Most of my readers now know that my blog has been taken down by
WordPress for no stated reason. We are working to restore the blog "by
other means." You're reading this either because you're already
subscribed to my email list or someone forwarded
this email to you. If you're in the latter category, then the best way
to get my daily articles is go to NoMoreFakeNews.com and sign up for the
email list in the upper left corner. You'll get articles in your
inbox. Thank you for your support.
"Ah, yes. Utopia. You see perfection, i see mediocracy. You see
triumph, I see surface gloss and shiny objects and moths drawn to
luminous signs and symbols. You see order, I see walled-in
compartments. You see community, I see the abdication of the soul."
(From my Notes on Technocratic Utopia)
In early human societies, technology was primitive, and top-down control over the population was overt and menacing.
In modern times, technology develops apart from massive political power---or it seems to.
Large numbers of people who work with technology view it as a path to
perfection of civilization. Perfection equals order, organization,
coordination, comfort, security, and so on. Or as one technocrat put it
to me, "Everyone and everything in its proper
place."
If you don't examine what that means, if you just take it as a surface
generalization, and if you dream technology can solve all problems, the
future looks rosy.
You can even flesh out details of the future. Buckminster Fuller did.
He proposed that technology had reached a point where every human on
Earth could be guaranteed, from birth, at no charge, the essentials of
life: food, clothing, shelter, education.
There are many versions of a technocratic utopia. They all promise a collective triumph for the human species.
But is the fundamental premise true? Is modern technology developing apart from top-down control?
Unfortunately, the answer is no. At the summit of the
food chain, the people in charge see technology as a means of universal
control. They aren't content to allow innovation with no firm hand on
the reins of society.
Who will run the perfect society? The people who are building it. The
technocrats, who see humans as pieces on a board; pieces that need to be
positioned properly.
What quality will disappear if the technocrats have their way? FREEDOM.
A technocrat looks at humans and sees a mess made of millions of bad
individual decisions; a massive and well-programmed computer can fix
that, if the computer is made king. The computer can organize the whole
of Earth. "You go here, you go there. You do
this, you do that. You have this much energy you can use every
month..."
If you ask a dumb and dumber liberal who will run the perfect world,
he'll say THE GOVERNMENT. If you ask a dumb and dumber conservative the
same question, he'll say GIANT CORPORATIONS AND BANKS.
The truth, of course, is GOVERNMENT AND GIANT CORPORATIONS, WORKING
TOGETHER. How naïve does a person have to be to embrace, without worry,
GIANT GOVERNMENT or GIANT CORPORATIONS?
Resistance to this future starts with understanding what INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM means.
Or else, at some point, you'll get this: "Hi, I'm Jim. I'm with your
electric company, your bank, your employer, your insurance carrier, your
court, and your doctor. I just wanted to go over a few things with you
prior to your annual interview. As you know,
this year the energy allotment for each citizen is going to decline, so
we want you to be prepared for that..."
Skip ahead in time and the annual check-up will include a DNA scan, to
make sure your genetic profile fits your assigned status.
Too far-fetched? I can tell you this. Every year, the number of
individuals who are ready to sacrifice their highest dreams and
ambitions "for the sake of the community (the collective)" grows. The
ideology of equality, twisted to turn into more control
from the top, expands.
THE FREE AND INDEPENDENT INDIVIDUAL HAS NEVER BEEN MORE IMPORTANT.
No comments:
Post a Comment