This movie came out a long time ago, and while the movie itself was not what I consider very good, the concept of the title is reminiscent of what we see in computing today. In particular, what used to be yours is now mine, if I am a big tech company and you are not. The theft of intellectual property, ability to control what your computers do, ongoing drip by drip emptying of your financial assets, replacement of your identity on their platforms, and on and on are now standard business practices throughout much of the online world.
They aren’t just taking your bits, they are taking your most precious asset
Your time is the only thing you can never recover once lost (OK... we can think of some other things, but I’m not going for that vibe). You only have so many ticks on your clock, and they are being consumed by the distractors intended to own your eyeballs, your eardrums, and as soon as they can do it, the rest of your senses. Take over your senses, and they take over your experiences, which means the nurture part of your life is at the breast of the big tech companies. And they are not interested in feeding you, but in feeding off of you.
They are digging into the very hearth of the technology
As the big companies get to own the hardware used to support your habit, they are spiking the systems with technology to get you and keep you captive. The Trusted Platform Module originally conceived of to protect you against them has been converted into a mechanism to control you and your systems, prevent anything they might not be able to watch, and as a lever to cut you off if they are offended. At the hand of private interests it is even scarier than in the hands of government which at least pretends to be subservient to the population, although less and less so recently in the so called free nations of the world.
All in the name of ‘security’
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Ben Franklin
What to do about it
Rebel against the big interests and protect your own interest and the interests of the rest of us. OK - I’m not really a revolutionary in that sense, in fact I am pretty conservative about obeying the law and not disrupting society. Anarchy is worse... until it isn’t. Move toward a disintermediated future where you control and are responsible for who and what you trust and to what extent, over what time frames, and for what purposes.
So how do we do that exactly?
I am one of the elite of technology today, and likely so are you if you are reading this. I wish I could be more entertaining for more people and engage the whole world in considering my writings and views, but I seem unable to do so. So for now, I will ask that you, my readers, take in my messages and views and spread them in your own ways to the masses. And that’s the first step. Don’t depend on centralized controlled mechanisms to save us. Do it virally.
By engaging with you and encouraging you to engage with others, we can discuss these issues and be more aware as a species. The charismatic leader is usually the enemy of us all. And I don’t want to be one. For example, I don’t want anyone shooting me because I am too influential or high profile. I think I have succeeded on that front.
Part of the walk away from centralized controlled venues is movement toward a more distributed form of social media, or removal from it writ large. I have largely backed away from it and it feels good. I have more free time, get better information, less frustration, fewer scam attempts, and retain my relationship with friends, including meeting new ones online. This through online meetings with smaller, more trusted, restricted groups under a set of rules that are reasonably enforced. It’s like the good old days of USENET news groups and small forums for like-minded folks. I like it and so would you if you tried it.
Another important step in my view is to take the path less followed - that makes all the difference.1 Leadership in some arena is a good thing for most folks, but that doesn’t mean being a leader in everything. Get good at something and share your capability with others. It’s not about technology, it’s about valuing your own contribution to groups of people you work and play with. If you are good at cooking eggs (as I am), take it as a leadership position when offering your help to others, and accept their help in areas where they know something. Build a mutual respect based on enjoying what others have to bring to the table that are different from the things you have in your experience or expertise. Learn from others and teach them from what you have learned. It is mutual success we should all strive for.
Controlling your own technology is a particularly worthwhile idea, but of course, it takes a lot of time and effort to do so unless you place your trust in community members. As a technical person, I was the support technician for my family until one of my children got good enough at it to take on the role. But I think there are opportunities, some of which I am engaging with, particularly in the areas of smaller scale highly distributed systems with redundant communications, local capabilities for collaboration and communication, and long-term survival and success off of the broader Internet. For example, one group I am working with is repurposing older computers with Linux operating environments supporting local AI capabilities intended to implement personal views on the rules of the road for each individual and enforce them for interactions with others. It is locally controlled, highly distributed, and will be increasingly independent of centralized control or surveillance.
I take on many news feeds through aggregated services of different sorts to get a wide swath of what’s happening in the wold from sources all over it. I stick to English but if I wanted I could have automated translation performed for even more news. I get a diversity of views, compare them to each other, and make my own judgments about them, but I don’t spend too much time or obsess about the news. Instead, I find interesting things (to me) and drill down.
Conclusions
We are being screwed by the big companies we pay for the things we think we need but really only want because they have made them seem important to us through social manipulation. Screw them back by walking away from their big tech BS and toward a more egalitarian perspective of the world and your relationships. Follow the golden rule (not who has the gold makes the rules; the other version: do onto others...). Get big tech out of the middle.
References
- Misquoted from Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken"