Here at the Magpies’ technological institute for the technological advancement of the study of technology, we are hard at work developing a new technology. This technology is being tested by people who test things — doctors and scientists and engineers, and other officials in lab coats and safety glasses. And it is being approved. We can guarantee that four out of five men in lab coats approve, and we can further assure you of 98% effectiveness. Not 100%, because that would be pushing it too far, and we would obviously be insulting your intelligence, and we don’t want to do that. All of this is top secret, of course, but I am prepared to reveal to you that the technology that we’re developing is, in fact, anti-anti-idiocy technology.

We’ve noticed that everyone else is using technology, so we’ve decided to do so as well. Anti-aging technology, pore-refining technology, odor-blocking technology, super-absorbency technology for blood and sweat and urine, and anti-anxiety technology to help you handle all of your newfound apprehension about aging and stinking and sweating, about being human and imperfect. DO THEY THINK WE’RE MORONS? Do they think that if they slip the word “technology” into their advertisement we will believe that their product will miraculously turn back time?

Yes, yes they do think we’re morons, but the truth is actually more cynical than that. They know that we know that their product won’t work, and they know that we’ll buy it anyway! It’s just one of a vast network of well-funded lies that we’re expected to accept. Like the fact that a Tom Cruise movie is worth spending millions of dollars to make or even ten dollars to see. Everybody knows that money would be better off spent elsewhere. Well! Everybody knows about the wrinkles, too. Everybody knows we need to hide the wrinkles around our eyes. And recently I learned that I need to be anxious about my eyelashes, because they’re thinning, apparently. But I can take a pill for that, which definitely probably won’t cause depression or death, which would both obviously be small sacrifices in exchange for long thick eyelashes.

And just this week I learned that there’s a new technology that might give me younger-looking eyes. Eyes!! I think they mean actual eyeballs, and I’m all afluster, because I’d never even thought about being anxious about how old my eyeballs might look! Here I’d spent my whole life not thinking about them much at all, and just foolishly walking around looking at beautiful things with them, mindlessly watching the world through them, never suspecting that they were aging along with every other part of me! The horror! The absolute horror!

Sadly, our anti-anti-idiocy technology will not give you younger or bluer eyes. With our new streamlined goggles, you’ll be able to see more clearly, you’ll be able to see through the lies. You’ll be able to recognize when somebody is trying to make you feel like crap about yourself so they can sell you an ineffective product. You’ll know that the fact that we have magazines that make money by promising hideous photos of celebrities without their makeup says something much more depressing about the magazine and our culture than the poor idiotic celebrities. You’ll know when somebody is expecting you to act like an idiot for their financial gain.

You will declare your gratitude for the things you don’t have, that you don’t want. You will be glad to be at a place in your life where nobody can shame you into wanting something you don’t need, or make you feel so bad about yourself that you believe somebody can sell you something to make everything okay. You will still have plenty of insecurities, but you will know what they are, they’re your familiars, and you will not let anybody exploit them for financial gain. You will not want longer eyelashes, you will not want to rid yourself of the flaws and foibles that make you human, you will not want your children to have everything that they think they want, you will not want a bigger house or a cleverer car, you will not want to be the life of the party, most of the time you might not even want to go to the party anymore, you will not want a smarter faster phone, you will not want cheaper cable TV, or any cable TV, because you will not want to watch their commercials. You will be liberated from fabricated need!!

With our anti- anti-idiocy technology you’ll see past all of that nonsense and see that you are fine. You’ll see that truth is still there and still worth looking for. You’ll look out on the world with eyeballs of any age, and you’ll be joyful, because it’s your world.