How Engineered Dependency Erases Our Autonomy
"Picture this: Your smartphone dies while you’re on a trip, and suddenly, you’re helpless—unable to navigate, pay, or even access your hotel reservation. This isn’t hypothetical; it’s our reality. According to DataReportal’s ‘Digital 2024 Global Overview Report‘ the average person now spends over 7 hours daily on digital devices, with 47% reporting anxiety when separated from their phones. What once was a minor inconvenience has now become a crisis, revealing how deeply we’ve integrated technology into our daily existence—from ordering coffee to proving our identity.
George Orwell envisioned a dystopia of forced submission, but he missed something crucial: people willingly surrendering their freedoms for convenience. As Shoshana Zuboff details in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, this willingness to trade privacy for convenience represents a fundamental shift in how power operates in the digital age. We don’t need Big Brother watching us—we invite surveillance into our homes through smart speakers, security cameras, and connected appliances, all in the name of making life easier.
We don’t just accept this surveillance; we’ve internalized it as a necessary trade-off. “Don’t worry,” we’re told, “your data’s safe, and you’ll get better recommendations and smarter services in return.” We’ve become so accustomed to being watched that we defend our watchers, developing an almost pathological attachment to the very systems that constrain us."
En artikel jag känner att jag kunde skrivit själv! Vi ger bort våra liv för bekvämlighet. En typisk passus i artikeln:
"A satirical video called ‘The Google Toilet‘ perfectly captured this moment, showing how we’d willingly trade our most intimate data for convenience. The video seemed absurd when it was made 15 years ago—now it feels prophetic."
Kolla länken, vi är mycket nära den situationen. Artikeln tar också upp Digitala Valutor (CBDC) och de uppenbara farorna för vår frihet med dem:
"The push toward a cashless society represents the ultimate expression of this control. As I warned two years ago in “From Covid to CBDC“, the elimination of physical currency isn’t just about efficiency—it’s about creating a system where every transaction can be monitored, approved, or denied. Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) promise convenience while building the architecture for absolute financial surveillance and control."
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