| I just had this thought after several days of reading the news about the control tatics being implemented by the lobbying power of the RIAA and MPAA through bills such as the DMCA and UCITA, as well as the recent FCC decision to require anti-piracy features in digital televisions.
Is the "The Matrix" really just a metaphor for the pop-culture society that the modern day mega-corporations have created for us? Most of us all blindly live about our mediocre lives, oblivious that the corporations are just marketing us dry. They are presenting to us all sorts of enhanced imagery to influence how we should look and behave, and we follow like sheep, making their fantasy into reality - except that this reality isn't *real*.
People on television are fictional, but we remain mesmerized by it, spending hours a day watching it. Most sheep try to emulate these fictional characters (just look at any teen soap opera and then look at how students behave at your local high school). Like The Matrix, we are all being appeased with a fake reality, while our power (political, not electrical) is being sapped away from us.
Companies with shareholders who claim they aren't motiviated primarily for profit are lying, and anyone who claims otherwise is probably just an agent. These companies will just continue to use subversive marketing and false advertising to appeal to our instincts, while making anything they do seem like a Good ThingTM, even if it does involve corporate suits who would kick you in the balls if they could make 3 cents off of it.
Imagine a world where the entire population was mind-fucked by a huge distributed network of brainwashing machines, telling them what to do, while keeping their interest by spoon-feeding their egos with sex, food, and exaggerated news. This network would distract the population from any possible acts of corporate dissention or independent thought, allowing it's infrastructure to grow more powerful as its victims avoid any politicial activisim against it. This is what we call television. From an uncommercial: "The living room is the factory... The product being manufactured... is you."
It really sickens me, the power these corporations are accumulating, while most people remain apathetic to it. I just donated $100 to the EFF. I'm voting for a third party. I will only support small businesses where the few are still available. I also intend to write letters to these corporations asking them why the products I buy are not as they are advertised. When they respond by justifying their examples of deception through the use of literal terminology and small print, I shall archive them here or on my website.
We are living in a society where the truth has been pulled over our eyes. This society was originally invented by normal people who valued freedom and independence, but over the decades, it went wrong and suddenly we are dominated by a huge dark force which continues to sap the political power from more and more people with every TV commercial or fake testimony. These dark forces despise us, despite their dependency on us. They watch over our actions, taking any attempt to hack their Matrix ( DeCSS, MP3, DivX ;-) ) as an attack on their future, and they are quick to send their agents to put a stop to it, while making sure to remind the public that these "hackers" are the "evil force", by telling them such things as "fair use is actually stealing".
I'll take the red pill.
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