….according to a company specializing in analyzing folks by their postal code. Environics Analytics thinks of us as: Heartland retirees – one of 67 or so sub-groups of lifestylers.
We HRs are retired or semi-retired boomers fond of motorized 4wd vehicles and we live rural and simply. We are empty-nesters mostly who have time for basic outdoor activities and even knitting. There are 472,000 of us in Canada and we have a lower-middle income with mixed educations and background work experience. We own our own very modest homes and like the outdoors. And, it seems, we are much the same as each other.
Being white, is what I am guessing they meant by that. But they didn’t say that except to say that we are the same and so far, the only thing I seem to have in common with most of my neighbours is skin colour. Most of them are as mad as hatters!
Coincidentally, Sally also ran a social quiz on me today on mental health (answering for me, of course) and concluded from it that I was eccentric. I ran the same test – answering for myself – and my resulting category was ‘balanced’. One of us has an odd view of the other one, I am guessing and, frankly, I think SHE is the eccentric if, for no other reason, than picking me to live with!
Plus – isn’t it a little whacked to run a personality test on someone but you do the answering?
The really interesting point is that some marketing group operating on minimal information (I hope) has managed to quite fairly categorize us. And, even though there are a half-million of us, only 75 or so live within a couple of hundred square miles. How the hell did they put our postal code into that category? Those bloody algorithms, eh?
So, what with my tell-all blog, our book, the modern science of data analysis and Google Earth, we are clearly prominent on the radar screen of some geeks. Worse, we get mail and the barge comes twice a year. Eyewitnesses! We may be off the grid but not very far off and they – the bastards – can see us more clearly than Sarah Palin can see the whites of the Russian’s eyeballs.
Go OTG but know that there are crosshairs focused on your back by government and industry by way of the wonders of technology. They know where you are. And now they know WHO you are.
“Unh, Dave! Isn’t that a bit paranoid? They may know roughly where you are and who you are but they don’t care. You are old and verging on senile. You are safe. They are NOT watching you.”
I know. And, if they do watch me, they’ll likely fall asleep from boredom. I am quite intrigued with my life but napping and crude carpentry do not make for boffo TV. Not for BIG BROTHER types, anyway.
Not today, anyway.
After Bill C-51, things may change. They will change. The natural consequence of taking on those Orwellian powers is using them. They might pick me up for indecent exposure if I pee in the woods. They might get me for howling at the moon a capella with the wolves (must be a law against that). Hell, they could pick me up for using a product after it’s expiry date or pulling the label off the mattress. They already see me all too clearly and even I am barely accepting of that sight myself.
If Bill C-51 passes, your life and mine will change. For the worse.
Our Off the Grid Home 
If it’s any comfort to ya in 2011 the former way Stats Can collected information was altered by an order in council which removed many of the provisions of previous censuses taking thus rendering much of the data collected in 2011 impossible to compare with previous censuses. Now what was the motive in making a census less scientific? It appears that now only 20% of folks in your generational cohort live rurally. What does this stat reveal about you? Nothing and that’s the point.
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Well, that the government knows nothing is not a surprise to me. But when they choose to know something, not all of which is necessarily true, I am also not surprised. But then I am more concerned. Because they make crap up! Citizens can be branded, accused, tried and tortured as terrorists only to be found innocent later on. Same with some accused murderers. And if there is a shred of evidence, however circumstantial, then an innocent may remain condemned for a long, long time. Bottom line: I don’t trust them knowing or not knowing. I just don’t trust them. Do I trust them to be solely evil? Of course not. I think they are mostly trying to do good – or, better put; follow the law. But then the law becomes more corrupted with bills like C-51 where you have to prove you are NOT a terrorist if so accused. You are NOT innocent until proven guilty. Then it matters not if they are good but stupid or evil but stupid. It is the stupid part that will get you. And the law has been an ass for a long, long time.
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Read a Criminal Code of Canada circa 1960 and what does one find. Eleven year olds being sentenced to federal prison, sexual preference a crime, decisions about reproduction a crime, capital punishment legal, caning a legal punishment, corporal punishment in schools, in short a very harsh punitive system and Harper wants to go forward into the past!
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As much as I agree with your point, I’d make another. Go back to the sixties and the Irish Sweepstakes was illegal, smoking a joint was enough to get you years in prison (a friend of mine spent ten years in Northern Saskatchewan) and shooting up heroin was illegal. Today, the government runs those same ‘crimes’ they used to put people away for. Yes, I understand that mores change. And, in many cases, they should have. But isn’t it weird how the mafia was kicked out of the numbers game, gambling dens and the like only to be replaced with ‘legal’ casinos and lottery games? It is not about right and wrong for them – it is about money and who gets it! How can anyone trust an organization that is mindless, amoral and sociopathic in it’s behaviours? Have that organization run by greedy opportunists bleating lies, platitudes and cliche’s and it becomes uber criminal in my view.
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I agree hands down. Now that the government is into gambling why not take a leaf out of the underground economy and deal drugs? Washington State is racking in the big bucks selling soma.
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They will. It is only a matter of time. They got close to opening their own red-light districts but stopped at the ‘solicitation’ level. They will get there.
Irony: smoking was a ‘pillar’ of the economy and a symbol of nationalism in the US (WW2 GI’s were issued cigarettes for free). Now, smoking is verbotten. The smoker is a pariah. Morality? Or cost? Methinks the latter. As soon as the revenue stream dwindled and the costs of healthcare rose, laws were enacted. It’s about the m-o-n-e-y. And why? Why are we so obsessed with the damn stuff? You can’t take your Gulfstream VI (650) when you go, so why ruin the planet and your relationships to get one? I don’t get it.
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Mary Jane must cause cancer if tobacco does.
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Ha ha ha. Good stuff. I can be mollified by the dictum that “capability does not equate to intention,” but that hasn’t stopped governments from applying that dictum to my life (e.g., “speeding” infractions, gun controls, other “pre-crime” interdiction by .gov.)
Big question: when will we realize the age-old wisdom that the problem IS GOVERNMENT!
Ha ha, never, as long as folks can “vote themselves” a piece of pie, and one of Wimpy’s famous “hamburger today for payment on Tuesday.”
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Can’t blame the masses completely…until you said it, I never realized that Wimpy was government in Popeye’s world. I just thought of him as the quintessential ‘flake’ but the role fits. Pogo saw the enemy and it was us. And I got that. But Wimpy eluded me til now. Thanks.
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