[conformal]

they live is one of the best john carpenter films, and that includes the epic 10-minute on-concrete wrestling match before keith david will don the glasses.

being extremely entertained to see a blog entry about they live aside, making privacy simple is super hard. similarly, making people care about privacy is super hard. killing the aliens is even harder.

ubiquitous surveillance has a pretty obvious response in the long run: ubiquitous encryption.

[grecy]

I've not seen the movie (yet) but reading the description on the blog was enlightening for me.

I don't fit into Western Society at all - I couldn't care less for consumerism, sports, mass media, smartphones, etc. etc. and I've always thought it's because I can see the truth behind stuff, where other people just see the glitter on the surface covering up the ugly truth.

Now I know I've just been wearing a pair of these sunglasses my whole life.

[tomsthumb]

Most of us think that we now live in totally atheist, post-ideological times, and cynically view the big 20th century movements like communism and fascism as totally failed and outdated. But it's exactly when we think we exist outside ideology that we are actually in it. It's inherent in the way that we construct our reality and stage our desires. And this is also reflected in cinema. In a consumerist capitalist society, you think you are free by being able to enjoy life and buy things like a Starbucks frappuccino, when actually, you are following an obscene and deep command to ”ENJOY.”

-- Slavoj Žižek

are you sure you're wearing glasses?

[Chlorus]

You sure are a special snowflake. Thank you for sharing your insights with the rest of the world. Do you have a newsletter? I would like to subscribe to it! Your fresh, humble insights are a beacon to us all, who have to contend with the dumb sheeple on a daily basis.

[grecy]

newsletter? no. Blog about driving around the world following my dreams and passions? yes. http://theroadchoseme.com

(yes, I know you were joking. I'm not :) )

[nickik]

The thing about western society is that its actually still mostly free. I dont care for most of those things either (exept the smartphone) but I can easly build my own bubble.

You are not forced to spend much time in mass culture, there is no great conspiricy, people are just diffrent then you but you have the freedom to find your own frinds and community that you can hang out with.

There are hunders and tousends of subcommunity outthere that most people have not even heard of. I am constantly suprised about all the hobbies that exist even in a short distance from my house. There is a huge groupe of people who are totally into doing competition "who has the best looking rabbit". This is from perspective totally alien but I happen to stumble on a tournament once where literally tousends of people and even more rabbits and I could just not belive how many people that were there.

So stop lamenting the fact that you live in a consumer society and start investing your money into the stuff you actually like, and invest your time into people and hobbies that you actually like instead of seeing conspirices behind everything.

Also it want kill you to know the 5 top pop songs and watch a football game with your familly once in a while.