Held hostage

Access to the internet has become a basic human right. Our entire culture lives through the internet. 

If it went down, everything would halt. No food, no electrify, gas, medical services, education. Nothing. The estimates of the number of people who would die in the first three weeks of zero internet is staggering.

I work from home. The main supplier of internet access is not at all reliable in my area. I have it, but it is woeful. I was forced to get Starlink, even though I have only contempt for the owner of the company.

Yesterday Starlink went down. Simultaneously, my unreliable backup also went down. This means I have to hotspot off my phone.

It is almost as if the gods are laughing. For today I am hosting two open house events to discuss the Syntropic lens on a Trumpian world. If I was a conspiracy person, I might believe the demigod of Starlink was listening.

I am held hostage to a technology where I cannot access help. Messages sent, and 24 hours later, zero response. Fancy that, a trillion dollar company, and no human support services. 

Comparatively to serious flash points in the world my being held hostage to the tech giants is minor. Yet it signifies the rot. 

The tech titans love this. The power. The greed. Holding people hostage to what Cory Doctorow terms the enshitification of the internet. They do not care. 

They do not care. At all.

Yet here we are. Trapped in a technology that we pay for and need, yet completely beholden to the operating system that works for the titans at the cost of the users. A blatant form of abuse and exploitation.

If you ever wonder why people, or you, are so rage-filled, it might be found here, in the enculturated capture of our lives by the tech bro’s. 

A different type of slavery, yet slavery still. 

**Slave c. 1300, sclave, esclave, “person who is the chattel or property of another.”

Photo Taken November 13th 2024, Article written November 13th 2024