Trego's Mountain Ear

In general, I won’t make the effort to lie to a pollster.  On the other hand, I just set the phone down after providing 100% dishonest answers to a robo-caller.  And I’ll do it again when they call back.

I put the phone in the house for my convenience – not some polling group.  Simply enough, I have a bum knee, and don’t like answering robo-callers.  I like it less when the robo-caller phones 3 or 4 numbers at a time and doesn’t answer my hello – and I included caller ID for my convenience, too.  The first call identified the caller as in Helena and got me to walk to the phone for a call they dropped.  The second call asked me to stay on the line to answer political questions, and I replied “No.” and hung up the phone.

Then the third call came.  Since these bastards lack courtesy and decency, the only way to get them to stop bothering me is to add inaccuracy to their product – in short, answer each question with a lie, making their product inaccurate and something no one would buy.  Leave me alone and we’re fine.  Keep bothering me and I’ll do my part to damage the quality of your product.  If the only way to be left alone is to give answers that nudge your company toward bankruptcy, so be it.  My leg hurts, I want to be left alone – but if you want answers, I’ll provide the answers that help make your product unmarketable.

This time I answered as a 35 to 40 year old American Indian female with a 2 year college degree, driving an electric car and making $200,000 per year.  I thought Biden won the debate, and that Trump’s next spot needs to be prison in New York, and all congress critters should drive a Prius like Jon Tester.

I could go on – but you get the idea.  Now, polls are set up to get a good approximation for a state the size of Montana with about 800 responses.  The cheapest, rudest way to get those responses is a robo-caller.  My untruthful responses aren’t enough to swing the needle on their survey.  They can handle an error rate of 2 or 3%.  On the other hand, if I can get 24 people to lie to these bastards when they call, we eat up their margin of error and leave them with an unmarketable product.  If they can’t sell the results of their research, they’ll quit bothering people.  Since they bother people, getting them to stop is a morally correct act.

So if I can get two dozen people to start lying to pollsters, we can change the world for the better.  Wait for the call, then lie to the polls.  It doesn’t take many of us to make their product unreliable – and once they earn the unreliable reputation, they’ll quit calling.