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DamianTV
02-28-2013, 06:53 PM
http://www.wakingtimes.com/2013/02/26/the-tyranny-of-convenience/


Our lives are ridiculously convenient in this day and age, and much of the consumer economy seems to be directed at making life ‘easier’ still. It seems that the more convenient life becomes, the more need there is for more convenience. Anything is possible in this technological age and if it can’t be afforded, then convenient credit can make it happen. There is no reason to wait for anything.

Just like an addict, the modern convenience seeker is rarely aware of the damage that the need to feed the need is causing.

The pursuit of convenience is big business and over the last 60-75 years we have experienced a profound cultural shift towards disposable consumerism. We’ve been sold the idea that life must be easy, and that the mundane things in life are to be rushed or delegated so that more time is available for enjoying ourselves. For several generations now our culture has been programmed to place an overly high value on convenience, and the flip side of this is that we have grown to loathe inconvenience to such a degree that we now perceive even slight delays in the delivery of convenience as inconveniences.

Who has time for anything to go wrong in our world today?

Our addiction to this complex lifestyle, requiring ever-compounded convenience, is one of the subtlest and most addictive tyrannies of the modern age.

The word tyranny conjures up images of Uncle Joe Stalin, Chairman Mao and the Berlin Wall, however, taking a closer look at human behavior reveals that our lives are regimented more so by our own habits and preferences than by any outside entity. The limitations we place on ourselves, that prevent us from living proper and powerful lives, do as much to tyrannize our hearts and minds than any dictatorial edict, and the human race has never been more easily controlled.


‘Those who would trade freedom for convenience, deserve neither freedom, nor security, and will end up with inconvenience.” – Sigmund Fraud


It is in the routinely carried out behaviors of our daily lives, in our rigid habits, in the patterns bubbling just under the surface of our psyches, that we give up our freedom. This is where we are most taken advantage of and most held captive. This is where our true identity is hijacked and where we are programmed to live in pursuit of phoney consumeristic ideals such as convenience.

Are we just robots running programs? Are we merely slaves programmed to perform certain duties in exchange for a comfortable system of punishment and reward?

In interesting times as these, with such complex and dangerous problems facing all of us, and when the bulk of society seems content to live behind the iron curtain of cognitive dissonance, freeing ourselves from the habits and cultural conventions that keep us enslaved is imperative.

The freedom to purchase a service and do business with someone without having to automatically also comply with physical molestation by a third party is a simple, obvious right that we are trading away for the convenience of flying. Yet so many people consent to being groped and to watching their children being groped by strangers in TSA uniforms just to travel recreationally.

We also wish to avoid the inconvenience of being hassled, sequestered, detained, interrogated, fined, arrested, tazed, or shot by an increasingly authoritarian government. Yet, no one is forcing us to fly under these conditions, and the fact that so many people show up without protest is a broad public statement of consent to being molested. A mandate, if you will.

In many ways, convenience is a more insidious and practical tool for tyranny than the barrel of a gun. Our modern banking system is perhaps the most dastardly and subtle form of tyranny know to man, as it is so large in scope that it affects almost everyone on the planet.

Even a rudimentary understanding of central banking reveals how it capitalizes on our desire for convenience in order to ensnare the planet in a web of debt. They conveniently print up as much money as the world needs and we consent to owing exponentially increasing, mathematically un-payable sums of money to a private corporation for the rest of eternity. It is convenient now, but rather costly in the long run.

We do this not out of fear for our lives, but for want of convenience and for fear of inconvenience. We have been programmed to ignore our own best interests in order to remain un-hassled by our complex lives.

It turns out that the problem is not that they are selling us tyranny, but that we have already bought into what they sold us. We are too far hooked on the promising idea of convenience to turn back now. We are slaves to our own habits and desires. We are tyrannized by convenience.

So what is our greatest convenience? Maybe always trying to let someone else deal with our problems.

kathy88
02-28-2013, 07:26 PM
Bump. Good read.

fr33
02-28-2013, 07:43 PM
Bump again. Worth reading.

mad cow
02-28-2013, 07:57 PM
Why is convenience being made the enemy here?Convenience is good.

Flying was a hell of a lot more convenient when you could walk into an airport with no x-rays or pat-downs or wanding and purchase a ticket for cash with no ID.
Then climb on the plane with a knife in your pocket and any damned sized shampoo you felt like in your carry-on,sit down,order a drink and have a smoke waiting for take-off.

Something is wrong here,something is at fault,but it sure ain't a surfeit of convenience.

donnay
02-28-2013, 08:43 PM
Why is convenience being made the enemy here?Convenience is good.

Flying was a hell of a lot more convenient when you could walk into an airport with no x-rays or pat-downs or wanding and purchase a ticket for cash with no ID.
Then climb on the plane with a knife in your pocket and any damned sized shampoo you felt like in your carry-on,sit down,order a drink and have a smoke waiting for take-off.

Something is wrong here,something is at fault,but it sure ain't a surfeit of convenience.

Cell phones are very convenient--the dark side of that convenience is the government can listen to your private conversations and track and trace you anytime they want.

It's convenient to pay with a credit card, it is not so convenient when that bill comes in with and interest rate that Loan Sharks would get put in jail for years ago.

Convenience has a price, and that price for many of us is taking our liberty.

DamianTV
02-28-2013, 08:46 PM
Why is convenience being made the enemy here?Convenience is good.

Flying was a hell of a lot more convenient when you could walk into an airport with no x-rays or pat-downs or wanding and purchase a ticket for cash with no ID.
Then climb on the plane with a knife in your pocket and any damned sized shampoo you felt like in your carry-on,sit down,order a drink and have a smoke waiting for take-off.

Something is wrong here,something is at fault,but it sure ain't a surfeit of convenience.

It isnt the enemy, the same way as guns themselves are not the enemy. What determines if something is good or bad is the way that it is used. Our problem of convenience is that it is more convenient for us to sit around and do jack shit about the insanity controlling the world than to stand up and fight it.

People have a choice to make, the choice between what is right and what is easy (convenient). Unfortunately, far too many people choose what is easy.

bolil
02-28-2013, 08:49 PM
I agree with mad cow, convenience is a good thing. The division of labor could, itself, be considered a convenience. I believe that people are hardwired, one and all, to pursue convenience. That being said, and like other inherent instincts, it can be harnessed for dubious ends. Perhaps it is a simple allegory to say that a horse can be harnessed to pull a plow, or to pull artillery. Doesn't matter much to the horse though, does it. Good read, helped me forget my own problems for the moment which is, after all, rather convenient.

mad cow
02-28-2013, 09:20 PM
I agree with mad cow, convenience is a good thing. The division of labor could, itself, be considered a convenience. I believe that people are hardwired, one and all, to pursue convenience. That being said, and like other inherent instincts, it can be harnessed for dubious ends. Perhaps it is a simple allegory to say that a horse can be harnessed to pull a plow, or to pull artillery. Doesn't matter much to the horse though, does it. Good read, helped me forget my own problems for the moment which is, after all, rather convenient.

That's the point,convenience is good.The antonyms listed for it in my iPad dictionary are burden,millstone,weight.

The fact that certain things that make my life more convenient might also make the lives of tyrants more convenient is irrelevant.Forget cell phones,this goes back to automobiles,gunpowder,iron...


The enemy is the tyrant,not the convenience.

DamianTV
02-28-2013, 09:40 PM
Liberty is not a burden, but it is not accomplished by methods of convenience either.

fr33
02-28-2013, 09:43 PM
The enemy is the tyrant,not the convenience.

If your convenience involves aggression, the enemy is you. The point of this "tyranny of convenience" argument is that we have allowed monopolies to be established just so we don't have to make our own decisions.

mad cow
02-28-2013, 09:46 PM
Liberty is not a burden, but it is not accomplished by methods of convenience either.

Is the internet a method of convenience,driving a car to a political rally?
And,if all else fails,is an AR-15?It sure beats a rock.

mad cow
02-28-2013, 09:51 PM
If your convenience involves aggression, the enemy is you. The point of this "tyranny of convenience" argument is that we have allowed monopolies to be established just so we don't have to make our own decisions.

If your XXXX involves aggression,the enemy is you.
The enemy is aggression in this instance,not every word in the english language.

fr33
02-28-2013, 09:59 PM
If your XXXX involves aggression,the enemy is you.
The enemy is aggression in this instance,not every word in the english language.

Convenience is a driving factor that enables tyranny. I don't know why that would be offensive to anyone.

Suggested (re)Reading: Civil Disobedience (http://thoreau.eserver.org/civil.html) and Walden (http://thoreau.eserver.org/walden00.html) by Henry David Thoreau.

mad cow
02-28-2013, 10:11 PM
First,you can't un-ring that bell,iron and gunpowder and domesticated horses exist.

Next,I find the mere fact that we are having this discussion,thousands of miles apart,at the speed of light,convenient and I assume most members here do as well or they wouldn't be here.

fr33
02-28-2013, 10:18 PM
Your average American doesn't have to worry about food production thanks to the govt stealing their money and paying farmers (both foreign and domestic) to feed you. And the pharmaceutical/GMO industries even more of your money to poison you.

Your local government passes laws to not allow you to produce your own food. Your federal government grants corporations the trademark of plants. You, the American people, have agreed to be stolen from so you can be poisoned. That's convenience for you.

mad cow
02-28-2013, 10:30 PM
No,that's tyranny.You can have tyranny without modern conveniences,a recent example would be Pol Pot.
Mid 70's USA was a lot less tyrannical with a lot more modern conveniences than mid 70's Cambodia.

AGRP
02-28-2013, 10:35 PM
Convenience is a driving factor that enables tyranny. I don't know why that would be offensive to anyone.

Suggested (re)Reading: Civil Disobedience (http://thoreau.eserver.org/civil.html) and Walden (http://thoreau.eserver.org/walden00.html) by Henry David Thoreau.

Theres something to be learned here. People have said it time and time again: You vote with your dollars. This is why education is important.

bolil
02-28-2013, 11:52 PM
If your convenience involves aggression, the enemy is you. The point of this "tyranny of convenience" argument is that we have allowed monopolies to be established just so we don't have to make our own decisions.

Yes, but a monopoly maintained by rules and regulations is a false convenience. While the argument can be made that it is, indeed, convenient; the question must be asked who is it convenient for. If it is convenient for people as a whole, it is good. If it is convenient, by artifice, for only a small group of people it is bad.

Convenience, it has now struck me, is closely related to liberty and time preference. Indeed, it is a synonym for time preference.

How does convenience differ from expedience?

bolil
03-01-2013, 12:08 AM
Yes, but a monopoly maintained by rules and regulations is a false convenience. While the argument can be made that it is, indeed, convenient; the question must be asked who is it convenient for. If it is convenient for people as a whole, it is good. If it is convenient, by artifice, for only a small group of people it is bad.

Convenience, it has now struck me, is closely related to liberty and time preference. Indeed, it is a synonym for time preference.

What then is the difference between convenience and expedience? The Oxford dictionary lists them as near synonyms except that convenience lacks any moral, or ethical, implications.

So, I suppose artificial convenience is more verily called expedience. What is convenient for some is convenient for all, what is expedient is only convenient for some, and usually realized in a contrived fashion. A figment, indeed. It is expedient for the FED to inflate the currency, but such an action is by no means convenient for those who are forced to use said currency.

Expedience concerns the interest of the few, while convenience concerns the interest of the whole. I do believe we could do with a bit more convenience up in this mother fuc--- WAIT violence against women....fuchsia.

torchbearer
03-01-2013, 07:33 AM
Why is convenience being made the enemy here?Convenience is good.

Flying was a hell of a lot more convenient when you could walk into an airport with no x-rays or pat-downs or wanding and purchase a ticket for cash with no ID.
Then climb on the plane with a knife in your pocket and any damned sized shampoo you felt like in your carry-on,sit down,order a drink and have a smoke waiting for take-off.

Something is wrong here,something is at fault,but it sure ain't a surfeit of convenience.


yeah, misdirection.
People will be pointing fingers in unknown directions.
the people are being told by 0% interest rates that savings are overflowing, money is cheap- so its time to spend and enjoy.
of course, that low interest is a fixed price by a banking cartel. the purpose being to keep the national debt from finally killing the parasite/host.