Year of the snake-oil

Now that we are in the “age of science” (i.e. scientism), we are harassed by its many “health experts.” Or rather, this is the “advertising age,” and it only appears to be medically obsessed. The advertisements can sometimes be muted, by turning off the Internet, and choosing one’s walks carefully; except there is an “Internet of things.” The “advertising industry” — a voracious evil — has bought up most of the viewing angles, indoors and outdoors; and those which are exceptionally attractive are used as a lure.

“I think that I shall never see,” — my papa used to quote Bennett Alfred Cerf — “a billboard pretty as a tree. Perhaps if billboards do not fall, I shall not see a tree at all.”

Given the worthlessness of most commercially available products, the advertisers of them must still leave a fragment of our attention to what is uncommercial, in order to catch our attention with constant interruptions. Mindfulness to what is good, true, or beautiful, is invaded by their audio and video noise, using the various techniques of attention-grabbing.

With each passing year, the governments’ share of this advertising increases. Each government warns us against more and more things, ranging from the obvious to the imaginary. This reduplicates the noise.

Truly, every bureaucracy, both public and private, is staffed with snake-oil salesmen, and their administrative staff.