There’s nothing like the ringing and then silence about the time you grab your phone. When it does occasionally keep going and you answer, there’s a recorded voice, giving you a lie such as “Your auto warranty is about to expire. This is your final notice…”

Of course, we should just hang up.

Or wait through and sometimes there’s a number we can press to be placed on their “do not call list.” Assuming that anyone believes that those who use robo-dialers would honor such a choice.

Or …

The problem with robo-calling is that people respond to it. Obviously, there’s no way to stop people from responding. But, what can be done is to transfer the nuisance value from the innocent victim (you and me) and back to the parasites who initiate the call.

The people who work these call centers aren’t evil (most aren’t — given the large number of people doing the work some statistical amount of them are probably evil). They are, however, willingly harassing at the least, and knowingly scamming at the worst, their victims.

Those call-center humans generally have a quota to make. And they have only 60 minutes/hour to make it. Sure, they have breaks and what not, but they need to close sales in order to do well. What these people are doing is what parasites do: they are sucking the life from people who lack the capacity to recognize their lies.

And what do these parasites actually suck? Unlike the honest tick or mosquito, they don’t suck blood. No, they are much more sophisticated. They suck money.

To reduce their number, then, we have to deprive them of what they need. Deprive them of the ability to make quota and that deprives them of their blessed money. At the same time, we transfer the annoyance back to them, which will increase their likelihood to quit for better jobs.

I decided it was time to allow them the opportunity to amuse me instead of annoy me.

Now, I exercise the “speaker” and “mute” buttons on my phone when they call. After all, if anyone of value calls in I can always transfer to it. I press the button to renew my auto warranty, or whatever else they are selling. And then I flip it on speaker and hit mute.

Sure enough, a human eventually comes on the line — or at least, a human parasite does. And they seem frustrated, “Hello? Are you there? Hello? Hello?” Eventually they give up.

It doesn’t cost me anything at all. And it won’t cost you anything either. But if we people allow the parasites to spend their time for nothing then that is time lost to them. We can starve them.

It’s been said that all evil needs is the good do nothing. In this case, we good people can defeat the evil by allowing them to speak while we do nothing.

Keep the Light!