Category: Social Media

Black Friday And The Rocket Man

rocket-1027577_1920Unless you live in a cave on the northern slopes of the Himalayas, you know that yesterday was American Thanksgiving and today is Black Friday.  Black Friday (for all you cave dwellers) is a strange American retail phenomenon that’s slowly circling the globe.  A number of different countries — including mine — are starting to cash in on Black Friday’s consumer spending frenzy.  Personally, I don’t see the attraction, but I don’t have a philosophical problem with people beating each other over the head once a year to save 50 bucks. (I kinda figure it’s like The Purge with credit cards.)  My point is nobody but Americans could a) think up something as silly as Black Friday and b) make it work.  Let me demonstrate.

There’s a guy in California who’s going to launch himself into the air on a homemade rocket to prove that — wait for it — the Earth is flat.  Wow!  Think of the irony!  And this isn’t some Star Wars wannabe, blogging from his parents’ basement.  Oddly enough, Mike Hughes, a 61-year-old limousine driver, has already “slipped the surly bonds of earth.”  Back in 2014, he managed to build a rocket, get it airborne (with him in it) and soared for a kilometre or so through the skies of Arizona.  Unfortunately, what goes up must come down, and when Hughes’ DIY project did, he ended up in the hospital.

Aside from the fact that this is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard of (and I’ve heard a lot of stupid stuff in my time) I do believe this is a quintessentially American story.  The thing is, Mr. Hughes, dumb as he might be, actually did built a rocket and actually did fire himself into the sky.  Now, question Mikey’s tenuous grasp on reality all you want, but any way you slice it, that’s a hell of an accomplishment.  And this simple tale of one idiot in California is a deep look into the American character.  They are a dynamic people.  They don’t really care what their government, science, mathematics, the natural laws of the universe and sometimes even common sense tell them, ordinary Americans truly believe that — if they work at it — they can do anything.  And then, incredibly, they frequently do.

So, while people all over the world are chasing the American Dream of a 50-inch-Big-Screen-TV, I’ll just say this: “Good luck, Mike Hughes — and Godspeed!”

Nothing But Truth

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Truth is one of those things that everybody says they want, but in reality, people are not all that interested in it when it actually shows up.  This is because people like to go with the flow, and truth tends to get in the way of what people want to believe.  So here are a few truths that most people try to avoid.

Greed is not a bad thing — Greed may be responsible for a lot of problems in this world, but look around you: 99.99% of everything you see is the result of some greedy bastard figuring out a way to make money.  Without greed, we’d all still be killing our own food, peeing in the woods and dying at the ripe old age of 31.

People are not equal — We’ve spent the last 4 generations trying to fool ourselves into thinking that all people are equal.  They aren’t.  Here’s how it works.  I’m an average person — which means that there are millions of people out there who are smarter than I am and therefore have a better-than-average chance of making better decisions than I do.  On the other hand, there are also millions of people who aren’t as smart as me, and therefore their decisions are mostly crap.  Yes, we all bleed red blood, but smart people tend to avoid knife fights.

There is a Pretty Girl Rule — Like it or don’t, pretty girls get treated better than anyone else on this planet.  On the flip side, they also have to put up with a lot more bullshit than the rest of us.

Advertising doesn’t work — Even though junior college sociologists keep telling us it’s not our fault we buy stupid stuff — it is.  The truth is advertising doesn’t actually manipulate all that many people into buying things.  If it did, we’d all still be driving Edsels™, drinking New Coke™ and playing Atari™ video games.  Serious marketers know that advertising leads from the rear.  It chases trends; it doesn’t create them and its sole purpose is brand recognition.  Don’t believe me?  Go spend a gazillion dollars advertising buggy whips and see how far that gets you.

Life is all about sex and death — I hate to admit it, but Freud was right and all those billions of synapses in our brains that are supposed to separate us from the beasts and the begonias — don’t.  Arrogant we may be, but the bottom line is humans are just another species on this planet, and we’re governed by the same rules: stay alive, and get laid.

And finally:

We’re getting better at this — Despite what the “Ain’t It Awful” crowd keeps yelling about, across the Internet and out of every other media orifice, the world is not going to Hell on frequent flyer miles.  In the 21st century, there is less poverty, less famine, fewer wars, and fewer epidemics than at any time in history.  There’s also less discrimination, less racism, less gender inequality and less violent crime.  Infant mortality is at an all-time low, and life expectancy is increasing.  We produce more food, clean more polluted water and generate more sustainable energy than ever before.  There are still a lot of things wrong with this world, but the truth is — when you stop, take three deep ones, and look at it — we’re actually beginning to build a better world.

9 Bold Predictions (Plus 1)

futurePredicting the future is like explaining the past — you’re going to get an argument from somebody.  However, when was the last time I was afraid of a verbal bare-knuckles?  So here are some bold predictions for the not-so-distant future.

America — The long-anticipated demise of the USA will, once again, be greatly exaggerated.  America may have hit a serious bump called Trump, but remember that Amazon, Google, Facebook, Visa, Mastercard, Disney and Walmart are all American companies.  Plus, even the most detailed economic indicators don’t mention that, while that t-shirt, sold around the world, might be “Made in China,” the logo on the front is the Los Angeles Lakers, and the licensing money for that is going back to California.

China — China’s economic dominance will be short-lived — if it happens at all.  China is betting against history, which tells us two things.  One: if you give the middle class economic power but deny them the political power to protect their newfound money, you’re just asking for trouble.  And two: if you create an uber upper class that’s conspicuously wealthy, eventually the Have-nots are going to say WTF? and demand a bigger slice of the pie — by force, if necessary. (China is on the verge of satisfying both these conditions.)

Unemployment — Eventually, we’re going to realize that we don’t actually need all these lawyers, consultants, administrators, HR, PR, IT and WXYZ people, taking up space in government and industry.  In fact, we’d all be better off if they just left their make-work jobs and went home.  The problem is what’s our society going to do with a boatload of over-educated people, sitting around playing video games?

Stupid Vacation Pictures — Unfortunately, tourists are still going to act like jackasses at the Tower of Pisa, The Great Wall, the Venus de Milo and every other “must-see” with a website.  The only way around this is a universal ban on selfie sticks.  (Where’s the United Nations when you need them?)

Secrets — As ordinary people continue to give away their privacy with both hands, secrets will become a commodity only the very rich can afford.

English — Despite North America’s Politically Correct culture doing its best to tear the guts out of the English language, it will become the lingua  franca of the 21st century.  (FYI, twice as many people in Asia are learning English than speak it in the USA!)

Money — Folding money is rapidly going out of style. Eventually, the only people who will use it regularly will be international drug dealers and local bake sale charities.  A couple of years ago, I saw Girl Guides selling cookies with credit card readers on their telephones.  Think about it!

Bitcoins — Bitcoins are crap!  Remember what happened to tulips!

Zombies And Englishmen — Ever since social justice warriors made every identifiable group (except middle-class white males) an oppressed minority, it’s been impossible for Hollywood to find a villain who doesn’t come equipped with an angry Twitter mob.  So, for the foreseeable future, only Zombies and Englishmen will be acceptable as the bad guys in the movies and on TV.

And finally:

Energy Is Not Going Be A Problem — Right now, in most industrialized countries, people pay more for a cup of Starbucks coffee than they do for a litre of gasoline.  Check it out!  So, as long as fossil fuels remain relatively cheap, oil-producing countries are going to have the rest of us by the shorthairs.  Fortunately, though, a lot of us are getting sick and tired of sucking up to these people, and we’re starting to produce our own energy.  (NB! As you read this, the Netherlands is using wind power to drive all their trains.)  Obviously, as more and more people do this, the world will become a cleaner, happier place — and the Middle East will go back to being a gigantic, unhappy sandbox.