Yesterday I was having my deep thoughts in the tub and was remembering turning 18 and thinking how absolutely awful zoomers have it today. No wonder there are school shooters if you have to reach the age of reason in this societal mess.

It occured to me that in our new "merchant" based commercial value system, 18 represents the age when it somehow has become acceptable to attempt to exploit and fuck over our young people as hard as possible and exploit their childhood trust and naivete.

The second you turn 18, everybody is trying to take advantage of you now instead of helping you start life. Its just wrong, wrong, wrong.

Think about it: you have already been programmed for years to think wasting money on designer crap and devices is a good idea. Everyone is trying to sell you the unhealthiest foods possible, like those goddam energy drinks.

Then you are taught that its mature to cling to school buddies by guzzling alcohol. Then theres the vape a few years later. And the con job of student debt. No one wants to pay you a living wage and its now considered normal to live with your parents, assuming they even have a home instead of an apartment.

Then theres the porn and promiscuity. Everyone is teaching you that commercial vices are somehow the adult way. And they sell you some bullshit story about how all you need is hard work to get what you want while making it impossible for most people to save or own anything. And telling you credit cards and financing are the adult way to go.

And then here comes the government to exploit your desperation by telling that going off to die in some foreign land is actually noble somehow.

I once read online that "joining the military is the male version of saying 'fuck it, I'll be a stripper'".