Slouching Towards Oblivion

Showing posts with label modern problems. Show all posts
Showing posts with label modern problems. Show all posts

Thursday, July 14, 2022

What Makes Us Crazy

Sometimes people start "acting funny" and we look at them like they've gone a little nutty.

And if they keep moving further away from what we've come to regard as "normal", we'll prob'ly call them crazy.

But just as often as not, they're in the process of rejecting what they've come to regard as freakish conformity, or soul-killing banality, or plain old ordinary boring routine, and trying to break out into some fresh new sunshine - or whatever other sappy cliche comes to mind for ya.

The point is most of them aren't going crazy at all - they're trying to get un-crazy.

But other than the usual suspects of conformity and banality (et al), what makes us crazy?


Here's some brand new shit for us all to worry about in this modern world, as published at WaPo: (pay wall)

The nonstop scam economy is costing us more than just money

Relentless waves of sophisticated phone and online scams are impacting people’s mental health


Pamela McCarroll doesn’t have the luxury of ignoring phone calls from unknown numbers.

The 30-year old is undergoing treatment for long-term colon cancer in Fairfax County, Va., and never knows whether it could be a doctor, a hospital with test results, or someone trying to schedule an appointment.

Unfortunately, that means she’s fielding up to 20 spam phone calls every day on her mobile phone, adding to her already sky-high levels of stress. Since her diagnosis in August 2019, the number of scam attempts has shot up while the topics have gotten strangely specific, including Medicare or senior benefits.

“I’ve gotten some calls about funeral insurance. That kind of bums me out,” McCarroll says. “I’ve got cancer, but you don’t have to rub it in.”

We’re living in an era of constant scams. The technology and techniques behind them have improved, while attempts to crack down have largely stalled. For the millions of people in the United States dealing with scam attempts like McCarroll, there doesn’t seem to be any meaningful relief in sight.

We mostly think about scam calls and texts in terms of their financial costs to the people who fall for them. Consumers reported $5.8 billion in fraud to the Federal Trade Commission last year, a 70 percent increase from 2020. Falling for or engaging with one scam can lead to an increase in attempts. According to RoboKiller, an app for screening robocalls on phones, an average smartphone owner in the United States will get an estimated 42 spam texts and 28 spam calls a month. Once a number or email address spreads into more spammer databases, it can be bought and sold by the companies involved in the booming scam industry.

Someone could come across any or all of these scams in a week: A text message from UPS with a link promising a delivery. A prerecorded phone call about a car warranty or bank issue. Emails that appear to be from Amazon or Apple customer service asking you to log in to your account. Shady replies on Facebook Marketplace for a chair you listed. Maybe a wrong-number message on WhatsApp from a chatty stranger.

Beyond the financial repercussions, there’s a steep emotional cost for people who don’t lose a dollar, mental health experts say. Constant scam attempts can increase stress levels and strain relationships. Their negative impact on mental health is even worse when the scammers target people based on perceived weaknesses, like advanced age, loneliness or, in McCarroll’s case, an ongoing illness. That anxiety can spread to their worried family members, they say.

Irene Kenyon’s family was in a good position to avoid scams. She’s the director of risk intelligence at risk assessment company FiveBy, and her father has two engineering master’s degrees. But in 2017, she got a panicked call from her mother. Her father had gone out and bought $6,000 in gift cards at Target for a phone scammer who claimed to be their grandson. The man on the phone said he was in jail and needed to be bailed out. By the time Kenyon reached her dad, it was too late. He’d read the gift card numbers out over the phone.

“What these people do is play on people’s emotions, they play on the fact that grandparents love their grandkids more than you can imagine, and all their logic will fly out the window,” Kenyon says. They reported the case to the police, and a special program in their state was able to reimburse them for part of the lost money.

At the time, her parents were embarrassed and she was angry, but now they talk every day and go over anything suspicious. She has taught them to never answer any of the unknown calls they get a day and to look closely at emails. She says they’re still tense about falling for something, and she worries about them day and night.

Many of these scams are easier to spot or screen with a little training, like looking for a misspelled email address or ignoring an unknown phone number on caller ID. Others scams are incredibly believable thanks to technology like spoofing, which lets the attacker fake a call from the number of someone you know, maybe even yourself.


A proud and protective mom of two adult daughters, Renee makes sure they both call her once a day to check in. When it looked like her oldest was calling at 11 p.m. on a recent weeknight, Renee and her husband were confused but answered right away. They were met with the gravelly voice of an unknown man on the other end.

“He was very agitated. He was very angry, very threatening,” says Renee, who spoke on the condition that her last name not be used for fear of being targeted again. “The first thing he said was, ‘I’m going to kill her. I’m going to get her. I don’t want to have to hurt her. I’ve been to jail before, and I don’t want to go back.’ ”

The scammer said he was holding Renee’s daughter hostage and wanted money to let her go, asking repeatedly for her Cash App information — an app Renee didn’t recognize. He threatened to slit her daughter’s throat. Renee believed him completely but managed to stay calm and continue talking to him, slowly collecting more hints that the situation wasn’t what it seemed. They sent police to their daughter’s home, where they found her safe and confused. The man was a scammer who had faked her number. When it was over, Renee’s calm broke and she began crying.

“I feel grateful, but I feel like they’ve invaded my space and my peace and that was trauma,” Renee says.

Those feelings are common, says Matthew Mimiaga, a professor at UCLA.

“Scam victims often suffer from a decrease in life satisfaction and are likely to have higher levels of anxiety and lower levels of happiness,” Mimiaga says.

Their lingering anxiety has real, physical side effects including feeling restless, wound-up or on edge, Mimiaga says. It could lead to people being easily fatigued, having difficulty concentrating, or even having headaches and other unexplained pains.

Anyone can be a target for phone and email scams, but the fallout can be worse for people who are older, says Iris Waichler, a licensed clinical social worker and author of “Role Reversal, How to Take Care of Yourself and Your Aging Parents.”

“They’re extremely vulnerable and lonely. The reason they’re targets is when someone reaches out, they’re sometimes just grateful to talk to somebody,” Waichler says.

Older people may already be worried about losing independence or appearing to have diminished mental capacity, and are more likely to keep an experience with scammers to themselves out of shame. The adult could be left with lower self esteem and higher self doubt, Waichler says.

There have been some changes to try to help people avoid scams, at least over texts and phone calls. In 2019, large carriers agreed to use technology known as STIR/SHAKEN to authenticate who is calling to reduce robocalls and spoofed numbers. It’s being adopted by smaller cellphone carriers this year. The FTC has also proposed a rule to address robotexts, but it’s still pending. Phone makers are trying to combat the issue on their side with features that label some calls as possible spam, while companies like RoboKiller are making their own apps to screen and block.

Scammers, however, are always looking for new ways to adapt — and new targets to go after.

“As long as there’s billions of dollars on the other end of it, it’s not going to stop,” says Chester Wisniewski, a principal research scientist at security company Sophos.

For now, awareness and a few tools can lower the stress but not make it go away.

Pamela McCarroll’s husband, voice actor Michael McCarroll, has a blocking app from his carrier, but he made sure it was off when his wife was in the hospital for a week this month. Every time he saw a call from an unknown number, his stomach dropped and he thought, “Oh God.” He was thankful it was just spam, every time.

Wednesday, March 03, 2021

Sorry, Guys


First, some joker fucked up, and the power went out all over the subdivision.

Then the power company crew came out to fix it, and one of those jokers fucked up, and the internet went down all over the subdivision.


Back up and running after almost 5 hours.

So I left for a while - at least I got a chance to take my guitar in for some much-needed TLC.

All better now.

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Overheard Online


Twitter was down today so I spent some time chatting with my wife - she seems nice.

Monday, October 02, 2017

Let's Speculate, Shall We? (updated)

We've become a nation of the Rugged Individualist Lone Wolf Renegade. That's what we think is cool - and necessary.

We see very rich very powerful CEOs raping and pillaging across the land; buying Congress Critters outright; installing their own employees in the regulatory apparatus, and getting sweetheart legislation passed so they can do almost whatever they want in order to boost profits at the expense of anything or anyone they think might get in their way.

We're living an old western movie, and somehow we've been talked into rootin' for the bad guys.

We're told that if we're not making it, it's our own fault. And if we are making it, it's because we made it on our own, and so what if we broke some rules along the way? That's what you do. Boy Scouts help little old ladies. Straight-thinking, clear-eyed entrepreneurs help themselves (just like god said).

Only losers depend on Gubmint to do things for 'em, including enforcing the law as only you can truly understand the real meaning of that law.

If you want something done, stop bitchin' about it and go do it. If you make enough money at it (or if you can make it look like you've made a big pile of money), you're good - only poor people go to jail.

And now we have a guy pretending to be POTUS who personifies all this with: 
  • it didn't happen
  • it's not a big deal
  • it's not illegal
  • OK so it's illegal. But I've got the power now - what're you gonna do about it?


It's something of a jump from all that to Stephen Paddock, but it's not a big jump.

"So here I am in my room on the 32nd floor. I've been suckered into thinking a casino is a place where gambling goes on - instead of a place where I pay thru the nose if necessary to have a few hours of fun, just as I've been suckered into going along with all the other shit I've swallowed over the years".

"I've blown thru somewhere between 30 and 70 thousand dollars that maybe I have and maybe I don't (check with my absentee Filipino girlfriend on that $100k transferred to an account in Manila), I'm in a shitty mood, and now those assholes are down in the plaza whoopin' it up having a good time and making noise that makes me feel even worse - so I'm gonna do something bold to get 'em all to shut the fuck up. Cuz that's how we roll - I get what I want and fuck all 'y'all."

"etc etc etc"

He shoots 500-n-some people, but instead of standing up for himself - justifying what he's done - he kills himself. I don't know what all it means, but it's gotta include something that indicates Mr Paddock had some inkling that he knew he was doing an enormous wrong - not just the final acts of murder and suicide, but everything he was told to believe, and everything he did because of what he was told to believe - everything that led up to those last few minutes.

Maybe deep down, he knew he'd been played for a sucker, and admitting to it out loud was just too much for him - the pain was so bad that he had to pull others into it so he wouldn't have to bear it all on his own.

What the fuck are doing?

Monday, February 20, 2017

About That "Deeply Divided" Thing

Wanna see the real difference between them and us?

They actually believe this shit (or say they do so what's difference?):



And we know better:


I won't be able to reconcile myself with, or pair up with, or find commonality with anybody who insists on being ignorant - especially at a time when there actually are vast resources  they can use to find out about stuff.

I just can't.



Monday, November 30, 2015

Today's Weird

On a tip from my brother, I went over to Fandango to look at the trailer for a new movie called Spotlight.  I clicked on the start arrow and ended up having to see 2 video ads before I got to the trailer.  

So, in order to watch the commercial for the movie - it's a commercial; I went in search of a commercial because I wanted to see a commercial.  And as if that's not bad enough, I had to sit thru a coupla commercials I didn't wanna see before they'd let me see the commercial I did wanna see.

I'm trying to decide if I'm a little bummed and/or aggravated at the extreme levels of monetization going on, or if I'm more than a little impressed that somebody's figured out just how captive we are to this kinda crap.

Or maybe I'm just pissed that I'm willing to put up with the whole mess.  My head hurts - I may start drinking early today.

Friday, November 15, 2013

Today's Question

Why is it called stealing when your WiFi is trespassing in my fucking house?

Monday, April 22, 2013

Parent Ed

Take a few grams of pot, add 2 or 3 otherwise knuckleheaded teenagers; then stand back and be amazed - instant Design & Engineering Department.