Less is More, Right?
Dr. Andy Farnell's latest article is excellent, as usual. Published about an hour ago, it says many things that resonate well with our message or mantra.
Some excerpts:
"Surplus people who know how everything works - and could build a viable alternative - are a great threat once policy starts down the slippery road to totalitarianism."
"That's why even as colossal cybersecurity disasters happen daily, as Marks and Spencer, Co-Op. Land Rover and the NHS suffer crippling attacks, nobody is hiring new cybersecurity people. There is plenty hot air about it. Governments claim we desperately need more cyber people, and must train them at a pace. The mass-media apes this message, since fear sells."
"In reality, outside a handful of universities there is no credible cybersecurity education happening. Most of it is product specific and thinly veiled sales material for companies like Microsoft or Cisco. As I've witnessed myself, even if there were, nobody hires graduates into fitting cyber roles. They end up using their skills to become cybercriminals. That's where the money is. Meanwhile industry and "capital" is "investing in AI" to bring automated security to systems. Everyone with an IQ that is a positive integer knows where this is going to end."
"[...] Much of this is "accepted as normal". But that status is itself the result of relentless propaganda to 'normalise' deep discomfort. The claim that "Everybody is doing X" or "Everyone accepts that… " is always dubious if not mischievous. Yet it is hard to find any passage of prose in either the mass media or scientific journals that does not begin with sycophantic tugging of forelocks and doffing of caps to our masters. Tech-apologetic is mandatory boilerplate as preface to any "credible" commentary."
"[...] Those who carve out a refuge of sanity, by non-participation, slower living, or alternative technologies - even under instructions from their GP - are pressured, mocked as Luddites and "reactionaries" by those of us who fear emulating their courage, innovation and willpower. This is exacerbated by myopic Western governments who have pinned all of their economic hopes on "technological dominance" - a regressive school-boyish war footing and blinding hangover from the Cold War."
"As in social circles of drug addicts and alcoholics, the afflicted feel jealousy and rage at those who dare to break free. Those who self-care and seek improved mental health by reducing technology are treated with hostility. One most bizarre thing I've heard said to someone (who like myself does not own a smartphone) is; "Well it's okay for you, but I don't have the luxury of not having a smartphone"."
"Think about that for a moment. A smartphone is a luxury good, costing many hundreds or thousands of pounds. Each carries a massive environmental impact. For someone to claim that not having one is a "luxury" shows something has gone very, very deeply wrong with our society, culture and outlook. It is the same faux defence of those who say "I don't have the luxury or not owning a car" while living in a city with excellent public transport."
"[...] The world is buzzing with a new phrase; "Digital Sovereignty". At last perhaps humankind is waking to the dangers of abject surrender to technology made by other people of dubious honour. Sovereignty begins with the individual. Sovereignty starts with choice. For all the bluster coming from Europe about "Digital Sovereignty" we've yet to see that killer investment in Free Software and mass media messaging about BSD and Linux necessary to shrug-off toxic US BigTech."
"[...] Digital technology made in the USA, as "social media" and so on, exacerbates all those conditions that psychotherapists seek to free suffering patients from; loneliness, jealousy, low esteem, demotivation, lack of purpose, anomie, alienation… The rise of social media and smartphones is concomitant with plunging mental health and general unhappiness. Social media plus "AI" appears to be the perfect poison for vulnerable human minds (all of us)."
"[...] Wellness is a revolution of lowered expectations, letting go of impossible ambition and the return to a world where simpler technologies work with people, not against us. The question is, can humanity have a grown-up conversation about technology before the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater."
Go read the whole thing. Andy nails it. █
