TAIL WAGGING DOG

I watched a news item last night.

Technology in any guise must be on the 'must cover' list - like loss of jobs, mass shootings, murder, Brexit , cybercrime and fake news. It's probably put there by a super new algorithm. I suppose that makes it OK.

If you stop breathing you die. What happens when you stop thinking for yourself ?

You lose subjectivity, any ability to think objectively or on behalf of others - you must lose yourself.

Isn't it about time we pressed pause, turned a few needless apps off.... keep the good ones on, or actually didn't bother resetting that password - and tried thinking again - thinking about important things for a minute.

I don't mean what the future will look like with technological advancement.

I mean what do we want our future to look like.

Why has the human race's trip switch not kicked in ? Why have we not stopped vacuously applauding , admiring and valuing the majority of which is at best pointless technological advancement and at worst accelerating societal self sabotage without bounds.

We appear happy to acknowledge the detrimental impact of social media on our children and our family - but we seem unable to compute if it offers so much more positive contribution than negative impact.

I'm referring to 'it' leading us. Created by the very people that ultimately 'it' is being created to assist. 'It's' masters, mistresses, heirs and heiresses - who somehow appear so desperate to become its slaves.

Dangerous precedents exist just like this in our history. We now look back and can't believe how they ever came about unchecked. Is it because by its very nature we don't feel we can have a stake in the conversation because it's technology - because we consider ourselves ill-equipped to truly understand ?

The consequences of following the piper with no questions asked will hurt us as individuals, as a society and as a world - more than we appear to be able to comprehend. It's bright, shiny, new, - it's amazing. its unstoppable. I dare not question it.

Undoubtedly it has made incredible things achievable - it has the potential to do more good than harm - but does it - does it really ?

I am not talking about commercial gain, it can offer that potential on a relatively flat playing field.

I am not talking about making all kind of new things possible, it does that.

I am talking about who is in charge and why we have abdicated control over our future.

Technological advancement coupled with the ease of its deployment is shaping our lives without any form of conscious decision making on our part.

That's aside from those directly involved: the creators, the investors - I have no doubt the omniquoted 'big data' could see a link to those set to directly profit within a millisecond. They are the few. Well done ladies, well done chaps.

We, the human race - should not be a passenger in our own lives. We should be the drivers. How have we taken leave of our senses ? Why did we not log-off.

Is being a 'disruptor' a good thing ?

How genuine are the benefits this wonderful 'disruption' offers ?

Shouldn't we seek stability and the time that affords - the time and space for identifying and addressing what's important to us right now - and will be to our children when they reach our age.

'It' has unique abilities for sure.

It can sheds jobs, breed uncertainty, render a lifetime's hard work immaterial.

It largely places the 'real' control in the hands of the few rather than the many - to their financial gain. The questionable way that control is used, or rather abused - when treated similarly to comparable offline transgressions - would result in arrest, trial and time behind bars. I can say that confidently. I've been there.

It makes any advice we could give our children to prepare them for the lives ahead of them - potentially past its sell by date with the next update.

It's more often than not for the sake of it.

It's not for the sake of us, our families, our world.

If you can accept one small piece of that argument - if you can step back and question the significance to the world of a new emoji release - if you find your day so less enjoyable, your job so less secure, your anxiety over your children's future growing day to day - then as the world turns full circle - you too in time could very well become a 'disruptor'.

But you'll be late to the party - why did you not get that notificaton ?

Because you will be thinking about how the fuck you wake up to find a new reality has come to be - one that has made your life so difficult for no genuine individual or collective benefit.

When you get there - think about why you didn't see it coming.

Why you didn't stop to consider things before now. Why you accepted that some fiercely intelligent sociopaths were more qualiified to shape our future - when it's not a future you would ever choose at all - not in the slightest - well in fact, categorically not at all.

Are we prizing enterprise and capitalist endeavour ? Or are we royally fucking us up.