Alright. Okay.

So, you’re here. You clicked the thing. You’re looking for… I don’t know, some answers? Some distraction while you’re pretending to work? A hit of that sweet, sweet validation dopamine? Yeah, I get it. Me too.

And I was thinking. I was thinking about this… this thing. This idea. And it got stuck in my head, you know? Like a piece of popcorn kernel right in the back molar of my brain. And I couldn’t let it go. I started talking to the dog about it. The dog, of course, looked at me with this profound, ancient disappointment, like I’d just told him I was considering going back to a nine-to-five to “find myself.”

So I figured, fine. I’ll write it down. I’ll exorcise it. Put it out into the digital void. Maybe it lands with you. Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe you read it and think, “Wow, he’s lost the plot on this one,” and close the tab forever. I can feel that judgment through the screen. I’m ready for it. I’m caffeinated for it.

But let’s just… let’s just get into it. See if we can figure this out together. Or at least kill the next five minutes before you have to go back to pretending to look at a spreadsheet.

Here goes nothing.

(Pause for a long sip of coffee, followed by an audible sigh.)

Staying safe online is so important these days, recently the Westerrn world has become obsessed with impleemeting draconian measures similar what used to be mocked in China. The UK is flirting with digital ID apps/cards. The US has gone all in (courtesy of Palantir) on tracking pretty much every aspect of any person on US soil. You can be sure that others will follow. Welcome to that New World Order we talked so much about in years gone by. So privacy becomes a luxury. Everyone will be lining up for their 15 minutes of anonymity. See? That’s why you’re here: the cheery, feelgood stuff. But it got me thinking, for the average person, can you really get to a decent level of digital privacy? This video is some food for thought but sadly doesn’t really dip into the fact that so much of your life is now digitally based, and is reliant on your being able to interact with government and other systems.

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It’s dark times now, here in the West. Maybe it always was but we’re just bringing how dark it is into sharp focus. Now is the time for art.

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