I was talking to this young lad, late teens or very early twenties. We were talking about a particular social media app, TikTok. He asked if I had seen this particular video, and I said no I hadn’t.
“I don’t like having Chinese spy ware on my phone” I said.
Now I could have just said “no I don’t have it”. But any opportunity to get people questioning these things, planting seeds, I will take.
Now he reacted to my “Chinese Spyware” comment with a snort of derision and an eye roll. Which sparked a lighthearted, rib-poking debate about the subject of privacy.
He said that, to paraphrase, “you’re not that interesting, no-one wants your data, and you probably think cash is king”.
Now I agree with the last statement wholeheartedly, which I let him know.
However the first two, not so much.
I won’t go into anymore details about the conversation, as frankly it was not that interesting, nor can I remember what was said.But it does lead me to a point, a point that I think highlights a very negative, pessimistic way of thinking.
In essence, what he was saying to me, was that they are going to take my data anyway, so I might as well let them have all of it, as all my efforts will only stop them taking some.
Wrong.
This glass half empty mentality is one of the many, many things that I think is wrong with the general populace today.
Just to keep using the privacy and data avenue here, look at it this way.
Can I stop them taking every bit of data that I have?
No!
I have a bank account, a passport with a chip in it, driving license with my address, medical and dental records.
Loads of data.
But companies out there like Meta and Google and so on, are taking my data, and selling it to the highest bidder. Its being used to track where I go and what I do, so they can use one of the worst creations to ever disgrace the earth; advertising, to make me want to buy or do things. Even if it was never my idea to do them, or buy those things.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t like the idea of people making money off of ME, period, let alone how they are making their money.
Its an invasion of my privacy, privacy which is a basic Human Right.
So any amount of MY data that I can keep out of their grubby little hands is a win for me.
This defeatist attitude I previously highlighted, manifests itself in every other walk of life.
Exercise?
“Whats the point”
“We will all die anyway”
“I have a slow metabolism”
Excuses. Nonsense.
You don’t have to be doing prime Arnold level bodybuilding training. You don’t have to dedicate 2 hours every day in the gym.
You just need to do something.
Go for a walk, do some pushups in your room, stretch, play football in the park, ride a bike.
Anyone of those activities, done even semi-regularly, will have a more profound effect than not doing nothing, or thinking if you can’t do the absolute best and most efficient thing, you shouldn’t bother.
I believe this thinking comes from laziness and hopelessness.
People are too lazy to do any of these things. If they can do some mental gymnastics to justify why they shouldn’t have to lift a finger, they will.
Not being part of the “in” crowd and staying up to date with the affairs of other people on social media, and having to develop a persoanlity and lose the crutch of scrolling, is to difficult for them.
The same justifications come with exercise too. If they can find an excuse as to why it is not worth the effort doing it, then they wont have to do it.
Hopelessness as I said, plays a part, too.
People have no hope, or belief that they have any agency in these things. They put the center of control of their life outside of themselves.
“Why bother trying to stop corporations taking my data, I can’t stop all of them”
Or ” Even if I tried, I can’t stop them taking all of it”
It’s understandable how one may think this way, but its clouded in delusion. I daresay some of the bad actors involved in this life have designed things in such a way to MAKE people feel hopeless or lazy. To make them not fight back.
But, as a person who’s response to danger is fight or fight, I can assure you that there is hope. It is worth the struggle. Whether the struggle is micromanaging your online presence to stop people snooping on your every move, and allowing yourself to fall off the cliff of Big Brother with the rest of the cattle. Or the struggle of feeling insecure and awkward going for a jog for the first time, or the humiliation of not being able to push your own body weight off the ground.
It is worth the struggle.
Not everything that is hard to get is worth getting, but every worth getting is hard to get.
And doing something, is ALWAYS better than doing nothing.
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