Technology and Tyranny

Technology has long detached itself from the machine.

Another story about Technology? Yes, but with a new proposition, outside the dominant way of thinking and perceiving.

Sounds counter-intuitive, but over time Technology (with a capital T) has clearly detached itself from the machine. It has done so, not by nature, but by construct while we were busy participating in the rise of technologically superior societies. A majority of people in developed nations believe that Technology makes them more free. More than those without technical knowledge and the latest machines. Millions of us, work within the ‘technical realm’ and believe that it has transformed both society and itself continuously. The ‘computer’ succeeded the ‘atom’ in preeminence. Computational power, the internet and artificial intelligence surpassing beyond the machines and regulations altogether. Conquest of outer space is on the horizon and bio-engineering is the way to go. Social media is touted as democracy. And wow!

About a hundred years ago, it was clear to some people that the ‘central feature’ of not-so-distant society would be the car. By the mid-1970s, academics, philosophers and writers had rightly guessed, that the computer was to be the ‘central figure’ of future society. By 2000, a whole bunch of people were aware, that the “collective interpretation” (Ellul Jacques) of our future would be almost entirely predicated by Technology. Not as machines, not so by technocrats or robots, but almost like a forever entity. “the machine making more machines” (Lewis Mumford). Technology that “sets us free” they told us, again and again. Yet, free to do what?

To enjoy more technology? Eat nice things? Take flights around the world? Buy cheap stuff? Obtain the latest gadgets? Yield more power? Acquire more speed? Oh yes! and much more. We internalize constant innovation, with no questions, like an ever expanding wheel that is turning on it’s own power and purpose. Which then reveals two not-so-nice things. One, about Technology leading civilization and not the other way around anymore. Two, our individual obedience to the tyrannical nature of Technology itself. The ‘technosphere’ we are webbed within, as seductive, as high-resolution, is certainly not free nor about individual freedom. Given that political and social tyranny predates modern Technology by thousands of years, yet I speak of a certain tyranny, that always favors and needs Technology.

Four short stories to highlight the relationship between Technology and Tyranny. Plus our devious little irresponsible ways inside the two everlasting realms.

The Promise (of freedom)
Technology will not tolerate any judgement passed on it. Technology and technique, for all the things they signify, always look down at the past. Instead, Technology represents itself as a thing of the present with grandiose plans to shape the future. Technology is often trashing its own past, with every generation that provides new experts and new enablers to fulfill the objective. Yesterday's machines are now valueless. The word old is synonymous with obsolete. Speed back then was abject. Energy back then was dirty. The automobiles of 1990s are laughed and scorned upon. Regardless we all love to drive around regardless.

In Spain, much like the rest of western Europe, summer vacations are a big deal. Economically, culturally and geographically, the spirit of “libertad” (freedom) can be literally felt in the air every year, during June, July and August. About 14 million people within Spain, drive out of the five big cities, in every possible direction using 4 to 4.5 million cars, vans, trailers, motorcycles etc. For the moment, not counting the trains, buses, flights and cruiser ships. This mass transit is seen as a good thing. No one counts emissions or things like material footprint. Instead we celebrate the fact that so many people have the freedom, blessed weather and the vehicles to move around independently. To do the same thing, year after year.

If the car equates to freedom, how come people don’t stop to think, for even a moment, that eventually that is ‘determined’ by Technology and not by their free will. Technology to go up and down a predestined ‘way of life’. Technology which offers the car, also provides highways, roads, the GPS, the ATM, the sanitized beaches, natural parks etc etc. This sort of vacation (and tourism) is an outcome of Technology and not based on individual desire nor need. Exclusive practices, nice food, cool sites, a selfie moment, rustic music, keeps us busy and believing that a vacation is about freedom and an experience we all deserve.

The Outcome (bad fruits or rotten is the whole tree)
On Facebook in Sri Lanka, much like in India, Mexico, Myanmar, Indonesia, Afghanistan etc, “incendiary rumors get the the highest engagement rates” (The New Atlantis). Also through WhatsApp and Instagram one can trace mob violence in different parts of the world. Not just global warming, but content too can set the world on fire! The current algorithms are designed to circulate volatile content, driving internet traffic (and profits) on privately owned social media platforms. Facebook’s messianic mission is to “give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together” but in reality what adds up as dollars, is Riot-inducing “fake news” or election meddling bots (Cambridge Analytica and Brexit). The reality of Facebook is a far cry from what its founders intended or claim. Poor Google then, after years of resisting the Chinese leadership, has recently “relented and modified their search engines, applying censorship, tracking and surveillance, rather than pull their search engine from China entirely” (The New Atlantis). And YouTube’s zany think tank surely could not figure, that their feature which promotes “trending” content will be full of clickbait conspiracy-theory videos, fake news, anti-science lectures and xenophobic content, to go viral again and again. These folks are clearly not in control.

Like wildfire, a malicious rumor spread across Sri Lanka recently, that Muslims were secretly lacing food with sterilization drugs. Soon, a video appeared on Facebook, Whatsapp and Twitter, showing a Muslim shopkeeper admitting to the crime. No one looked closely, to see that he had misunderstood the question, put to him by a seething angry mob. The next day dozens of mosques, schools and Muslim-owned shops and homes were burned across villages and towns. Several people including a young Tamil journalist were trapped and perished. Nothing came of it eventually. No one was prosecuted. Facebook’s management did not utter a word of concern or apology. And why should they? Because between Technology and Tyranny, hundreds or thousands may perish, as it has happened so many times, and when it may happen next, predicated or not.

What appears to be a new set of stakeholders, of say the “global liberal order” is not exclusive to the rise of Information & Communication Technologies (ICTs) but also includes totalitarian thugs like Putin, Xi-Ping, the current, past and next president of America, as well as the political class of Europe, NATO, add smaller tyrants in various parts of the world, all wielding power (and ever new forms of tyranny). Less we forget the other big actors, visionaries like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bernard Arnault, Yuval Harari, Klaus Schwabs, Sergie Brin, yada yada. The slogan “knowledge is power” is true or maybe not, yet preposterous power, be it political, psychological, financial or technological, always ends up wielding tyranny. The folks mentioned above and thousands more, guised as economists, energy experts, academics, media pundits and policy makers, form the ruling order. They are the loudest actors, yet none of them are in real control of the current unraveling and direction. While a section of society is ranting and raving about who should we trust or not, the absolute monopoly or control remains out of sight. With who or rather how is worth looking into.

Those characterized by the fact that they have exclusive knowledge, superior intelligence, infinite energy and nice little practices, based around modern Technology think that they are in control. They want to shape the near future, be it with a slideshow or a think tank or a TED Talk or billions of dollars. But, don’t call me a Luddite, not yet! This gets darker.

The Betrayal (of predestined goals)
When I was younger, like many kids I believed in an utopian society. That, in the not-so-distant future, an age of autonomous harmony would prevail allover the world, arbitrated by benign digital Technology. The big promise was based on superior Technology and the irony of it, in hindsight is profound. Totally contrary, we witness the marriage of totalitarian power, billionaires and machine intelligence. Now it’s 2023 and the dominating characteristics of current society are not even close to that idiotic 80s fantasy.

A digital utopian horizon is here indeed, yet based on the colonization of our mind and of the entire human project, be it the whole planet even. As time goes by, it matters less and less, what policies and plans are laid out by your chosen leader or by the enemy, because the overall presence of Technology and Tyranny, has final say in shaping our general reality. Power, be it hard or soft, American or Chinese, is but dependent on various types of Technology (military, movies, mass media, internet etc). The conviction that millions of people share, based on technology and limitless innovation of the same, also enable and empower militarism, violence and top-down tyranny. Even if it is enacted with imaginary weapons and silly costumes, akin to a Hollywood action movie or the next amazing video game, makes it obvious that many social pathologies are also directed by technological tyranny?

Did you hear about Google’s never-released product called the Selfish Ledger? The internal video obtained by The Verge in 2021, described it as “a very unsettling vision of Silicon Valley social engineering.” Borrowing from Richard Dawkins’s controversial notion and book (not validated science) called the “selfish gene” came the ‘Selfish Ledger’. In short, a highly evolved self-help, an artificial buddy, call it a product or service on steroids! Put together by combining all of Google’s cornucopia (of personal data) and machine learning (Deep Mind), whose “sole aim was to help you meet your goals”. Did it work? Hell no, cause what the hell does Google know about my real goals. But, Google has gone past it’s apex in terms of innovation and domination, marked by these ludicrous projects and subversion by powerful violent regimes, much like Dawkin’s colonial mindset still trying to dominate via quasi-science. If they wish life to be prefabricated and sequenced, it will be kicked aside eventually by higher governing factors. Then Dawkins or Google, both seem like pawns or enablers of totalitarian Technology.

We, the irresponsible.
We are truly free of one thing because of Technology, and that is responsibility. What makes for a generally irresponsible society, numbering billions. Take for example the internet. Who safeguards it? Who is responsible? The programmers who worked on it initially? No. The managers of big servers and clouds? No. The big developers? No. The politicians of your country? No. The United Nations? No. The owners of Facebook, Google, Microsoft, TikTok, Amazon, Twitter etc? No. Millions of people who own billions of websites? No. The army of admins, editors, writers, designers and coders? No No. The FBI? No. The police? No. The military? Well, maybe but only to an extent. No one is really responsible inside this terrific techno-industrial tyranny.

Why? Because every one is just playing a minuscule part, as a microbial creature. The assigned job. The designated profession, role, chosen motivation, if you prefer. Hence, who is really free without responsibility? Which makes you and me equally irresponsible, about many things different or similar. Then be it climate change or CO2 emissions or level of exuberance or limits to growth or even racism, xenophobia, worse even horrific extermination, war and genocide, individually we have checked out, of any real responsibility. And what is the excuse? Well there are millions and that is a whole new story. But because modern Technology has long detached itself from the machine, so have we from our actions and corresponding responsibilities. So I fool myself, that since I did not create this ongoing disaster… and that I was just doing my job or playing my part.

To cap this story, with an atrocious example of not being responsible (and the excuse) is by Josef Kramer (Commandant of the Bergen-Belsen Nazi Concentration Camp). The camp held around 85,000 prisoners of war, Jews, Slavs, Romanians, Communists, Gypsies and other ethnic minorities. About 45,400 (including 7200 children) were exterminated between 1941-44. During the Nuremberg trail (1945), Kramer was asked by the prosecutor “…but you didn’t find it horrible… all those corpses?”. To which his answer was “Oh what could I do.. the capacity of the ovens was small. I could not process all the corpses all at once… I sincerely had no time to think about all those people. I was always caught up with technical problems of the ovens and communication…”

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