Exploring the Impact of Tech Dominance, Rediscovering Values, and Finding Liberation Beyond the Screen
Navigating the Echo Chamber: Battling Tech Bros and Their Unyielding Confidence
It feels like I’ve spent too much of my life arguing with tech bros. Tech bros have created a world that mirrors their geeky persona since the early 2000s..
People stereotype generations, use manipulative language, and make unrealistic plans based on wishful thinking. There’s no Tech Dream too big for these guys.
They rattled debate points off with online-forum speed, rife with assumptions, and schoolyard put downs that somehow are supposed to pass muster as logic.
You’re a fool to argue with fools, and no one is a bigger fool than me.
Tech Titans Unleashed: Dissecting the Impact on Industries and the Vulnerable
What have I been up against?
YouTube lol. I thought YouTube would be a horror show. And it is as far as creative workers are concerned. YouTube became a way for corporations to air my work without paying me, violate my contracts, and threaten my family. Or is that too boomery for you?
Uber. Uber took direct aim at taxi drivers, for goodness sakes. Uber took a small-profit challenged industry, a refuge for drifters, poets, and the broken, and turned it into an all-consuming app that charged us more while paying workers less.
Airbnb. My upbringing involved a lot of traveling, and I developed a love for hotels.. I tip maids and doormen. If the room is not clean, I make them fix it. I’ve stayed at Airbnb but I’ve also canceled reservations and ate the cost when I stood outside. There’s no real regulation. Cleanliness is a crapshoot. You’re living in somebody else’s life. Not why I travel. Airbnb has replaced my favorite kind of hotel, boutique hotels with what? Rooming houses?
Let’s be honest, Tech Bros. Disruption has gutted the most vulnerable among us, worked best against industries reliant on cheap labor. Drivers, bike messengers, hotel maids.
Unmasking Global Tech Economy Exploitation: Profits, Information, and a Soulless Landscape
The global tech economy hums along on exploiting foreign workers.
See?
That is the statement that shivers the spine of executives in those industries. They’ll drown you in data for writing something like that. But it’s also true.
They manufacture goods with cheap labor in one place, and sell at exorbitant prices in another. That’s the global market in a nutshell, and tech apologists sound like cultural colonizers when they push back.
Information will never replace illumination, Susan Sontag wrote. We are awash in information. They organize information into profit. Your personal information repackaged and sold. Spreadsheet soul with precious little illumination.
There’s ultimately nothing cool about it. It’s a bland cargo short world where everybody looks the same as they hustle for dimes from sunset to sundown. Get yours, that’s the animating principle. Grubby is not cool.
And this is all supposed to make sense? Tell me this.
Is the world a better place?
Do you think it is?
Has all this sheetrock and condo-ing, this flip your house suburb hustle gotten us anywhere?
Balancing Progress with Purpose: Navigating the Tech Gold Rush and Rediscovering Timeless Values
I don’t believe in generations. Never have. All that generation crap is a Madison Avenue plan to sell you stuff. From the Pepsi Generation to Gen Z, pure used car salesperson hype. Nothing real about it. Nothing you can eat.
We’re all alive here and all going through the same experience. They turned generation memes against us to hide the truth. People will take advantage of you at every turn.
You think I don’t get it because I’m a boomer? You think things and perceptions change like some voodoo magic because of the year I was born?
I see cons the same way I always have. It’s not generational. It’s human. The internet is full of creeps. Silicon Valley is a pirate’s nest. It’s great at its own mythmaking, but it’s not so great at making a better world.
The climate crisis gets worse but the apps keep coming. The tech gold rush goes on. The latest gold-filled river is artificial intelligence. AI is aiming at another vulnerable part of our culture. It’s what Tech Bros do best. Pick off the easy opportunities, then drive their Teslas home to their McMansions in the sky.
Look, living without digital technology is unthinkable these days, impossible. It occupies much of our daily routines. I’m not proposing a world without tech. I’m suggesting we apply our timeless values to the world we’re building.
The ethics we formed millennium ago are valid today because they speak to timeless truth. Not every innovation is good. Not every aspect of our lives needs to be rearranged by apps. Not every disruption goes forth without question. It all needs to be questioned against our foundational ethics.
Is it good?
Is it necessary?
Does it help?
Our goal should be to create a more human world, not towers of isolation. Let people have their purpose. This may be inconceivable to Tech Bros mainlining data, but music is best made with catgut and steel. Some people like to make beds for a living. Taxi drivers have good stories to tell. There’s nothing better than writing with paper and a fountain pen.
Navigating The Religion: Tech’s Unquestioned Rise and the Illusion of Salvation
Of course, save your breath. You can’t go up against The Religion. Musk is a god. There are new commandments. Thou shalt not question. AI exists solely by the production of human artistry for the past 1000 years. But so what? It’s the democratization of creativity! Everybody’s an artist! Except, of course, that pure BS. More of it. So much of it.
We’ve made a big bet here. The bet is tech will save us. Tech will fix the world. Tech will be our salvation. But the deeper we sink into the trough, the more that bet feels as likely as a golden chariot driven by Jesus is coming any day now.
It’s the Impossible Debate. The No Questions Asked mentality that twists me like a pretzel against my spine. It bleeds across our world. Anti-Woke as an excuse to not think, not feel. Digital stormtroopers telling us what’s good for us. They flooded the world with self-righteous social media Know-It-Allism. Platform think. Hashtag paradise on a 2am screen. While away your days thumbing your way through Red Dead Redemption.
Reclaiming Humanity: Embracing Nature, Connection, and Individuality in the Face of Tech Dominance
So what am I saying?
What’s my big idea?
You know I’ve got some, because I got blood on the floor from dealing with all this. I served time in a video game company. I’ve been on the front lines, in the tech trenches with coders at my side.
What’s my big plan to push back against the Tech Bros at our gates?
Plant herbs. That’s my advice. Balance it out. It’s easier to figure out who you are with dirt beneath your fingernails.
Get a dog. All knowledge, the totality of all questions and all answers, is contained in a dog, Franz Kafka wrote.
Watch waves. Go out as far as you can on the rocks. Go out until you can feel the raw sea. Live in the thunder of a wave reaching the shore.
Feel your life. It’s so important. It’s the gift we all share, no matter our age or station. It’s our shared humanity.
We are not any color or culture. Don’t let the tribes break you. Don’t app your life. The ultimate hack is your individuality. Let it shine. Drive a cab, make your bed, play guitar. All of that is life beyond your screen.
And don’t argue with Tech Bros. The truths of our humanity are unchanging. It’s something they need to stand by, like the rest of humanity. We need Facebook a lot less than we need clean air. No connection is more valuable than touching someone’s hand.
Hallelujah.
All we need is outside our window.
The tyranny ends when you take a walk.