The truth was, it was a world full of information. They lived in times so inherently complex that the average person required several years of academical training only to get reasonably familiar with even the smallest tributaries of the great river that was society.
The truth was, that in this crossfire of flows, to anyone who stumbled upon the right place to look, and who were adequately well-versed in the winding ways of the world, out there was a fortune waiting to be had.

For Clarence Corley, it had all started with a very modest module, the first version of which was constructed on a workbench in his basement, years before he would come to be known as one of the greatest engineers in the world. The module was about the size of a cassette tape, and plugged into the back of your television set.
What it did was that every time a commercial appeared, the module would mute the sound. That was all there was to it. He called the device Jiveshield, and it worked through scanning the amplitude of the carrier wave. Since TV advertisers had taken to running their commercials at a higher volume and with clearer sound than the programs serving as their vehicles, they were easy to pick out.

At first, news of Jiveshield spread by word of mouth. People in general experienced a relief when liberated from the loud voices and repetitive audio clutter commercials had brought them. There were those who liked commercials the way they were, of course, as there always had been, but they were a dwindling minority.
Demand was rising, and before there had been any kind of focused response from the television advertising industry, Jiveshield had become well-known and quite popular. This forced the advertisers and the TV networks to abandon the old high-volume commercials and develop new carrier wave strategies, each of which Corley would counter with an upgrade. As sales increased, he kept cutting prices, making his product ever more popular.
Before soon, the constant improvements of the Jiveshield module became the birth of Corley Cybernetics, and the invention that fueled it: the context recognition chip.

With this, carrier wave modulation didn't matter anymore. The context recognition chip could be set to scan for audio- and video quality, framerate, pauses, pitch and even specific words. There seemed to be no way of circumventing it, and, facing an inevitable loss in this electronic war, the major television networks and the advertising industry in a last great act of defiance launched a lawsuit.

It was called conspiracy in restraint of trade, and although the networks had sufficiant financial backing and political muscle to get a case, they did not have enough to actually win. Corley was freed, but the trial had forced him to investigate the legal clauses involved.
Soon afterward, a seemingly humble Corley applied simultaneously to three major networks to advertise the context recognition chip on their channels, and was summarily rejected. He sued all three networks, and in this trial, he managed to prove conspiracy in restraint of trade. The settlement he received was considered astronomical at the time, and for the network companies, it was the beginning of the end.

Two years later, the context recognition chip and the new module, the Context Controller had expanded to eliminating advertisements on the radio as well as the Internet (both proving a lot easier than television), and the advertising companies and television networks were falling like dominoes into bankruptcy.
Corley Cybernetics was among the biggest, most profitable corporations on the planet, and Clarence Corley himself had become a legend. Times called him The Man who Toppled the Advertising Industry, and on Wall Street hung a banner the size of a small building, with Corley's face close up, the Corley Cybernetics double-C logo in the background, and the words,
It's all in the context.
Along with his success, of course, in the midst of falling corporations, Clarence Corley had made a good deal of powerful enemies.

Still, with the power of the context recognition chip behind him, he appeared unstoppable. Using his products, people could now without hassle avoid talkshows, sitcoms, sports, doctrinarian religious programs, or presidential addresses. His third version, the Context Commander, didn't need any particular vehicle - it plugged directly into an antenna, and squelched transmissions out of the ether before they could even enter a medium.
At this point it became obvious that the chips had much wider applications than media control. If projected, the context filter could theoretically black-out any given kind of satellite. The possibilities for military intelligence and industrial espionage were thought of by more people than Corley, and it was on these grounds that the famous United States vs. Corley Cybernetics trial would take place.

The context recognition chips had simply grown too powerful to be allowed for civilian use, it was said, and on recommendation from the National Security Agency, production was ceased, and key personnel and facilities were assimilated by the government.
Corley received a settlement in 10 figures, but refused to cooperate in the process. He called it a crime against capitalism. He had found an unsatisfied public need, he said, and had developed the means to deliver what the public wanted, all within the confines of the law.

In the end, the takeover made Corley even more introvert, and within a year he had disappeared from public eye, never quite getting over his digust of society.
In the end, he suspected, the real reason for the takeover had not been a matter of national security, as much as his unpunished and unforgivable attack on and near-eradication of advertisement.
The truth was, they lived in a world where commercials, talkshows and sitcoms were the new evangelion, and regardless of what the market decided, the powers that be had to draw the line somewhere, and make justice.
Advertisement industries claimed that they served capitalism through providing people with alternatives. But, Corley had argued, the absence of advertisement is also an alternative. Huge advertising budgets exist only when there is no difference between the products involved. If the products really were different, people would simply buy the one that was better.
Advertising teaches people not to trust their judgement - or to put it simply - advertising teaches people to be stupid.

The truth was, the world was becoming too small, and humanity too petty. Although life is long, Clarence Corley started to feel his time was wasted. With Corley Cybernetics getting its wings clipped, not much would remain once he had departed this Earth.
Not much would come of all his work. This, could not be.