THE supposed merits or promises of technology are typically surface-deep, at least when presented by media that is itself in bed with "tech giants" or "Big Tech" (akin to "Big Oil" and "Big Pharma" but a more recent derogatory term).

"This is part of a much broader problem and one we must confront."It's hardly controversial or unconventional to assert technology can be used for good, or technology can be used for bad/evil (or both, depending on the context).

The video above deals with experiences I've had for a couple of years with our local government. Their use or misuse of technology is harming many citizens and COVID very much accelerated the misuse. As Common Dreams put it this past weekend: "We must ensure that temporary Covid-19 data surveillance infrastructures do not needlessly outlast this once-in-a-century pandemic.

"At the start of the pandemic, technologists and policymakers touted the promise of technology to track and warn individuals of potential Covid-19 exposure and high-risk areas. But whether due to overburdened contact tracers or the lack of early and coordinated adoption, those technologies never became a central part of the public health effort against the disease."

This is part of a much broader problem and one we must confront. We'll likely be speaking a lot more about those facets of technology, including proprietary software in routers (ours is still not functional after a botched remote update of the firmware) and governments that outsource everything to spying firms, even ones that work with a foreign military, disregard accessibility aspects, and compel people to do all the work -- labour once upon a time done by professional and well-trained staff. Later they tell us there aren't enough job. There's not much automation; it's just outsourcing. Society suffers while all the capital flows upwards faster than ever before. ⬆