It’s incredible how we are so unwilling to endure even a seconds worth of discomfort by deleting these apps. If everyone who read this post finally deleted their Facebook accounts it would actually hurt Zuckerberg bottom line and free you from something that literally only serves to waste precious time. And I bet some of y’all STILL won’t do it.
Facebook - gone. Instagram - gone. WhatsApp - gone. Messenger - gone. X - gone. Tic Tok - gone. Yes. my friends are very reluctant to decouple their lives and these apps. I'm looking forward to how life changes - well most likely something else will replace. We'll see.
One thing I know is if you want something to happen, you have to do it yourself so kudos to you. As Gandhi said - be the change you wish to see in the world.
I got off of FB for years but in my vigil in front of a synagogue, it was suggested that I use FB to let people know what I am doing and I am doing that. Significantly, of the host of friends on FB, only two have dared to comment on what I am doing, but I think you get my point that social media is THE way to get the word out, whatever it might be, perhaps to spread Ken's "appistocracy" : )
Congratulations on coining a great word, Ken! Yes, it is indeed distressing that after years of totally avoiding Facebook (I never joined) I was appropriated by Meta through Instagram. I should give it up but it is a way I display my artwork. Sigh. I think all the time about the way I grew up and was a young adult in the late 70s and early 80s with no tracking devices and social media feeds and really just living in the moment comfortably and developing at my own pace. In college there was a pay phone down the hall and no one ever picked it up. Our parents had zero idea where we were or what we were doing; now i hear that parents track their children via apple “find my” apps and see where they spent the night! It is really sad and in only a very few cases would that be necessary (medical conditions, for example). My kids were in that first wave of people who had cell phones in high school and college but things were quite “primitive” compared with what has evolved. And the sick thing is, we all seem to want the phones day and night and use them to as huge crutches in so many areas of our lives. It really was better before they came into our brains and hands. The freedom we have ceded to these creepy billionaires will be the end of us. We have already become a step below the bots Elon wants us to be so he can go to Mars and have workers and sex slaves. We did this to ourselves, willingly. Pathetic.
Good neologism and good thinking too. I refuse to get a smartphone though I know of only one other person like me. The attention to the thing is frightening, I see it every day, everywhere, so attached are people to it that I wonder if they could bear to put it down. No physical task is too demanding to keep people from holding the phone in one hand while doing the task. I often see the repeaters, the word I have for those who put the phone in the pocket and then in less than a minute or two reach for it again only to put it back in the pocket. It reminds me so much of the cigarette smoking of yore, compulsive, addictive.
And the kids! I see them congregate at the local Panera and all the group does is share this or that appearing on a smartphone screen, often they are all silent, each fingering their phones. Once I interrupted six girls doing this and I said to them "one of you should declare your independence and read a book!"
People walk around with earpieces on, everyone is in constant contact with who knows what.
Something else is different from the old times you mentioned of manufacturing. People could understand how things worked. The introduction of radio brought a host a people building receivers at home. Explanations even of a piston engine in a car were not difficult to follow.
Now, people haven't a clue how technology works and they don't care to know, as long as it does. Should something catastrophic happen that brings down the internet for an extended time, the public will be as lost as toddlers because they can no longer order this that and everything, let alone produce even the most basic needs for living. And this frenzied system of ours demands more buying, more attention.
And our laws allow the wealth produced by modern tech to flow to the few who are given unlimited power to throw their money at anything they wish, best shown by the foolish building of space vehicles for "space tourism" as our planet warms, Trump calls the fact of global warming a hoax and wants us to use more fossil fuel for the money to be made. He is blinded by money, his life testimony to it.
Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Trump fiddles while the planet warms.
What this appistocracy has done so far is child's play compared to what they are going to do with A.I. Our downloads led to their ascension but soon they will not need our permissions or signing off on terms of agreement. It will dominate our society both socially and economically with zero input from us.
What is most scary is there is no stopping tech. Something is introduced and it becomes popular then something else is built on that. AI is a good example and all that counts, what drives it, is popularity. The ancient Greeks thought that the way to destroy an individual was to give him what he most wants. I wonder if that applies to a society.
Your article reminds me that some some years ago the economist Mark Blyth proposed a system whereby all individuals legally owned all their own "data" and therefore would be owed royalties on it when it was harvested and used by corporations. I seem to recall reading it in the Financial Times, written as a letter, and if I can find it again I will give you a link.
What exactly is the fuel for these corporates? It’s our data. And we give it up for free because their platform is free, so we use their platform... [So] get people to individually license the use of their data to these firms. We auction off the digital spectrum to telephone companies. Why don’t we auction off our personal data? Basically give the data on a ten-year lease that’s revocable.
There are lots of things we could do. We just simply choose not to. There’s the real commonality just now in governance. This is the bit that’s truly disappointing.
Really Todd, alarmist? Correct, the tech of the day wasn’t maybe quite as lucrative (but once adjusted for inflation the distinction might be closer then we think), but it was as impactful. Autos, coal, mining, steel etc, were becoming essential to the world population. Unions and the violent attempts to kill them shook the country. The economic shift these new industries and oligarchs started in the late 1800’s contributed to two world wide depressions and world wars.
And that was before today’s global integration of economies.
I think alarm might be proper. Particularly, as the essay notes today’s “apps” are more parasitic.
Right: the rail barons and mine owners (especially the big ones) could dream of that kind of power and have it. Those parasites stood on platforms at inaugurations, too. And they certainly didn't have the means to revolutionize and hide further the means of exploitation the way Zuck et al. have done.
However, I still think this piece went a little over the top . . . .
I fully agree with everything in this essay and don't want to derail. Yet I feel I would be remiss in not pointing out that there is, in fact, another person in that photo. A woman. That she doesn't even bear mentioning as an entity is a little frustrating. She may not have as much power as all the men pictured, but she does exist. Not even acknowledging her presence feels a bit like erasure.
It’s incredible how we are so unwilling to endure even a seconds worth of discomfort by deleting these apps. If everyone who read this post finally deleted their Facebook accounts it would actually hurt Zuckerberg bottom line and free you from something that literally only serves to waste precious time. And I bet some of y’all STILL won’t do it.
Facebook - gone. Instagram - gone. WhatsApp - gone. Messenger - gone. X - gone. Tic Tok - gone. Yes. my friends are very reluctant to decouple their lives and these apps. I'm looking forward to how life changes - well most likely something else will replace. We'll see.
One thing I know is if you want something to happen, you have to do it yourself so kudos to you. As Gandhi said - be the change you wish to see in the world.
Books!
I'm getting off in about a month.
I got off of FB for years but in my vigil in front of a synagogue, it was suggested that I use FB to let people know what I am doing and I am doing that. Significantly, of the host of friends on FB, only two have dared to comment on what I am doing, but I think you get my point that social media is THE way to get the word out, whatever it might be, perhaps to spread Ken's "appistocracy" : )
Congratulations on coining a great word, Ken! Yes, it is indeed distressing that after years of totally avoiding Facebook (I never joined) I was appropriated by Meta through Instagram. I should give it up but it is a way I display my artwork. Sigh. I think all the time about the way I grew up and was a young adult in the late 70s and early 80s with no tracking devices and social media feeds and really just living in the moment comfortably and developing at my own pace. In college there was a pay phone down the hall and no one ever picked it up. Our parents had zero idea where we were or what we were doing; now i hear that parents track their children via apple “find my” apps and see where they spent the night! It is really sad and in only a very few cases would that be necessary (medical conditions, for example). My kids were in that first wave of people who had cell phones in high school and college but things were quite “primitive” compared with what has evolved. And the sick thing is, we all seem to want the phones day and night and use them to as huge crutches in so many areas of our lives. It really was better before they came into our brains and hands. The freedom we have ceded to these creepy billionaires will be the end of us. We have already become a step below the bots Elon wants us to be so he can go to Mars and have workers and sex slaves. We did this to ourselves, willingly. Pathetic.
Put down your phone, go pick up a copy of as many of these titles as you can. Read them. Share them:
On Tyranny - Timothy Snyder
Surviving Autocracy - Masha Gessen
Strongmen - Ruth Ben-Ghiat
How to be an Anti-Racist - X Kendi
The Great Displacement - Jake Bittle
How to Hide an Empire - Daniel Immerwhare
Wild Faith - Talia Lavin
Palo Alto - Malcolm Harris
Shock Doctrine - Naomi Klein (essential classic)
Good neologism and good thinking too. I refuse to get a smartphone though I know of only one other person like me. The attention to the thing is frightening, I see it every day, everywhere, so attached are people to it that I wonder if they could bear to put it down. No physical task is too demanding to keep people from holding the phone in one hand while doing the task. I often see the repeaters, the word I have for those who put the phone in the pocket and then in less than a minute or two reach for it again only to put it back in the pocket. It reminds me so much of the cigarette smoking of yore, compulsive, addictive.
And the kids! I see them congregate at the local Panera and all the group does is share this or that appearing on a smartphone screen, often they are all silent, each fingering their phones. Once I interrupted six girls doing this and I said to them "one of you should declare your independence and read a book!"
People walk around with earpieces on, everyone is in constant contact with who knows what.
Something else is different from the old times you mentioned of manufacturing. People could understand how things worked. The introduction of radio brought a host a people building receivers at home. Explanations even of a piston engine in a car were not difficult to follow.
Now, people haven't a clue how technology works and they don't care to know, as long as it does. Should something catastrophic happen that brings down the internet for an extended time, the public will be as lost as toddlers because they can no longer order this that and everything, let alone produce even the most basic needs for living. And this frenzied system of ours demands more buying, more attention.
And our laws allow the wealth produced by modern tech to flow to the few who are given unlimited power to throw their money at anything they wish, best shown by the foolish building of space vehicles for "space tourism" as our planet warms, Trump calls the fact of global warming a hoax and wants us to use more fossil fuel for the money to be made. He is blinded by money, his life testimony to it.
Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Trump fiddles while the planet warms.
What this appistocracy has done so far is child's play compared to what they are going to do with A.I. Our downloads led to their ascension but soon they will not need our permissions or signing off on terms of agreement. It will dominate our society both socially and economically with zero input from us.
What is most scary is there is no stopping tech. Something is introduced and it becomes popular then something else is built on that. AI is a good example and all that counts, what drives it, is popularity. The ancient Greeks thought that the way to destroy an individual was to give him what he most wants. I wonder if that applies to a society.
Your article reminds me that some some years ago the economist Mark Blyth proposed a system whereby all individuals legally owned all their own "data" and therefore would be owed royalties on it when it was harvested and used by corporations. I seem to recall reading it in the Financial Times, written as a letter, and if I can find it again I will give you a link.
Here is an elaboration by Mark Blyth:
What exactly is the fuel for these corporates? It’s our data. And we give it up for free because their platform is free, so we use their platform... [So] get people to individually license the use of their data to these firms. We auction off the digital spectrum to telephone companies. Why don’t we auction off our personal data? Basically give the data on a ten-year lease that’s revocable.
There are lots of things we could do. We just simply choose not to. There’s the real commonality just now in governance. This is the bit that’s truly disappointing.
How the mighty are fallen. Or, what ever goes up, must come down. If we, part of the foundation, shift--what must this mean?
Toppling the high and mighty may be easier than ever, Sharing information, staking out position points; the possibilities are unlimited.
Creativity plus unity will support positive change--we just need to apply ourselves
Many thanks to those who appreciate my observations
Oh, you young people. Alarmists.
"Old school oligarchs couldn’t dream of that kind of power."
Rail barons and mining interests in the 19th century?
Really Todd, alarmist? Correct, the tech of the day wasn’t maybe quite as lucrative (but once adjusted for inflation the distinction might be closer then we think), but it was as impactful. Autos, coal, mining, steel etc, were becoming essential to the world population. Unions and the violent attempts to kill them shook the country. The economic shift these new industries and oligarchs started in the late 1800’s contributed to two world wide depressions and world wars.
And that was before today’s global integration of economies.
I think alarm might be proper. Particularly, as the essay notes today’s “apps” are more parasitic.
Right: the rail barons and mine owners (especially the big ones) could dream of that kind of power and have it. Those parasites stood on platforms at inaugurations, too. And they certainly didn't have the means to revolutionize and hide further the means of exploitation the way Zuck et al. have done.
However, I still think this piece went a little over the top . . . .
I fully agree with everything in this essay and don't want to derail. Yet I feel I would be remiss in not pointing out that there is, in fact, another person in that photo. A woman. That she doesn't even bear mentioning as an entity is a little frustrating. She may not have as much power as all the men pictured, but she does exist. Not even acknowledging her presence feels a bit like erasure.