Back Story
I grew up with computers and video games to waste months of my life on the computer. In fact, that my be an understatement because I remember ActiVision (video game creator) kept record that I had spent over 33days playing ONLY Call of Duty 4 on Xbox 360 when I was younger… (yes embarrassing). If we consider how much time I’ve spent on YouTube since 2007, it must be years at this point. Needless to say, I’m no stranger to computers like most kids today. I am however, until relatively recently, an absolute ignoramus when it comes to the backend behind software, IT, cyberspace and other related topics. In a short period of time, I have created this blogging company, Open Door Consultancy, Soapbox (writesoapbox.com) and, three other applications (write me if you want an MVP on Bubble) & other websites by starting with almost “boomer-level” knowledge of how to do any of this.
For any software developer, website creator, programmer, IT specialist or hacker, I’m still the ignoramus…but, for me I’ve come to advance in baby steps to immerse myself bit by bit in the world of software and code to understand how things are designed.
Where is this going?
A triad of items have come onto my plate (or rather, computer screen) all at the same time that had made me think about something for the first time that my “ordinary” self before completely missed. The three items are the following:
- Young people have never been more nihilistic and appear to have given up on any sort of chance at guiding their own fate
- Vaccination and other drugs have received a storm of “truth bombs” and serious reveals in the so-called mainstream that it has woken even some of the most stubborn up to question pharma’s intent
- Experiencing software updates, a hiccup in reading a code message & difficulty downloading a new browser.
I know you’re thinking…what the hell does this have to do with each other, let alone anything important.
The Slavery Model has Changed
I love the mid-twit meme. The meme is applicable in so many ways the longer you think of it. But here’s one simple way. Consider the following statement:
The world of taxation, regulation & legal monopoly is stacked against you–what are your next steps?
The right side of the bell curve understands this completely, and strives to take action to mitigate these problems. The smartest people I have ever met have moved or at least secured 2nd residencies or passports. They have moved their assets out of their home country, diversified their investment portfolios and ensured they have resources in place when they need them.
The middle majority of bell curve is your typical citizen who asks, “how much do you bench, bro?” and “catch the game last night?”. These are the people who think they need to simply “work hard”, “save more” and that all will be fixed if only we can get enough people to “vote” for the correct person. They are the most obedient, compliant and non-threatening.
The last group is not particularly bright, educated, experienced, well-spoken or abstract in their thinking. For sake of argument, let’s assume young people are categorized here. This group, so goes the joke, identifies with the highly intelligent and active group upon the same point [that the chips are stacked against us]. This is what we see today with Gen Z being some of the most nihilistic people that walk the planet today.
I believe one aspect giving rise to this nihilism is their lack of economic possibilities or a future–but it goes deeper than this. It’s not simply that good paying jobs are hard to come by or rent is expensive. It’s that on some level, without even being able to spell it out, I believe they understand that there is no possibility to create or produce more than what they consume. But How?
The Two Parts
For this to ring true, they need to understand that their ability to compete against the large competition must be a losing battle, AND that they are trapped to consume the product produced by their competition.
What Happened?
I believe that who Gerald Celente calls “The Bigs” have not only begun to buy out the little guy to centralize their power (Wal-Mart is a great example) but establish a new tactic as a result of their centralized power stronghold and affinity to the lawmakers of each country.
(This is where the other two parts on my computer screen appear). If we consider the consumption part of the equation, we see that even the most innovative young adults are in trouble. Now it seems that the service provided or product itself by “The Bigs” guarantees future customers to return to that service or product, intentionally.
First, we may have thought that in a free market the best product or service “wins” the customer. Later, many think that it’s merely a fascist structure where the public-private partnership is the mode of operation to now compete… I believe the new model is worse and more sinister than that.
Buy Once; Buy Forever
Examples
With respect to some of my devices, they’re a bit older… and I’m constantly encountering limitations in being able to download different software, access certain features or being asked to update various applications. The problem (aside from the fact that it’s likely giving away my private data)? It will not ALLOW me to do this even if I try. It requires new versions. New versions ultimately means going to the store for a new type of phone, computer or tablet. In other words, the product and its updates are to functionally decrease usability to ensure that their product sales will continue (lest you get stuck with older ways of operating).
Ever hear of Project Ara? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Ara) This was a brilliant idea whereby customers could customize their phone depending on their use. Work in a warehouse and want to listen to music? Design the phone for a bigger speaker. Much of a traveller? Expand your camera. Use it for a whole catalog of friends and contacts? Change the storage unit. On it all day? Get a bigger battery. If you see the prototype, it looks pretty slick too!
So why didn’t this project move forward? Aside from not being able to spy on citizens as easily…it meant efficiency tailored to each individual user, and thus, durability. Durability, meant less recurring phone sales and less revenues means less profits at the end of the day.
Big Pharma
Strangely, given my studies I’m probably most “qualified” to comment on pharmaceuticals. As far as I can tell, there may be 20% amazingly beneficial medicines, 30% are great for masking a problem or treating symptoms from disease and the remaining 50% is almost entirely for profit (I’m not only talking about vaccines which do account for ~50% of Pharma’s profits). I’ll never forget the simple analogy that a pharmacology professor had explained:
A drug compound is a key and it’s looking for it’s lock known as the receptor. The problem in medical research is that we may be targeting those locks in muscle, but we may also trigger those same locks on the heart, bone, skin and liver. This is what we call Side Effects
Pharma’s perfect product is one that is tolerable, efficacious in one specific domain but riddled with side effects. Why? Because this provides perfect cause to treat the newly created side effects and therefore generates a “chasing your tail” pattern. Better yet for Pharma, are drugs that can distort normal cellular activity in a delayed fashion to the point where they create a whole new disease (or market)–>ADHD comes to mind. I’m reminded of the meme of a doctor that reads “Just remember, I don’t make money if you’re healthy”.
You can see that the product itself being offered is designed with the intent to ensure future consumption of products. Don’t believe me? Go in to the doctor’s office and see if you can get out without being handed a prescription (even if you’re otherwise healthy!).
The product is designed to be sold, not to complete the task it purports to solve
Tobacco
I have two articles I’m working on relating to nicotine, not necessarily tobacco but admittedly this is a huge aspect of Big Tobacco’s market. Tobacco itself (cigars) do not explain the addictive properties that are found in cigarette smokers (the research is quite clear on this), but instead they make use of pyrazine additives.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4941150
Unlike pharma who would love to see newly created distortions/diseases for future sales, Big Tobacco aims for the most addictive and “sticky” product that exceeds the tobacco leaf & nicotine so they can offer to have customers returning for more. While this isn’t new, it yet again follows the model.
Banking
If you’re interested in reading further about some finance articles and banking articles I wrote, there’s a few below:
In short, I write that banks don’t truly need depositors anymore. The current system is one big centralized entity that gives and takes wherever it needs to remain afloat. Therefore, the business of banking is less about offering security of funds, great financial products & assistance or confidence in ones future retirement (you may have chuckled reading this). Instead, the name of the game of banking is to ensure that your life (your job, opening of a brokerage account, paying taxation, opening any account for cryptocurrency or payment processor) must go through them. How do banks do this?
If anything, they are as tight with the government as pharma, tobacco and tech… but their products aren’t inherently addictive & recurring (we don’t NEED a mortgage or 6 credit cards). They trap us by making sure banking laws, regulations, permits, requirements, audits and oversight is so expensive, extensive and painful for any other alternative (believe it or not, the capital requirements are not as expensive as you’d think to open your own bank in some jurisdictions), that you must continue to store your funds with them. Without any viable alternative, like the others, we continue to come back to the source because of regulation.
Disclaimer
I’m not simply stating that the companies are designing fantastic products/services that have people wanting to come back. I am saying they are knowingly designing terrible products with flaws and the flaws themselves carry caveats so that the customer MUST come back.
Any others?
Indirectly
You can see that companies are careful not to be regarded as price fixing their services. Price fixing is a collusive and illegal anticompetitive agreement between competing businesses (or sometimes, buyers) to set or stabilize the prices of goods or services at a certain level, rather than allowing market forces to determine prices through competition.
What comes to mind, at least in Canada, are the airlines. Not only are the prices between WestJet and Air Canada nearly identical, but their routes and times of those routes are too. There is no benefit of going with one over the other and hence, they have destroyed the market for newcomers. Again, the product itself is not a fantastically comfortable, luxurious flight across the country, it is to take you to one place because it knows you’ll be returning to them to buy tickets back home.
The purpose of the system is what it does
Can you think of any other big industry that sells products like this? I’d love to hear it
What does this mean?
From my perspective, I pay a considerable amount of attention to various stocks that people may wish to buy during this chaotic time (like Pharma and Tobacco companies!). However, this is time consuming and for most, uninteresting. Therefore, rather than beat inflation this way they have to play this rotten game and knowingly lose morning in, morning out.
I believe that this is going to hit a tipping point where the youth of the world are going to snap, and conjure up an immense amount of chaos and destruction in their respective countries. Whether this will be tailored towards immigrants, homeless, banksters, rich homes, parliament buildings, or each other, I don’t know…but tensions appear to be rising higher than ever.
Dollar is the Weak point
So long as these companies can continue to engineer their products unfairly in conjunction with state litigators, it doesn’t seem like there will be much in terms of competition coming from within. Instead, [and I believe Russia and China understand this] it appears that the strength of the dollars and by extension, treasuries are glue that is holding the current financial system together.
Closing
We may have gone from an honest free-market price discovery to a fascist economic model to the current one that is resembling the perfectly design spiders web. This web model of products/services are designed not for perfection, rather, for imperfection, coupled with a specific trait that traps the customer from making any sudden movements away towards freedom [or in their self interest]. The opening to this article started off a little off course I realize…but for a moment, everything came together in front of me
- People feel helpless
- Big companies trap customers
- The products themselves are always faulty
- The fault helps them
To be honest, this is why I launched Open Door Consultancy to help people set up Plan B’s, second citizenships, diversify their holdings, their assets, their resources (network globally), etc. It’s the best chance we have to get around this type of tyranny.
For those who have everything completely figured out… I think it’s worth reminding that the young, energetic population out there is ready to explode as they increasing feel like they have nothing to lose. I reiterate, don’t be caught flat-footed during this time
https://opendoorconsultancy.net
#StayOnTheBall
