The Self-Defense of Fierce Whimsicality

We watched the Nova special about Jeff Bezos and Amazon this week.  Boy, there’s a way to be depressed at our old white men elected officials who are totally NOT up to the challenges of the society in which we live.

 Len sat next to Bezos at a business event in 1997. They talked about my frugality newsletter. Apparently his wealth didn’t rub off on Len and our frugality didn’t rub off on him.

The documentary illustrated and explained how Bezos made most of his incredible wealth.  The most innovative thing he and his team did was gather, save, store, and then sell back to others – information about us.

He and his team were among the first to track what we bought, when we bought it, where we were when we bought it. They invented computer programs to record our shopping patterns and purchases.  Then when other businesses wanted to sell more toothpaste or washing machines or action figures or dog food – those companies would pay Amazon to buy our information.

You’ve noticed it yourself. Ask about heart attack symptoms, suddenly you are getting ads and coupons for statins and supplements. Look at underwear on Amazon, suddenly Facebook is telling the world that you like a certain brand of bra. 

We all know this. It’s our privacy - collected, collated, bought and sold - that is making millionaires into billionaires.

Yet how do we live our lives without using the internet? It’s possible, but I don’t want to live without access to information or the convenience to order in two minutes items that would take me two hours to shop for. 

And then I thought - what if we OVERLOAD the algorithm? What if we start spinning what’s real and what’s true with what’s ridiculous?

Usually I use as my search engine “Duck Duck Go.”  It’s free. Download it from apps; use it when you want to look up anything. Duck Duck Go doesn’t store info. The ads one receives while perusing the internet via Duck Duck Go will pertain to whatever you are looking up RIGHT THEN. 

But, as we all know, Google comes built into our phones.  Google, like Amazon, like Facebook, DOES save all our searches … that is how they figure out what we are interested in and how to sell that info to others.

So instead of hiding away from Google – I am now looking up wacky things on Google several times per day. Flights to Hong Kong. Size 13, triple wide Stiletto heels. Sock monkeys.

Am I going to Hong Kong? Nope.  Are my feet that big and will I ever wear a high-heeled shoe again? Nope. But now that info is out there in the algorithms.  Everyday, for a minute here or there, I am looking up things I am not seriously interested in. 

This morning Len was ordering toothbrush heads when he called from the other room, “Why are we buying a $500 security system and a sock monkey?”  

Our lives and our privacy have been put up for sale. They are ways to make that invasion collapse with fierce whimsicality.

You do your part and I will do mine.

…..

Len and I talked. This is what he wrote:

If you use the browser "Chrome," you know that everything you do on the Internet is saved to your computer, and, in addition, websites that you visit are able to recognize you, so they know if you are a new visitor or whether you've visited them before. 

 You can disable this part of Chrome, that is, you can keep Chrome from saving information about you in cookies.  It also keeps websites from knowing who you are when you visit.  It's called "Incognito Window," and it's easy to turn on or off.  It doesn't delete any of the information that you've already saved to your computer or screw up anything else about your computer and it's simple to use.

 1) Open Chrome.  It doesn't matter what page you're on (you can be on the Google page or Mary Beth's home page or anywhere).

2) On a PC, hit "Ctrl-Shift-n" (That's the control key, at the lower left, either shift key, and the lower-case letter "n").  Mac: Press ⌘ + Shift + n.

3) The black screen that opens is the incognito window.  Anything you enter won't be saved to your computer and the website won't know who you are.

 Note:  If you go to a site, like Facebook, that requires a login, it won't work unless you manually enter that login (in which case, the website will then know who you are).  But Google will work and most websites will work.