[Kristen]

When you hear the word consume, what does that mean to you. I imagine a 12 foot snake swallowing an elephant in one gulp. It's kind've a degrading word if you ask me.

[WildRose]

Yeah, Kristen, your description gave me quite a mental picture of "consume". I imagine an amoeba or a white blood cell.

The word definitely has negative connotations although consumers are a part of the life cycle. I guess it's just the extremes we humans take consumption to.

[ipWinston]

oh this sounds fun


how bout

a 350 pound guy eating a big mac and drinking a coke in a brand new Escalade with 21" rims towing a jetski in the back

[TommyJefferson]

My image of that word is what ipWinston said, a mindless animal, a consumer of Prolefeed.

I am not a "consumer". I am a citizen. I am a human being.

[TheTurtle]

I am not a consumer ... I am a free man!

[Laughs_Last]

[deleted by author]

[lateralus]

Consumer = Locust

[Wickan]

Pac-Man.

Kidding. Kind of.

[SDC]

I agree with TommyJefferson and ipWinston - A "consumer" brings up images in my mind of a person who is not thought of as a person in their own right by TPTB, just another money-generator in their system.

[perdition79]

I despise being labelled as a consumer or a motorist. I do more than consume and drive! It's similar to when the word "obey" is used instead of the word "observe."

[rogerhb]

I object to the term "consumer" being used when "citizen" is actually meant.

This is caused by increasing amount of business terminology that has crept into management and politics.

For example, rate payers are local citizens rather than "consumers of local services".

[mattduke]

As a person who saves money, that is, who produces more than he consumes, I am more accurately termed a "producer".

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mattduke', 'A')s a person who saves money, that is, who produces more than he consumes, I am more accurately termed a "producer".

[mattduke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rogerhb', 'N')ot true, you eat, you use fuel etc. Your "money" that you save is purely hallucinated wealth. It is not anything real.

What do you really produce?

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mattduke', 'I')n my particular case I create software that did not exist before, and which people value because it helps them work more efficiently (do more with less).

[mattduke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rogerhb', 'O')r does it just help us plunder the planet more efficiently?

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mattduke', 'I')s plunder the right word?

[The_Toecutter]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'R')emember back in the 70s, the claim that computerisation would increase leisure time though automation of many manual functions? Did it ever happen?

[oowolf]

All living things are "consumers" of some form of energy. As Catton noted, we're now more detritivores than omnivores, thanks to the ubiquitousness of fossil fuels.

I prefer the dystopian, more Kunstleresque, pejorative term "consumeroid zombie" to describe the brain-dead hordes of media-hypnotized automatons that constitute Middle Amerika.