A Hollow Vindication

If there's one thing I can honestly say more than anything else that I was right about, it'd be the ultimate consequence of smartphones and social media.

Corruption of the human soul

Something has happened to us as a people. We like to think that over the decades people have learned from our mistakes. That we're kinder, more aware and humane. It is not so. Our science and technology has developed faster than our understanding of the human condition. We were given these tools that supposedly made our lives better, more convenient. Superficially, it worked, but at the cost of our social skills and sense of nuance. We don't see each other as people anymore with flaws and contradictions. Now we all see each other as sources of entertainment, mocking our own challenges as human beings with every swipe and click.

It's like handing someone a firearm without teaching them how to safely use it. They might turn out fine. Or they might shoot themselves in the head. Or someone else.

Worse, the parties responsible for this, billionaires and big tech, know damn well the long term consequences. And they just don't care. And they're not going to, because for them, the bottom line begins and ends with the dollar bill. The purpose of data and algorithms is not to help society but to study it, to exploit it. To document individual thought process and behavior to create the greatest chance for a potential sale of the latest service or product, which you probably don't need anyway. Knowledge is power, and data is the currency, turning millions of people around the world into unwitting gold mines. 

And I saw it happen. Years before, in visualizations of the future.

I watched all my friends, the group of people I had slowly formed a bond with over time, fade away into a digital ocean. Everyone, my friends included, stop talking and started clicking. Scrolling replaced speaking, adventures became digital. And I just got disconnected.

Because it didn't want to compromise my principles. Because my arguments about the danger were sound. Because I was right.

Funny thing about being right though. Even when you are, it doesn't help much when no one else gives a shit.

We now live in a world where emotions and instant gratification take priority over patience and reason. We live in a society that has grown socially lazy. We've grown prideful and selfish, believing the world was made for us to be happy.

It certainly doesn't help that most of us now have to work twice as hard for half as much reward. By the time you get home after working two or more jobs and taking care of the kids, who the hell has the energy to have a social life? Everyone just hops on digitally, forced to keep feeding the machine just to have human connection.

But not me. At least not to the same degree.

I held out for years. I refused to have anything to do with Google or Facebook or Tiktok or any of that crap. I was right, and that was that. I was sure eventually people would see my reasoning and come around. I mean, I know people can be blind at times, but obviously society would know better by now?

That was twenty years ago.

So in this case, being proven right is more like winning a medal in a race no one watched. How inspiring can it be if no one bothers to see it?

Last couple years I broke down and tried to make a digital presence, like this blog. I tried and succeeded putting posts on Facebook and a couple other platforms. But it always made me sick, like debasing myself, selling out to something I knew was wrong just to connect with people. 

And I don't want to be treated like a data mine. I don't want my whole life to be used in an algorithm. Paranoia feels more and more justifiable. 

But as the world's slowly falls apart, speaking out feels less like a luxury and more like a duty. I don't want to be quiet anymore, so I've chosen to fight that sickness that comes every time I log on. The sickness of dealing with the man made devil known as modern society.

Isn't it great being right?