Aversion Therapy.

A couple of week-ends ago, my wife flew up to Toronto and drove to the countryside to pick up our new golden retriever, Sparkle.

I know there are those among the tin-foil hat wearers who believe that George Soros, Bill Gates, Lex Luther and Alger Hiss are implanting subcutaneous sensors inside us so the same government that needs six months to issue a passport can monitor us with Staasi-like efficiency 24/7 and subject us to all sorts of mind-control, so we willingly follow the corrupt precepts of Big Brother. 

Somehow this would be worse than how most people today voluntarily behave. They watch 44 hours of football a week, eat 44 pounds of new nacho-cheesier Doritos, drink 44 cans of piss-water Budweiser and get their news from blonde readers who sole journalistic capability is nice breasts.

I don't have the data to support this, but I'd wager that a good percentage of people who buy pure-bred dogs these days get a pup that has had a microchip implanted. If the dog ever runs- away, its provenance can be traced and its owner can be found.

Believe me, if you have a puppy, you know they ain't being mind controlled. 

There are other people who have stopped vaccinating their pets because they hold the unfounded belief that vaccinations--the human development that's probably saved one-billion lives--will result in canine autism or early death or barking at cats that the neighbors let run free. Despite that, I've yet to hear of an anti-chipping movement, but I suppose that's because I remain firmly in the thrall of the reality-based community.

Over on musk's naXi-obeisant website, my former agency Schmoe-gilvy keeps posting quotations by the old white scion of the patriarchy who happens to be their founder. These quotations--though old--remain seminal. Many people of my vintage in advertising, particularly those lucky-enough to have worked at Ogilvy, have committed many of them to memory.

But here's where the topic of chips comes in.

Just as I recoil when the republicans today refer to their mutant politics as "The Party of Lincoln," I get nauseated when I see the current rendition of Ogilvy quoting the old man. It's sinful. It's the appropriation of the spirit of his words when, as an institution, David would be disgusted by his anonymously eponymous organization today.

Today's Ogilvy is as far from traditional Ogilvy as the Party of Lincoln from the golden showers of trump.

Mr. Ogilvy would be disgusted by the slavish trend-chasing. The even-more avid awards-mania. And the derogation of all people who don't fit this week's definition of human as propagated by this week's effluence of DEI people. How any agency could bang its DEI chops while systematically firing everyone over 45 is beyond me. It is the height (or depth) or Orwellian New Speak. 

He would be disgusted by the whole kettle of rotten mackeral.

"Diversity is Exclusion," seems to be Ogilvy's "War is Peace.  Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.’" 

And here's where I close the loop.

We are entering "Prognostication Season." Every agency, every pundit, every tech company, every creative director, every planner, every agency executive will soon be issuing and publishing some blather on what we are to expect in 2024. 

Soon, if not already, we will be besieged by articles with titles like: 

"2024, the Year AI Becomes Simply I." 
"Top Media Trends in 2024 that Will Still Be Trending in 2025."
"2024 Tech Trends that Will Change Everything. And Nothing."
"In 2024, Comedy Will Return--That's Nothing to Laugh About."
"Gartner on Navigating the Future and the Plu Perfect in 2024."
"16 Major Trends of 2024."
"McKinsey on 2024 Trends that Will Trend in a Trendy Way."

I've circled the sun enough times to know that these sorts of articles have been around since time begun. As it was writ by some goat-herder in Ecclesiastes some millennia ago, "There's nothing new under the sun." But saying there's something new gets you business.

The worst thing about all this blather is that it is all made utterly without consequence.

Ogilvy sullies its founder by coopting and mis-using his words.
Prognosticators are usually wrong.
Politicians are always wrong.

And here's where we need chips implanted.

I may be Draconian, but the world would be better off if all these cosmic spouters got zapped with 19,000 volts every time they issue one of these asinine "I can see the future statements."

Or the one that really gets me, the phrase "future proofing." In a country that falls apart in a heavy rain, when no one knows what the future is we're ostensibly capable of proofing against.

We live in a world where nothing happens when you make a false statement, when you lie. Sometimes companies like WPP pay $19 million fines for bribery, but "admit no wrong-doing."

Let's zap people.

Aversion therapy.

Next time someone at Ogilvy or any other agency blathers on about hiring malcontents and the irreverent to mask what's really the wholesale droneification of their workforce, it would be nice if someone in the C-suite got a jolt of electricity. Say ten volts for every thousand dollars of bonus money. They'd quickly stfu and the world would be a better place, certainly quieter.

Maybe then we can re-introduce the notion of doing some thinking before we start spouting.