Blog Dis
A really cool thing...
2024-07-02
Empowerment is a desired thing. The act of empowering should be as simple as infusing into your life more power, like will power, the power to spend more money, the power to change your residence or your employer, even the power to change your mind. But I shan't lead you down a garden path and advise that empowering oneself is that simple. Point in fact, the act of empowering often requires the ability to tap into a source of power that isn't readily accessible or made available to one and all. You just can't wake up one morning and declare that you're going to empower yourself across the board, in all facets of your life, to achieve even greater heights.
Wish that I could, empower myself that is, to do away with the annoying, cloying and distracting purveyors of marketing that bombard your computer if you don't go out of your way to add a browser extension to block ads, or when you walk outside to prevent yourself from being accosted by young Uni students vying for your attention, to sign up to contribute to charitable donations, on a monthly basis. The more people they're able to sign up, the better they're paid. Tough job. I get it, only I reject this principle of stopping people on the streets, given that when I'm outside, I don't appreciate being stopped, any more than I appreciate being pressured to hop onto another charity. Corporations have finessed this charitable donation process with their employees, by way of partnering w/ key charities, who deliver presentations to a roomful of employees, encouraging us to divert a portion of our salary from our paychecks into their coffers.
I've been bombarded by robocalls repeatedly coming from China that send texts and voice calls, despite me blocking their numbers over and again. Yet, they continue to come in and try as I might, I lack the power to prevent these robocalls. My first emotional reaction when it comes to receiving these constant texts or calls, at any time of day, was to reach out to my Internet Service Provider and ask them why can't their internal network detect robocalls to automatically block them, to which my ISP replied, "Of course we can do this for you easy enough for a nominal charge!" This tactic should be called inverse-empowerment, whereby a service provider recognizes a potential revenue stream by capitalizing on the behaviour of another outside organization that is unwelcome by the client of the service provider. Let me explain that ISPs in Canada are some of the fattest cats in Canada whose rates are in some case three times the cost of other countries. And I know this statement to be factual because when my nephew re-located to Boston for a few years, along w/ his wife, and child, they remarked often enough at how low the rates were in the USA for internet service. Whereas, in Canada, and despite being part of North America, apparently our monopolies are not subject to the same competitive market of ISPs in the USA. They have empowered themselves by creating a monopoly which is supported by our CDN government but it doesn't mean that I'm able to empower myself.
To empower oneself, to a degree, means to have one up on the corporation or individual to whom you are beholden too, or are reliant on, and this is where the wicket gets too sticky for my liking. I can't do without Internet service for my job, for writing, for paying my bills online, any more than I can dismiss having to deal with corporations like Internet Service Providers, and mobile phone manufacturers, Hydro Ottawa, city water supply... the list goes on. It means that paying a phone company to block unwanted robocalls isn't a form of empowerment. We are enslaved by our ISPs. We know it. They know it. Our technology has freed us to a degree, empowering us to stay connected at all hours, while simultaneously enslaving us to their devices. I held off buying a touch screen phone for as long as I could until I discovered that while selling novels at an exhibition event, I was missing out on processing orders using a credit card because I didn't have a smart phone that allowed me to download an APP that would process orders via credit card. So, I had to get with the program and buy a smart phone, then download the APP, and install the company software, initialize my account, and eventually shell out money to purchase the equipment to make these transactions, all the while paying the company money to process the purchase.
Hmmm... as a consumer of products, we're empowered with the ability to choose which products we desire, but not the ability to set the stage that enables people to buy at affordable prices. It isn't an empowering experience when say for example, I bought VIP tickets to a live show in the summer of 2023 at Bluesfest (Pitbull and Ludacris) during which I had an absolute blast but which this year the cost has tripled; the owners and organizers of Bluesfest have empowered themselves with the right to raise prices, whereas the spectators are only empowered with the option to either hop along and pay the higher prices or opt out altogether.
This overall lack of empowerment infuriates me. The gift of empowerment is a gift we give ourselves and more often than not, this gift is simply a mindset that doesn't allow outside influence to influence my emotions or thinking. Admittedly, however, I've already lost my sh*t with ISPs over the phone on numerous occasions, mostly because the biggest of these ISPs in Canada will automatically increase their rates by a few dollars every six months, regardless if you've changed your services or agreed to the change in rates. You can formally lodge a complaint and ask to speak with their 'retain' department, which is to say they have staff ready to reduce your bill in order to retain your business, rather than lose your business altogether, but this doesn't prevent them from clawing back their discount as they begin to increase their rates again. And moving to another ISP, by way of negotiating lower rates, by playing one competitive ISP against another, only gets you so far because they, too, engage in the very same practices. ISPs seem highly incestuous to me. 🤢
The act of releasing my pent-up negativity, by way of posting this blog, is my way of empowering myself, because I'm not in possession of the money and power to tell the powerful Internet Service Provider companies to stick their products where the sun don't shine, much as I'd love to do so. However, this level of empowerment is like getting into bed with the Devil, kissing him, then wondering why did the Devil bite my lip and draw blood. And the answer to this conundrum is to acknowledge that the truly powerful individuals and corporations of this world use their power against you, not because they've got a personal vendetta against you, but because they can and will, and do so.
Feeling empowered yet?
Wish that I could, empower myself that is, to do away with the annoying, cloying and distracting purveyors of marketing that bombard your computer if you don't go out of your way to add a browser extension to block ads, or when you walk outside to prevent yourself from being accosted by young Uni students vying for your attention, to sign up to contribute to charitable donations, on a monthly basis. The more people they're able to sign up, the better they're paid. Tough job. I get it, only I reject this principle of stopping people on the streets, given that when I'm outside, I don't appreciate being stopped, any more than I appreciate being pressured to hop onto another charity. Corporations have finessed this charitable donation process with their employees, by way of partnering w/ key charities, who deliver presentations to a roomful of employees, encouraging us to divert a portion of our salary from our paychecks into their coffers.
I've been bombarded by robocalls repeatedly coming from China that send texts and voice calls, despite me blocking their numbers over and again. Yet, they continue to come in and try as I might, I lack the power to prevent these robocalls. My first emotional reaction when it comes to receiving these constant texts or calls, at any time of day, was to reach out to my Internet Service Provider and ask them why can't their internal network detect robocalls to automatically block them, to which my ISP replied, "Of course we can do this for you easy enough for a nominal charge!" This tactic should be called inverse-empowerment, whereby a service provider recognizes a potential revenue stream by capitalizing on the behaviour of another outside organization that is unwelcome by the client of the service provider. Let me explain that ISPs in Canada are some of the fattest cats in Canada whose rates are in some case three times the cost of other countries. And I know this statement to be factual because when my nephew re-located to Boston for a few years, along w/ his wife, and child, they remarked often enough at how low the rates were in the USA for internet service. Whereas, in Canada, and despite being part of North America, apparently our monopolies are not subject to the same competitive market of ISPs in the USA. They have empowered themselves by creating a monopoly which is supported by our CDN government but it doesn't mean that I'm able to empower myself.
To empower oneself, to a degree, means to have one up on the corporation or individual to whom you are beholden too, or are reliant on, and this is where the wicket gets too sticky for my liking. I can't do without Internet service for my job, for writing, for paying my bills online, any more than I can dismiss having to deal with corporations like Internet Service Providers, and mobile phone manufacturers, Hydro Ottawa, city water supply... the list goes on. It means that paying a phone company to block unwanted robocalls isn't a form of empowerment. We are enslaved by our ISPs. We know it. They know it. Our technology has freed us to a degree, empowering us to stay connected at all hours, while simultaneously enslaving us to their devices. I held off buying a touch screen phone for as long as I could until I discovered that while selling novels at an exhibition event, I was missing out on processing orders using a credit card because I didn't have a smart phone that allowed me to download an APP that would process orders via credit card. So, I had to get with the program and buy a smart phone, then download the APP, and install the company software, initialize my account, and eventually shell out money to purchase the equipment to make these transactions, all the while paying the company money to process the purchase.
Hmmm... as a consumer of products, we're empowered with the ability to choose which products we desire, but not the ability to set the stage that enables people to buy at affordable prices. It isn't an empowering experience when say for example, I bought VIP tickets to a live show in the summer of 2023 at Bluesfest (Pitbull and Ludacris) during which I had an absolute blast but which this year the cost has tripled; the owners and organizers of Bluesfest have empowered themselves with the right to raise prices, whereas the spectators are only empowered with the option to either hop along and pay the higher prices or opt out altogether.
This overall lack of empowerment infuriates me. The gift of empowerment is a gift we give ourselves and more often than not, this gift is simply a mindset that doesn't allow outside influence to influence my emotions or thinking. Admittedly, however, I've already lost my sh*t with ISPs over the phone on numerous occasions, mostly because the biggest of these ISPs in Canada will automatically increase their rates by a few dollars every six months, regardless if you've changed your services or agreed to the change in rates. You can formally lodge a complaint and ask to speak with their 'retain' department, which is to say they have staff ready to reduce your bill in order to retain your business, rather than lose your business altogether, but this doesn't prevent them from clawing back their discount as they begin to increase their rates again. And moving to another ISP, by way of negotiating lower rates, by playing one competitive ISP against another, only gets you so far because they, too, engage in the very same practices. ISPs seem highly incestuous to me. 🤢
The act of releasing my pent-up negativity, by way of posting this blog, is my way of empowering myself, because I'm not in possession of the money and power to tell the powerful Internet Service Provider companies to stick their products where the sun don't shine, much as I'd love to do so. However, this level of empowerment is like getting into bed with the Devil, kissing him, then wondering why did the Devil bite my lip and draw blood. And the answer to this conundrum is to acknowledge that the truly powerful individuals and corporations of this world use their power against you, not because they've got a personal vendetta against you, but because they can and will, and do so.
Feeling empowered yet?
