Contracts

As with most things in life, my main gripe lies with those that do not use the gifts they have been given from day one. "What could such a gift entail?" I hear both of you ask? Allow me to expand 'ponst my previous point.

Reasoning.

That miniscule voice in your head that shouts at you to not do stupid things. Yet you ignore it. It's almost as if you actually want to ignore it. I mean Chariman WOW!

Let me give you one such example of stupidity.

You are going to get a new mobile phone. You are very excited. This new piece of technology has a 6 megapickles camera and it has all the bells and whistles that your old piece of 'junk' (I say junk, the technology you choose to discard is actually fathoms ahead of most things in the developing world, but taking that into consideration and still deciding to chuck it would make you an asshole, so you conjecture that not taking that into account at all and deciding to ignore such human tragedy will still make you cool with your mates. Thats what's important after all eh?) did not have. You are, I reiterate, very excited.

You go into the Carphone Warehouse or whatever fancy suits your needs. You are so happy to have this new piece of 'awesome' that you just sign away whatever they ask for.

This is where the lack of reasoning comes into play.

You just signed on the dotted line. You did not read the contract. You are legally bound into something you may or may not have any idea about.

Who does read contracts these days? It's a well known fact that contract makers are contractually bound (by their own obfuscating contracts) to make such things as obfuscating as possible. That means that they are legally obliged, by the terms and conditions of their contract of employment, to make things as confusing as possible to you. Encouraging you to 'just sign on the dotted line' as much as possible. Mobile phone carriers actually make their own employees entrap you through your own neglingence. A negligence that you have subscribed to by allowing such obfuscating terms and conditins to exist for so long in such a form.

"What could possibly go wrong?" I hear my subconcious tell me?

Well allow me to enlighten you.

Things like 'data plans'. Whereby such mobile phone carriers have the ability to charge you for 'services rendered' for allowing your mobile phone to carry data all the way from the world wide web (the clue here is that it is WORLD WIDE) all the way back to your phone, which is presumably, somewhere on the world. The intelligent amongst you will realise that 'data plans' are all bunkem. You do not need a 'data plan', you just need the effing data. There is no 'plan' about it. To recieve data via text message, it costs FOUR TIMES as much as to recieve data from the Hubble telescope.

Yes.

You heard right. Mobile phone carriers are charging you four times as much to recieve a message from a friend in THE SAME TOWN/CITY as you, than what you would pay to recieve data from something ORBITING THIS PLANET.

"Oh but GAME OVER, the signal has to bounce off of a satellite orbiting Earth" I discover you saying. STILL this makes your mobile phone carrier TWICE as greedy as NASA. NASA being a government institution setup in the times before mobile phones and having launched the Hubble in 1990.

USE YOUR REASONING.

1990.

Really? It takes 4 times the cost to transmit a paltry amount of data by any ones recognition (even those in the third world laugh at 10k) than it does to recieve data from a space telescope?

Maybe you are getting what the Anglicised amongst us call 'price gouged'.

You are being taken for a ride.

This should come to no suprise from ur American cousins though. I mean really. You think that 'not reading the terms and conditions' is a bad thing?

America bases it's laws on this very ideal.

Don't read them.

Then sign away.

Really, I kid you not. The Congress (bless their cotton socks) are now being petitioned to *actually read the laws they are about to sign up to*.

Seriously.

The 'leader of the free world' as they adorably call themselves, are actually considering reading the mobile phone contracts that got them into such trouble in the first place.

I pity you guys. I know Obama promised "More open government and more tranparency" and I'm sure that one day, more than likely after his term(s) have ended, that you will have them. But you really need to be reading that data plan for now. You really do.