The Tech Bros. The Broligarchy. These are the people bent on destroying everything they touch to make their vision of a dystopian techno-state into our reality.
Computers and software are still capable of being used for productivity and efficiency, but increasingly they are being used to spread misinformation, spy on us commoners, divide us from our friends and neighbors, and addict us to their platforms and devices.
Technology no longer serves the owners of the devices, unless you consider these tech bros to be the real owners of every device that you purchase for personal use. Their goals appear to be to create an endless stream of bullshit designed to trick you into willingly giving up your personal data, your time, your money, and your soul.
Who are the leaders that we are allowing (almost encouraging) to open the drain into which we will spiral to our deaths (at least the death of our humanity)? Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos? Good God, heaven help us all. Peter Thiel, Marc Andreesen, Larry Ellison, Sam Altman, and others are also fueling the increase in public distrust as they invade our privacy by surveilling us at every turn, stealing our digital data for their own desires, and creating biased algorithms intended to misinform us via bias and manipulation.
Why does LinkedIn escape my wrath for now? Two reasons: 1) it’s pretty much a milquetoast platform where virtually nothing happens (which means that very little bad happens as well as very little good), and 2) their CEO hasn’t done anything (that I know of) to be cast in the same lot as the TechBros who have earned our hatred. I do have a very specific rant about LinkedIn, but will save that your another post in the near future.
Being wealthy beyond any inconceivable need is not enough for these people. Instead they feel the need to manipulate the levers of our government and therefore our society as a whole. They have dictatorial persuasions, each and every one of them.
Zuckerberg? I told Facebook to F*ckOff in 2018 and have never looked back. But ignoring FB is not enough. I also avoid all the META products and platforms: Insta, Messenger, WhatsApp, Threads, Quest VR headsets, and Ray-Ban/Meta smart glasses. Zuck sucks, and if you use his products you are giving him the power to continue his suckiness.
Musk? OMG, I really don’t have the finger strength to type out all the reasons he sucks, but chances are good you’re aware of all those without any list from me. I left Twitter when he turned it into a safe place for Nazis. In the early days (pre-Musk) there was great engagement with a network of educators and others who shared useful information. In the later days it became a cesspool of hatred. I’ll never buy a Tesla, I’ll never be an astronaut, I won’t let Neuralink implant anything into my skull, I won’t drive in his Boring tunnels, and Grok can … (expletive deleted). No Musk for me, thank you very little.
Bezos? A little tougher since I have family members who use Amazon and Prime Shipping all too often. I’m working on that, but just because they’re family doesn’t mean that they hold the same convictions about how horrible the Broligarchs are. We’ve stopped using Alexa and Audible. Don’t and won’t subscribe to the Washington Post. Won’t be paying for a seat for a 7-minute ride into “space” on the phallic Blue Origin. We have a video doorbell that is not a Ring. I only shopped at Whole Food Markets a couple of times several years ago, and now have no reason to stop there. There are alternatives out there to GoodReads and IMDb. It’s hard to avoid AWS, but at least I don’t directly pay them for their services. MGM studios is another tough one since I often don’t know who created a certain movie or television show.
I expect very little engagement with this post. One reason is that LinkedIn will limit the impressions by keeping it out of the feed of most of my contacts. Another reason is that those readers who are also on X/Twitter and Facebook/Insta will be loathe to agree with my thoughts about the Broligarchs, since their use of those platforms paints them as supporters of their bullshittery. Or some such crap.
#Broligarchs #TechBros
Filed under: AI & Chatbots, Personal, SoMe | Tagged: ai, elon-musk, politics, social-media, writing | Leave a comment »
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