Posted by Chunk in Featured, General | 0 comments
New Year’s Resolutions
2009 in many ways was quite a scary year in the UK all in all; the Digital Britain bill is basically a precursor to the home secretary being allowed to pass any new laws for surveillance on the internet arbitrarily and without consultation of parliament, with the added bonus of protecting the corporations as opposed to the consumer. Google offered a definition of privacy that simply stated that if a person chose to use Google’s services, they should be free to mine any and all data stored on their servers by you for advertising purposes. This of course, means that the fact that data can be stored on Google servers for anywhere between 18 months to 5 years, leaves Google in the rather precarious position of being of interest to governments that have something of an overzealous attitude to monitoring the internet…And its people.
The internet is growing, alarmingly so – to the point that most of us in the world have access to internet speeds that vary from 2mb per second, to 1g/bit per second; we’re deluged with choice for every conceivable lifestyle choice, and yet at the same time, we’re spoiled by that choice and limited in our choices at the same time – our ISPs here in the UK offer us “superfast internet speeds – up to 50m/bit”, but then act in a surprised manner when representative companies such as the BPI, MPAA and RIAA knock on their door and point out that piracy is rife – it becomes a matter of audacity to ask why, when people have so much choice, do people download illegally? When given a choice, it’s little surprise that people will opt to download something for free, when the corporations of the world, be it a bank or a multimedia giant choose to use the recent (and most dire) recession in current memory to profiteer, instead of remember the taxpayers and consumers who are their lifeblood and encourage them to buy more products simply by making things cheaper, and more affordable. Mnay economists are predicting that over the next 50 years, global economics, politics and boundaries will change beyond recognition of what we see today; the lines are already shifting, as Canada, Mexico and America unify under a single economic support structure; the same can be said for the European Union as it grows and adopts new members, and as countries, formerly regarded as “developing countries” such as India, are welcomed as wealthy nations with their own bargaining power, and their own diplomatic credentials. The truth is that the UK has been sleeping like a dragon hoarding its gold for a good many years now, and has awoken to a world where we are no longer leading, but finding ourselves increasingly playing catch up.
In this brave new world, a hand shake is no longer accepted as good enough to trust, a man’s word is no longer his bond – instead, biometrics are becoming the only valid form of handshake, and instead of an utterance of promising to uphold one’s word, the matter can simply be resolved by entering your pin. Language, soul, reduced to a 1 or a 0. In the 21st century, humans are statistics, customers and targets, instead of a valued community that we used to be; the family butcher replaced by the supermarket mass produced, vitamin fortified, battery grown fodder – fresh food replaced by an aluminium can that won’t break down for a good few hundred years.
Is this the future, the values we want to leave our children, and our grandchildren to remember? Are any of us stopping to ask what the cost of this is to the human soul, and ultimately what the cost will be from unplugging from the world around us, and uploading ourselves, our data, and our avatars to an internet that I doubt many people in the early 90’s saw coming, or would be happy with?
The world, I’ve concluded is a backwards place, and shows no sign of recovering any real semblance of sanity any time soon. As we enter a new decade, we become more dependent upon technology, forsaking the fresh air, and the simple pleasure of taking a brisk walk in the morning for the option of using our debit card to order fresh milk and our daily paper from Asda on next day delivery. I truly believe that it’s entirely possible these days to live your life without ever leaving the confines of your living space. I know it’s possible, because I’ve done it while I spent the longest time getting my head together enough to the degree that my eyes are now open, and I want to unplug from the cyberspace just a little bit more.
It’s the primary reason why I’ve decided that aside from writing, I’ll be making a more active effort to be away from the internet and spending it out in the open, while things aren’t covered by a canopy, and while we have an atmosphere that isn’t totally toxic to breathe. I’ve unplugged myself from sites such as Facebook, because I’ve concluded that there’s much more value to be gleamed from simply spending time with friends and making life count. That will be my gift to myself, and my new year’s resolution – to live more, instead of existing on the internet. Like everything else around us, it’s all about balance and quality.
Happy New Year.
