Admittedly, I’m that Luddite who’s rejected everything from TV (since last century), the nonsense of time-saving devices like dish-washers and microwaves up to and including the ubiquitous smartphone (what a euphemism). I’ve never had credit cards and returned the contactless payment card to my bank. I’d never requested one. Many forms of payment now require contactless cards including the means of getting around used by us Luddites the most - public transport.
In 2025, choice is a marketing illusion boiling down to comply or bye bye.
Increasingly – all that matters to the tiny percentage at the top of the unstable socio-economic pyramid – is how efficiently the masses can be separated from their money.
Meanwhile the inconvenient truth of the vulnerability of overwhelmingly automated systems is entirely ignored.
And – as a quick aside – while we’re tricked by the idea of choice. Did anyone ask for this? Did anyone vote for it? But no one resists…
I am still aghast when I have to have THAT debate in the supermarket because I’m forced to use the self-service tills I was assured would be optional. Occasionally the response is aggressive/ sneering/irritated when I insist on a human-served till. This from the very people who are seeing their colleagues made redundant - their stores employing fewer staff. The ones who are employed, do more mindless work – with little human interaction – often just standing near the self-service checkouts watching for shoplifting or to jump in when something goes wrong.
Slaves to the machines.
Human fail-safes have been gouged out. ‘Customer care/service’ is history, now just part of marketing speak. Try submitting a complaint (there is rarely a phone number with a human on the end) you’ll get nothing or an auto reply; your issue is ‘important’ and has been ‘passed to the relevant department’ as I recently had from LNER. It isn’t and it hasn’t. Its in the cyber bin.
Yesterday while waiting the dreaded 5 hour window for an internet engineer I got a text, obviously automated, telling me they were ‘outside my house’ They were not. In fact even after waiting 6 hours - still no one. Well done Openreach, arm of BT, our biggest communications company...
Meanwhile, hacking is a global unresolved problem. In the UK recently, companies as diverse as Jaguar Land Rover and a private nursery – were hacked out of action – to add to the airports, shops, banks, hospitals etc. that have been paralysed.
We are constantly lied to that the issues of online abuse, and predation are insurmountable. One huge step would be to stop anonymity. From racism to child sexploitation – the person behind the vileness having their name right there – would alter things significantly. Social media moguls will not do this because the rabidness on these sites is their bread and butter. Governments will not call for this because they are scared of the tech giants.
Here in the UK – in his ugly attempts to out-Farage Farage – Starmer has started banging on about digital ID cards in relation to tackling migration. Of course – whipped-up fear of foreigners is always a good way to push through stupid things - like BREXIT.
The man Starmer emulates in so many unfortunate ways – the old war criminal Tony Blair - suggested this during his unfortunate tenure. It was rejected wholeheartedly by the public. Now, however, when most folk unthinkingly give their most intimate personal and biometric data to faceless multinationals for free through their digital interfaces (facial recognition, thumbprint, voice ID) it’s caused only the slightest ripple.
NHS data – the patient records of millions going back decades (in England at any rate) is available for sale. Are NHS patients happy with this? Do they understand what it means? No one knows. No one cares.
Mass personal detail harvesting by the data vampires and our naïve over-reliance on faceless, fearsome tech and the billionaires who thrust it randomly on the world without our say so, is foolhardy. They know everything about us, we know almost nothing about them.
Yet we stumble towards AI domination with – of all people – Elon Musk one of its architects…
Apart from greater chaos, mass global unemployment, endemic poverty, further dehumanisation, societal disintegration and more rabid extremism – what could possibly go wrong?
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Not being part of the social media jungle, never having dated a celebrity or had a public ‘accidental’ wardrobe mishap – I’ve no means to promote my stuff in the over-heated 21st century – however, as always, I still link some of my books. See below. And while Amazon bought the publishing platform used for some of my work (of course they did) these publications are avail on wider distribution which means if you like anything (Ella & the Knot Fairies for Christmas?) you can buy via other good online book sellers. Click HERE to view.
Thank you.
