Post by drystyx on Sept 11, 2017 19:53:08 GMT
I remember when I was a kid, back before there were Homo Sapiens to ruin the landscape, well, a little later than that.
I remember going places where there were vending machines, and in every case, you had at most six choices for soda, and six choices for snacks, and also in every single case, the good snacks were sold out, leaving you with the three no one wanted, Zero bars, Reese peanut butter cups, and Snickers. The three musketeers were always sold out first, then the potato chips, then the other thing.
You had limited choices. Naturally, most people would pick Snickers, the lesser of the evils, the one that didn't taste horrible. Having 2-6 choices for soda also made it easier.
Grocery stores would have 2 or 3 brands of some things, but often just one brand, and one type. There wasn't "super sunny day", "sunny day", "spring sunny day", spring rainy day", and so forth in air freshener. A person could pick and choose.
Today, one in inundated with so much dazzle, it takes 30 seconds just to collect oneself from the terror of the dazzling enemy staring a person in the face. Then it may take minutes to even begin to decide. I'm a caretaker for a lady who will spend a half hour on one product alone at Kroger's. Sure, it gives me extra time on the clock, but it isn't productive. I know how she feels. She has to make a choice, and feels the pressure of making up a mind in a moment. But it can't be done.
When I lived in Frankfort, Kentucky, I had a great deal. I lived close to the best park in the state where I could jog and hike. When I lived in Louisville, there were several parks, none of which were great, most of which were just flooded with pot heads and cigarette smoking pukes who ruined them with their smoke. People go to parks to get away from that crap, but the control freaks wouldn't allow it. So, there were about 10 poor choices, and no good ones.
In Frankfort, I had a great deal on cable. Something like 25 numbered stations, but really about 60, because there was a 3.2, 3.3, and so forth. Too many choices, ordinarily, but then a dozen were dullard nothing stations, like home shopping, and a dozen were new fangled crap no one but dorks like, and most of the others were specialty stations, like sports, preaching, whatever.
I usually had an easy pick from the stations if I chose to watch TV.
Then came the room mates. A married couple from the worthless Generation Xenophobe, no offense. He was 45, she was 35, about two years ago. He cried that he couldn't see his zombie thing, even though there were always 2 zombie shows on. I told him this, and then he said that those "zombie shows" were reruns, reruns about two weeks late. He jumped my cable bill from about 17 dollars a month to 65 dollars a month to watch something two weeks in advance. No, I have no use for any of you clones of his from Generation Worthless Crap.
Of course the first bill came, and he wouldn't pay it, and so I dropped all the cable. I wasn't home as much as they were, with both of them in poor health, unable to even walk their dog. I loved taking their dog with me to the park for hikes. Meanwhile, they were home trying to decide which new fangled crap to watch, because now they had some new computer thing.
I'd take a hike for an hour and a half or so, come back, and they still couldn't decide what to watch, and it seemed to be the same indecision that was going on an hour and a half earlier.
This isn't their fault, though. They're victims, sheep to the system of "too many choices". They're dorks, needing to see the first show as soon as it comes out, afraid to not fit in with the cool crowd so much that they get laughed at for trying to fit in (the definition of "dorks"). At least nerds get some respect for being individuals, but the first world is breeding a special kind of dork, a special kind of sheep.
They have no idea what they would want by Nature. They're transformed from birth, with a deluge of propaganda from Hollywood, telling them what to think, what to like, everything. Sure, there was always propaganda, but in my day, we weren't allowed to watch TV till we were about 7, and even then it was limited and mostly black and white until the mid seventies for all but the elite upper class.
So, when we first got hit by propaganda, we knew it. Sure, we had to follow it, and obey it, but we knew what it was. We knew we were being forced to think a certain way, and it wasn't natural. Especially those of us who were the last to conform.
Back to the present.
Now, the new generations have no way to know they're being manipulated. Choices? All those choices, and yet they're all the same. I've seen my ex roommates spend several minutes trying to choose from packaged foods, all of which were the same high fat, processed GMO junk, and I pity them, because they're diabetic and have no choice. They never had freedom. Not really. They can't even walk their dog. We split into different directions almost 2 years ago, and I pray they found a neighbor to walk their dog at least. Because they just can't do it. They're slaves, and I can't free them.
All the while, like so many others, they think they have a thousand choices, but those thousand choices just make them less independent.
