Man’s attitude toward nature is today critically important simply because we have now acquired a fateful power to alter and destroy nature. But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself? [We are] challenged as mankind has never been challenged before to prove our maturity and our mastery, not of nature, but of ourselves.”

–Rachel Carson, ‘Silent Spring’.

I believe in a world where human beings respect the agency of all living things, including their fellow human beings.  This includes taking a hard look at what our needs truly are, then realizing and respecting the needs of other living beings.  This also includes maintaining a healthy relationship to the technologies we choose to deploy in an effort to make our human lives better.

A vision for a tech future rooted in the idea that some tech visionaries are more intelligent, and therefore are entitled to rule over others through their own ‘charter city’ or ‘cross-border’ model like that found in Prospera or within the confines of a platform experience or by some other drastic change in governance is nothing more than a 21st century iteration of fascism, classism; a tiered system of control and conquer.

It’s colonialism writ large and sold to our neighbors with a smile, pure betrayal via visually stimulating app experience ever-encouraging us to delve deeper….spend another hour or two with our face in a screen.

It’s a stupefied Star Trek.

Roddenberry broke down territorial and colonial barriers with his technological tools. They were used to empower human behavior and intellect, not stupefy through media while we steal any value to control.

And it’s one group of the entitled attempting to suppress another by encouraging the later to give up their agency over ‘media’, ‘content’ and the tech that delivers that steady drip of endorphins keeping you and I temporarily satiated while our democratic ideals are flushed down history’s sewer.

I find it curious that we’re living in a society where it’s hard for me to gain knowledge for how my personal information is used by tech companies; a society that makes it hard for me to know when that information is sold, doesn’t pay me for the privilege and in fact will even make it harder for me to sue for damages if the worst happens to me.

A predatory business model that needs to spend millions to lobby government or change governing principles in order to thrive represents a drastic example of people propping up technology.  Our job is to use tech to make our lives better, not for us to support predatory tech at our own expense.

Tech giants were supposed to do business in a different way.  They were supposed to be better than this.  Remember the Ted talks?  Remember the Apple commercials during the Super Bowl?  Remember? Remember.  Remember, the 5^th of November.

Where’s our Guy Fawkes?  Wait, that’s not a great example.  ANd why would we need a hero to prop ourslves up?  Isn’t it hero worship that got us here in the first place?

Turns out you can’t make endless billions without negative consequences.

Turns out Big Tech is simply Big Business by another name.