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[jfz9580m]

29. Thanks Wednesdays

It started happening after this confusing job I had in 2011 in one of those Si Valley adjacent places.

I have always liked science, but till then I didn’t really notice tech much. I had this view of the net as localized to online spaces and had I thought about IOT, Smart Homes etc, I would not have been interested since personal use tech never struck me as important or necessary.

All these photo and music apps. Who needs them? I am disorganized enough in a low tech environment. Why would I want something that clearly and obviously makes attention and clutter worse? And for some lame thing like an online calendar.

How lazy do you have to be to cheerfully inflict all this on your neighbors while calling them Luddites, inefficient etc? And then I watched in indignation as the narrative around these obviously rubbishy things grew in the last 3 years. And finally after Trump’s inauguration with all those oligarchs, the 2022 overturn of Roe v Wade, EarlG’s post election analysis of how algorithms are driving this junk, the treatment of federal workers, that horrifying piece of brutality where Venezuelan immigrants were sent to that hell in El Salvador (all with reality tv mimicking choreography), I lost what scant patience I had.

And have been on the rampage online a bit - I am more sheepish and awkward offline unless anyone messes with me for real ;-/.

Altogether it has riled me up and I am not so lacking in self awareness that I can’t see it. A decent shrink I met at my last job also got the impression that I had poor impulse control. I don’t or not anywhere near this much. I used to have normal filters and control online and offline. I behave normally if I am not basically just told brusquely like Arthur Dent that “oh yeah all this is inevitable - deal with it”. Wait what? Why is it inevitable and how? Who made some guys in tech owners of everything? Why would I want the ugliest online ad filled spaces in my home and then allow all sorts of parasitic studies and tests while my own work suffers.

And at that scale it isn’t democratic. This is EarlG’s website. That is someone else’s lab. This is my home. You can be sure that no matter who agreed that all sorts of rot was inevitable, if it is my home rather than your lab or business or institution, its my rules because that is how reality works. I am willing to self-deport rather than see a shrink over a refusal to cooperate with such obviously flawed worldviews. Okay fine - I am a shit employee and don’t want to defend poor work or disorganization. But I will fix it myself rather than go see a shrink who thinks the humans surrounded by garbage tech should adjust to it.

Or have non-existent solidarity with sycophants of technocrats, who seem to be too daft to get that tech can be good or bad like anything else.

A rejection of worthless tech is not the same as being Amish. Such strawmen are all these guys have and its too lucrative a scam apparently for checks on second and third rate companies which deliver our homes/living spaces up to advertisers and special interests.

But the line in the sand is my home. Don’t come here and start telling me this is inevitable etc. My family has owned this home for 5 generations. Back off. Or that is how I see it.

Women will file complaints against these tech companies when they are women like me rather than “adjust” because some randoms agreed to this seeping offline. If it was all dark web and digital scams it would be one thing. But why is all this rot bleeding offline. Who agreed to this? It is not something to force without debate anymore.

This is not normal nor inevitable etc. It is a blatant grab of power and control without any debate by tech and it has gone on for far too long. An arbitrarily loony tyrant like Trump is very much the type of human who would rise up to harness an outlet to animal behavior when civilization drops the ball. This much undemocratic tampering with reality appears to end in chaos engulfing everything. Hell even Tim Cook admitted that these guys try to get away with too much. Though it doesn’t surprise me at all that he is one of Trump’s acolytes. I was in bot drag more a few years ago while trying to fake enthusiasm for an ass like Cook.

And all because of a little regulation by the brilliant Lina Khan. These guys are willing to completely break reality over accept democracy with all it’s imperfections and friction. And most risibly they used China, Russia etc as the excuse. The US looks like Russia right now. This is not acceptable at all. And it won’t work in my home. A future that refuses to learn from this past will suck more and more.

Nice dog in your icon..a yellow Hound of the Baskervilles ;-/?
This post I thought through more than usual. Edited out one tangential ramble.