Saturday, November 16, 2013

Looking for some Liberty



The trek through IKEA is rather stressful.  They've laid out the place like a course that they want you to follow.  Rather than go up and down rows based on my needs or desires, they would prefer that I follow their meandering course so that I pass every single thing they are selling.  Imagine if all stores and places were like that?

What if YouTube didn't allow me to search for videos that I wanted?  What if I had to do things there way instead of mine.  Okay, actually, they seem to be changing YouTube to force me to do thing that I don't want.  Maybe they took a page from Apple or Microsoft and decided that it's their way or the highway.

But I digress....as much as they will let me.

I just want some liberty.  We talk about freedom, but we really don't seem to have it.  Maybe Rousseau was right.  Stay inside the lines, have your quarter for your shopping car deposit, no substitutions with your combo meal, no you can't have those channels with that cable package.  I grant that none of these things is really that oppressive..... but they kind of are.

I don't think freedom is about doing whatever you want.  I do think freedom should not allow you to harm others, or even bother others.  If I believed that you should do whatever you want whenever you want without regard to anyone, then I wouldn't mind those annoying people on the bus whose crappy music bleeds out of their earphones.

No, I just want freedom from the people who could so easily give it to me.  I want to choose the channel I can watch.  If nobody wants a crappy channel, then it will go out of business and free up advertising dollars for someone else.  If I want to quickly blast through IKEA without checking out every piece of unpronounceable furniture, that should be my right.  If I want to have multiple names on my YouTube account, leave me alone.

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