consumer either, i dont need to have all the latest gagets or tons of clothes. i do buy fire agates though, but those babys need to be consumed. also i hate the word consumer

I loved watching those 4 videos, thank you for posting them!

I believe it is a blessing for me that I am ASD in regards to the consumeristic culture that premeates society today...

It is a great strength to me in which it helps me resist the sheeple mentality, being a consumer beyond my needs and ability to retain my individuality and maintsin sepersation from following the heard and not being 'trained' and not being the 'ideal' consumer...


I buy things I need and things I do not need or not much of a need for, I usually do not even buy it... I have a jacket still, that I wear... got it back in 1991 and it still does it's job... I do not need to geta new jacket every few years.... like the consumeristic culture dictates....

The television is a tool for the corporate entities to stand on their soap box and program people indirectly in being sheeple and direct them to be an ideal consumer for their goods... Your not seen as people but as consumers... you are divided into demographics by age, sex, race, ect... and according to this information, you are seen as a typical consumer that will spend X$ over a period of time... these corporate entities see this as getting rich by taking a portion of that x$ the consumer would spend.... The television is a tool of propoganda to increase the x$ by y% to maximize their profits margins...


We all consume goods, just consume what you really need.... do not get excess things and you will maximize your effeciency as a consumer, gettting a higher rate of worth while spending less $$... in spite the garbage the corporate entities use to manipulate the masses (sheeple)...


Being an Autie, and I do not take mediction but have learned on my own how to adapt... I have increased my independence from consumerism which is an enemy of the corporate entities who ends is the profit margin no matter what the means are to attain a profit...

Just an idea extension and connection to a true artists...

Although an entirely different kind of movie than you may be used to.... the dialog is slow but with deep meaning... I can suggest you track down (probably have to buy it, I doubt a rental store will have it unless you are in a really big city) a copy of the movie Trust. See: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103130/

I have met Hal Hartley the writer and director in person around 1993 in Queens NYC. He has continued to make true American independent films. And they connect with me in their themes.

One theme in Trust: TV is the opiate of the masses. Some of the quotes are on the IMDB page.

Quote from Trust:
Maria Coughlin: He's dangerous but sincere.
Nurse Paine: Sincerely dangerous.
Maria Coughlin: No, he's dangerous *because* he's sincere.

I share your viewpoint! Stay with it, you are not wrong. The masses are drones living lives of sheer insanity - and the irony is that they are totally oblivious to it. They think that those who are different to *them*, who reject the consumerist insanity, are the mad ones! One really bad aspect is how badly our culture treats those who are not sucked in to the consumerist slough of despair. We invariably try to eliminate them. And then the media steps in to cover it up, distort the truth and hide the issue.

You write very well, very clearly. There is a growing groundswell of opinion against comsumerism, maybe you should consider adding your voice? I'm totally fascinated by the idea of 'Primitivism', which has huge spinoffs into almost every aspect of life. I'm crazy enough to believe that most of the bad aspects of modern life are due to our almost overnight rejection of the physical and psychological environment we evolved to perfection in over millions of years. I have no doubt that we are fundamentally disconnected from what we really are, really should be. The question is: "what to do about it?".

I've personally rejected the concept of mass-change, for many reasons. For a start, mass change imposed from without has *never* solved anything and always makes life worse. And then I'm not sure whether it is possible or even desirable. My interest is only in changing myself, to reduce the impact of the mass delusion on me alone. I believe that a few can slip through the cracks and live lives of genuine personal fulfillment of which mass consumption is an ersatz substitute. Start by getting rid of your television!! !! !

Have you ever heard of Jerry Mander? He's been writing about the dangers of TV and consumerism for decades now. Links:
http://www.futurenet.org/article.asp?id=460
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/AoS/theSun.html

Do you have a TV, ManErg?

No. Do you think I would be *that* hypocritical? However, I'm not totally 'clean' as I do use the computer to watch DVD's and some TV content. The huge benefit of this is that I (and my children) can totally avoid the adverts!

Don't forget that the adverts are the main reason for TV. The programs are just filler to keep the viewers watching in between ad breaks. Shift your viewpoint slightly and you see that with TV, the Product being sold is us, the Viewers. The TV companies are selling us to the advertisers. No viewers, no sale.

Brusilov, interesting comments about the increase in emphasis on 'stuff' in parallel to the increase in 'feminisation' of society. Or at least that's what I interpreted from what you wrote. You have to be careful as this is quite politically incorrect to state!

I recall a 'theoretical' question to show a fundamental difference between the sexes. The question was: "You have the choice of living in a shabby apartment in a run down tenament for a years. In an 'undesirable', rough area, tatty furniture and money. But you get a magical supply of sex with a different member of the opposite sex every other night for the whole time. The other choice is a gorgeous villa with swimming pool, tennis court, gym, sauna, every luxury you can imagine. A mansion that would be the envy of everybody. However, you get absolutely no sex for the entire year." Which would you choose?

Apparently, men tend to choose the first and women tend to choose the second. Whether this is natural to the genders, or a product of our dysfunctional way of life, I don't know.

As for male-less society. To me it looks as if the basic concept of 2 sexes within a species has been the success story of evolution on our planet. It intrroduces variety that is key to adapting to differeng environments. Anything that reduces that is going to be a disadvantage long term. Going back to the silly question above, the idea of 2 separate sexes is to get us to strive to acquire a mate. Without that striving, most men would be happy to just rot in the gutter! I don't see the problem as having to work and make effort to reproduce (for either sex), I think this is a fundamental part of our existence. The problem lies with the value systems attached to evaluating that work and effort. Judging everything by superficial appearance, for example. Further confused as the value system by which we rate A as appearing better than B has also been programmed into us when in reality the appearance of A and B is irrelevant. Could the hypothetical alien from Zarg tell that car A looks better than car B? That pair of trainers A look better than pair of trainers B? Of course not, because the appearance is not an objective, measurable attribute of these objects. It exists purely in the conditioned human mind. We don't even need to bring aliens into the picture. Humans living right now who have avoided contact with Anglo-American media will have no idea on how to judge the appearance of these objects. My point being that someone regarded as highly desirable by our current value system may be a neurotic, intellectually useless, emotionally empty, physically deformed useless waste of space when assessed by the measure of what a human being could be.

So is the basic equation: Men want Women and Women want Stuff? Men see acquisition of stuff (and wealth in general) as a means to lure women. This doesn't seem too far fetched to me. Anecdotally, whenever I see couples split up, there does seem to be a pattern in that if driven by the woman, it's because she's found someone more wealthier, poweful. If driven by the man, he's found someone younger and better looking. Stereotypes, I know, but often there's a real reason behind our use of stereotypes.

What I don't understand is why women should want stuff in the first place? Maybe they don't, but what they want is to 'fit in' more and when everybody has a product, they tend more to want to get it too for social reasons of getting along. Looking at children, boys these days seem to want gizmos no more or less than girls. Again, I can't tell whether that's innate as effectively all humans are "living in laboratory conditions" now. Industrial/Consumer/Civilised living is an uncompleted experiment where the results are not yet in.

Post war, some leaders set out to use TV as a means to deliberately provoke consumerism and hopefully avoid 'boom and bust' economic cycles (and make a lot of wealth for themselves (and their gorgeous wives) of course). It looks like 'boom and bust' is still with us. As is the horror of wars. A few did get mega-wealthy (and aquired gorgeous wives) though. They won't ever let it go that easily.

Sorry for killing your thread, Brusiliv