Greed. Corruption. Lies. Mass layoffs. Shitty artificial intelligence. Full products chopped up piecemeal for unnecessary subscription models. DLC and microtransactions. Streamflation, when streaming should be cheaper than cable. Advertisements fucking everywhere, including on refrigerators. Data centers wasting water. Politicians that work for themselves and corporations with no care for the people that they’re supposed to serve. Warfare, genocide, starvation, homelessness, drug epidemics. Rising costs, uncontrollable inflation, no Thanksgiving is not cheaper this year. The world is burning, from the inside out, rotting, dying, and we have to continue going to work, all day, every day, to generate endless income for the people at the top. The rich, greedy fucks who only worry about getting their grubby little paws on more wealth. It’s not like they use it for good, either. They simply hoard it. We also have an administration interested in gutting wages for everyone.
Some would argue the introduction above only focuses on the negative. Focus on the positive, they’d say, it’s all in your head and how you perceive things. There’s “so much to live for.” Sure, if you’re retired and can do whatever you want with your time. If you’re rich and have no limitations on food, activities, or leisure. Life is a fucking cakewalk then.
Haves versus the have-nots
Everything fucking sucks and no matter where you look, who you look at, everyone is pissed off about it, and it makes perfect sense why. People are always screaming at each other, over politics especially, the left abolishing the right, the right yelling back. Too blind to see that all the while our rights are being eroded, our money stolen, our properties and homes slowly degraded — if you can afford them. There is no right or left, wake up. There is only “them” versus “us.” The “haves” versus the “have-nots,” and every single person that is not a billionaire or a corporation is a “have-not.”
At any second, you can become sick, encounter major problems, like a natural disaster, and you’ll lose everything. Everything. All it takes is one second. Everything you’ve worked your entire life for, everything your ancestors worked their lives for, gone, in an instant. And while the “haves” may not be directly taking it, as is the case with a natural disaster, the corporations, insurance, and rich benefit the most from those of us who lose.
You may be worth millions, if you’re lucky. But what you don’t realize is you’re closer to homelessness and the poor than you’ll ever be to billionaires and trillionaires. They have so much money, their wealth is so vast, they could never spend it all if they tried. If you earn $45K per year, it would take 22 years to amass one million dollars. Yeah, that sure seems like a lot. But, at $45K per year it would take 22,000 years to reach one billion dollars.
Let’s put it this way: One million seconds is about 11 and a half days. One billion seconds is 32 years. One trillion seconds is 32,000 years. Those numbers are so big it’s still hard to comprehend how much billionaires have. Even if you are worth millions, and you’re probably not, again, you’re closer to being homeless than you will ever be closer to a billionaire, let alone a trillionaire. You get cancer or come down with a devastating health problem, health insurance companies will bleed you dry. You’re one bad day away from ruin, just like everyone else.
And make no mistake about it, they are working together to make sure we all lose. Gay, straight, trans, binary, non-binary, black, white, hispanic, democrat, liberal, MAGA, disabled, elderly, young, student, blue collar worker, businessfolk, small business owner, IT DOES NOT MATTER. We are all expendable to those at the top. That needs to change.
Where does it go from here?
I don’t know that I have an answer or if anyone ever will. Mass boycotts? Maybe? A revolution? Probably needed. Politicians thrown out with a massive government reset? Yeah, bigtime. Sneak away and live off-grid far away from society? Yeah, that does sound nice. Many of these solutions aren’t realistic, however, which is the problem. Organizing something like a mass boycott is tough. A lot of what we should boycott we need to survive and that’s by design.
The entire system was developed to keep the money flowing up top, everyone too busy to think, fight, or even eat, and operates as an always-churning, ever challenging landscape with free time devoted largely to insidious distractions.
It may seem odd to publish this on a tech site that perpetuates the constant consumption of new products and gear, most of which we probably could live without, but it’s also fitting in a way. It provides a glimpse behind the curtain and helps illustrate that, while I do love technology, I’m not blind to the faults and perils of modern life, what role these gadgets play and their creators have to do with it all — namely manufacturers and tech companies.
