{"id":5843,"date":"2023-05-21T23:07:53","date_gmt":"2023-05-22T03:07:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/?page_id=5843"},"modified":"2023-11-30T09:32:48","modified_gmt":"2023-11-30T14:32:48","slug":"monetized","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/?page_id=5843","title":{"rendered":"“Monetized!”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bacon Scrapins<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 \u201c<\/strong>Monetized!\u201d<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u00a9 by Barry S. Wolfe<\/span><\/p>\n

Bacon Scrapins<\/em><\/strong> are the little bits of meat left in the greasy fry pan. They\u2019re tasty, but the \u2018nutrition\u2019 needs searching for. This tale is a<\/em> bacon scrapin<\/em><\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dan and I were on one of our usual wanders along the paths of our nine-stopsign-sized community. At this point, we were pacing the ups and downs of the rolling landscape through the wooded portion of our habitat.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looks like they started to cut up some of the fallen trees\u2019 trunks,\u201d acknowledged Dan.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing through that phase dictated by the M.O.E. about allowing naturally fallen trees to naturally decompose, and allow natural ingredients to feed the new growth didn\u2019t last very long,\u201d I replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe trees here are mostly about a similar age and they\u2019re in the second half of their life spans for sure,\u201d Dan added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were so many dying, being blown over in storms, suffering attacks from natural predators so quickly that they\u2019 were starting to pile up. It would take a hundred years for a tree piled on top of others to rot into compost. The bugs and stuff can\u2019t get at them easily up in the air,\u201d I suggested.<\/p>\n

\u201cCutting them up into manageable lengths, chopping them up and maybe getting some run through a chipper or mulching machine would speed up the process,\u201d Dan considered.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would be like producing sawdust quickly and putting it back onto the soil to decompose,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would make it safer walking through here and make it less jumbled looking. All these fallen, broken, twisted branches could really slice an ankle and badly hurt an unsuspecting walker,\u201d Dan cautioned.<\/p>\n

\u201cTalking of sliced, I\u2019ve been hacked. Again.\u201d I complained.<\/p>\n

\u201cHacked? With what? An axe? Where were you hacked? You\u2019re walking fine enough!\u201d Dan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHacked. On the computer. On my visagebook<\/em> account. The one I set up when our grandkids were born, to keep up-to-date with events.<\/p>\n

The one with all the pictures and updates from family and friends. My son pointed it out to me again. He says someone made a mirror account of my \u2018real\u2019 one, using my heading photo, my facial picture, two of my \u2018friends\u2019 were listed, but with a wrong birthdate and wrong university name,\u201d I added.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s a \u2018mirror\u2019 account?\u201d Dan asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike I said, they create an account with my same name, from a different computer address or something, but they make the page look exactly like my real one. They block me from seeing the account page, but everyone else on my contacts list can. If someone on my list replies to the mirror page, they get access to that person\u2019s list as well, and so on, and so on. The contacts spread exponentially and they can get to thousands of new people quickly. They start sending messages out that gradually give them information about all those people which they can use to try to ruin your reputation, to sell stuff, solicit donations, send out fake appeals for money like demanding you send \u201cme\u201d\/them a $50 Apple purchase card to cash in the save the life of a relative. You know, just like the scams on elderly folks.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got one of those visagebook<\/em> accounts too. I\u2019ve heard about hackers but I haven\u2019t been affected yet,\u201d Dan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other time I was hacked someone was sending vulgar stuff from me to females on my contact list. One of my friends warned me and I changed my password. It stopped for a while.<\/p>\n

This time my son showed me how to contact visagebook<\/em> to have the \u2018mirror\u2019 account deleted, but by then the horse is out of the barn.\u201d I commented.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody\u2019s trying to scam a buck, somehow!\u201d Dan complained.<\/p>\n

\u201cI looked up the terms of use of visagebook<\/em>. They say that I, as a user, \u201cown\u201d all of the content and information I post on visagebook<\/em>. And they\u2019re doing this for free? The oldest, most basic piece of wisdom known to man is, \u201cThere\u2019s no such thing as a free lunch!\u201d Scammers are trying to make money from my posted information, visagebook<\/em> is also making money from my information.<\/p>\n

Some business professor in the States said that visagebook<\/em> users have to understand that the reason the company is so profitable is that our data is gold. We\u2019re giving it away for free.\u201d I mumbled bitterly.<\/p>\n

As we were walking out of the shadows of the wooded area into the more open pathway at the boundary line fence Dan said, \u201cThe provincial government is no different than visagebook<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow so?\u201d I inquired.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know that when you do some things, you have to pay a fee to the government for them to process the information. Some of it you\u2019d think was personal and private, but not all stuff is private, and may be of interest to others.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLike what?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, for example, when you bought your house in here, you or your lawyer had to register the property with the Ontario land registry office. The registration says who sold it to you, how much you paid, what taxes were paid on the transaction, whether you have a mortgage, who the mortgage is with, and how much the mortgage is. It may even say that you got it for free from someone with an explanation of how that supposedly happened.\u201d Dan explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, the government collects this information at public offices, with public servants doing the paperwork, all paid for by taxpayers. Is that information public or private?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s public information until the government gives it to a private company to manage it,\u201d Dan replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat? It\u2019s public. But then the government gives it away to a private company and it becomes private to them. Why?\u201d I demanded to know.<\/p>\n

\u201cSimple. Money. If the government has to manage it, like every time your house sells or has a mortgage or other lien registered, or something else on the deed changes, then some public servant would have to process that work. That means public sector workers would have to be paid. The government doesn\u2019t want to pay them for the work because it will show as another debit expense on their books, and some governments don\u2019t want citizens to see how much it actually costs to do stuff that we take for granted. So, they take the cost off the government\u2019s books and give the work to a private company so they can charge you for the documents and then pay a small percentage as a kickback to the province. Smoke and mirrors!\u201d Dan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho is this private company?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re called Terranacious LP<\/em><\/strong>. They live up to their name. They are tenacious about your land. They have an exclusive concession from the government to run the land registry documents business. No competition. They set their own terms and conditions. That\u2019s really in the best interests of a transparent, accountable democracy, right? The company brought in over $600 million in six months.\u201d Dan replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe province authorizes a private company, this Terranacious LP,<\/em><\/strong> to bring in that much and won\u2019t pay public employees, with security and benefits, to do the work out of the take? The province gets a kickback, why not just take it all, pay expenses, and bring in a profit for the general revenue of the province? This company isn\u2019t doing it to break even!\u201d I postulated.<\/p>\n

\u201cRemember. It\u2019s political. Some politicians don\u2019t like government. They don\u2019t like \u201cbig\u201d government that actually employs citizens to do the essentials of government. Some politicians prefer that a private company makes a profit off you to actually bringing in probably more money to the government coffers if it was done \u2018in-house\u2019.<\/p>\n

Politicians have to get elected. Politicians need donors to finance their election campaigns. Politicians like to get cushy positions on corporate Boards after they leave politics. You said it yourself earlier, \u201cThere\u2019s no such thing as a free lunch!\u201d It\u2019s about the money dude!\u201d Dan added flippantly.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, what if I wanted to check up on someone who is running as a candidate for a political office? What if I wanted to know whether he actually owns the property he gives as his address? What if I want to know if he has a mortgage or a lien on the property, for how much, and who holds the mortgage, whether it\u2019s in his name or someone else\u2019s name? Can I get that \u2018public\u2019 information?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes. But you have to pay a fee for it. And everyone who wants to know that information has to pay for it separately. The terms of usage, in the Terranacious LP<\/em><\/strong> monopoly say you cannot make a copy of the document and give it to others to look at, post it on your website.\u201d Don added.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo how do I tell others if I find that a candidate is a scammer, misrepresenting himself, in fact lying to the voters if I can\u2019t post the document on the website?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust tell them what you\u2019ve found, I guess. You can\u2019t photocopy and reprint a whole book and give it away, but there\u2019s nothing to prevent you from telling others the story in your own words. They have a monopoly on printed information in this democracy. You can tell, but you can\u2019t copy the document.\u201d Dan suggested.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood grief. Scammers on visagebook, twattler. Massager, minutegram<\/em>. You can\u2019t prove a politician is scamming voters by showing documentary proof without everyone paying a fee to Terranacious LP<\/em><\/strong> to see a copy of it.<\/p>\n

Is there no information that, in some way, is not monetized?\u201d I asked the sky.<\/p>\n

As we approached my driveway I said, \u201cLet\u2019s sit on my back deck, have a cold drink of water and drown our sorrows about monetized knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n

NOTE: Characters and names in this Bacon Scrapins tale are fictional. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

You may email appropriate comments for the writer to thisiswilmot@gmail.com<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bacon Scrapins \u2013 \u201cMonetized!\u201d \u00a9 by Barry S. Wolfe Bacon Scrapins are the little bits of meat left in the greasy fry pan. They\u2019re tasty, but the \u2018nutrition\u2019 needs searching for. This tale is a bacon scrapin. Dan and I were on one of our usual wanders along the paths […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":4072,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5843","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5843"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5906,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5843\/revisions\/5906"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}