It is 7:13 PM on Thursday, March 6th, 2025. I find myself in Lake Mary, Florida on a business trip sitting on my bed in a random hotel room.
I had a customer lunch in Clermont, an hour drive and have found myself staying in my hotel room since 3:30. Even though I chose a hotel with a pool the weather did not seem conducive to a swim. In days gone by I would have explored a bit or found myself at a restaurant or a bar but I’ve aged and caught a bug two weeks ago which has sapped my energy. My son caught it first, then it spread through the house. I thought my immune system was fantastic as I didn’t catch it but finally succumbed after everyone else did. The caught has been persistent and I imagine I have another week of this.
I’ve been meaning to write for some time but the energy levels and motivation has been extraordinarily low this year. I haven’t exercised, nor done karate but I have been concentrating on work which is going well and this business trip is apart of. There is a lot going on which may have contributed to this general lethargy.
The first is that half of my countrymen elected Trump who is running what some call a ‘coup.’ I don’t believe it can be a ‘coup’ as that means an individual ‘cuts the head off’ the government. Rather, half my countrymen have decided they want a big change and Trump is doing exactly what he said he would do. The American voter is a big disappointment. I had thought we’d be smarter than we are, after all, Obama called us all ‘exceptional.’ Yes, exceptionally dense. What we are witnessing is a very angry America but they’re not exactly sure where to direct their anger. Is it immigrants, gays, egg prices, or just the desire to feel consistently angry?
A phrase from the book “They Thought They Were Free” comes to mind when describing the environment during rise of Nazi Germany.
The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, non one is transformed.
It is similar now. Everyone goes about their lives, doing their jobs but I don’t think most realize how drastically things are changing except those who have been directly affected. We’ve alienated our allies, the DOGE group is taking over very important governmental institutions and it looks like we, in fact, may not have elections in four years.
Reading the news, it looks like a pact has been made between the USA and Russia. I can foresee Russia invading their neighboring countries while the USA makes moves on Greenland and Canada. In normal times I’d tell myself to take off my tinfoil hat, but this is exactly what is in the news. In addition to all the deportations, I can see Democrats getting something like a negative social score as technology continues to track everything everyone does.
In the past couple of months and with the help of ChatGPT I’ve come to realize how vast that data collection is. All our devices are constantly sending information about our activities, location, preferences to the internet. Hell, even the gas station app continually requests to know my exact location at all times. How dystopian is that? If I were to tell someone from the ’80s that your gas station will want to know where you are at all times in the future I would have been called crazy. This is reality.
Taking in a dizzying pace of news on a daily basis I can see that the ‘tech bros’ have hitched their train to Trump but he is only a means to an end. They’re following the thoughts of a guy named Curtis Yarvin with the end goal of creating independent “techno cities” where the leaders in technology rule. It is “more efficient” than our “corrupt democratic system.” Yes, actually I agree. Our democracy is incredibly corrupt, lead by geriatrics who refuse to give up power. I know Feinstein is dead, but honestly, why don’t they just throw her corpse up there as to many her death “will not affect her duties and she’s not stepping down.” This phrase was used by her team when she was already senile. Next is Pelosi who is an icon in San Francisco. I don’t know what she may have done to warrant the praise but I see what she has become which is an inside trader just as corrupt as everyone else. On the other side of the isle you have Mitch McConnell who actually is stepping down *SHOCKER* and Trump who is pushing 80.
So yes, I think that ‘techno cities’ would be more efficient than our current democracy. I have always said that I’d prefer a “council of elders” over our stagnant outdated process now where the electorate elects a person like Trump. But here is the problem.
Technology leaders, seemingly like everyone else simply want more power and money. Therefore, we’d just be bringing back lords and serfs from the Middle Ages. Technology already controls us now although most people don’t realize it. To illustrate my point sit and watch someone, anyone. See how may times the look into their phone. Looking into their phone has changed their mindset and ultimately determined where we are politically. Everyone is under the influence of their social media, their source of news, they just don’t realize the extent. And they certainly don’t realize how much information is being collected about them. The ‘machine’ knows more about them they they do about themself.
Throw in AI and we’re at a whole new level. The rumor is Elon Musk would like to put AI in charge of government. Well, he has a point in that it would be more efficient. But AI is more efficient at almost everything, so where does that leave people? It leaves us as serfs in a modern sense.
Since I myself can do absolutely nothing as to the course our world is going to take, I’ve decided to go ahead and be happy. I’m of no importance in the grand scheme of things and so I’ll only control what I can control, especially in terms of technology. I’ve now switched to Linux and am teaching my boys. All my data is on my own server. I’m now running Pi-Hole to stop that constant flow of data about our family to who knows where. I can resist this ‘matrix’ we’re all being entrapped in and have fun while doing it. The way things are going, the future looks very dystopian indeed and the pace is speeding up. Soon, we’ll all wonder “how did we get here” just like many of us are doing this very moment.
It really is amazing how technology influences people. Politics aside I can see this in the business world as well. Many conform and end up losing their own identity merging their sense of self with the company. I notice this especially in their speech. It wouldn’t shock me if some people referred to their own children as “individual contributors.” Sales people only have one emotion and that is “excited.” They could be going to a funeral and it may be difficult for them to not try and put a positive spin on it.
“Yes, his death is a challenge, but I’m really excited to see the flowers and music! I will be intentional about my grief but the realities of life demand we all adjust appropriately.”
Performance reviews are of a similar nature. We’re expected to “agree” to a certain set of pre-determined “controllables” which we must all “buy into.” There isn’t any room to negotiate and later in the year those “controllables” will be mentioned and that ‘we’ve all agreed to them.”
“So for this quarter the expectation is you jump into that pit of alligators at least five times a week.”
“Well boss, I could only summon the courage to jump in twice a week.”
“That’s not what we agreed to. As you can see we’ve written it down in Workday.”
Was there any room to negotiate not jumping into the pit of alligators? No. But as we all need a paycheck we have to agree to it and even though it may cause loss of life we’ll sign on the dotted line. It is a form of control where business will call it “empowering” or some other positive word. Doesn’t everyone feel “empowered” to jump into that pit of alligators. Another, less positive word could be “manipulated” but negative words are verbotten in the business world.
I’m having fun with this but the reality is I do like my job and work for a good company. I just prefer plain speech devoid of all the business jargon. We’re having a rough time at the moment with the first layoffs in company history where nobody is quite sure how everything will turn out. I suppose what is happening is simply taking its natural course of events. We live in a capitalistic society where ever greater profits are the only goal. We live in a market, not a society. We can only hope we don’t get the ax in pursuit of those profits and with AI, so many are feeling the ax and there is much, much more pain to come.
This is where my mindset is these days. I’m getting older, the job market is in the trash, our country is now run by oligarchs and we’re all expected to put our heads in the sand while those in charge rain down abuse on so many. What do the Democrats do? They put on pink and hold up teeny signs of dissent without doing much of anything. I am not a Democrat and as a thinking person have been independent for some time. Unfortunately, being independent does about as much good as me saying “please don’t do that” out at the ocean and hoping things improve.
I have a family to take care of, children to help navigate this world, bills to pay. All the while the world is vastly changing, many of my old acquaintances have fallen into the Trump cult, technology has taken control of our lives and knows more about us than we of ourselves yet, ‘the forms are all still there,” and I’m not being detained, nor beaten by robotic enforcers. The days roll by in a blur and I keep my eyes peeled for a way to try and escape this madness. Being rich would certainly help but nobody knows what the markets will do or which way crypto will go. It would be nice for one of my stocks or crypto projects I’m involved in to moon. I still kick myself for not downloading that ‘wallet.dat’ file for Bitcoin I had set to download back in 2011. I didn’t know what a .dat file did, nor did I understand how it all worked so I cannot be too hard on myself. It does feel like I held a lottery ticket that I simply let blow away but I cannot be too hard on myself.
Anyway, I sit in my hotel room where the local time is 8:12 PM. I’m looking forward to meeting my customer tomorrow then, while in this part of the country go see my family. As we all get older spending time with them has become very important and so I rarely even contact my old acquaintances anymore when back in my hometown as I used to years ago. That is perfectly fine with me, especially as nobody ever reaches out to me anymore. It is always I, who actually works at keeping in contact except for perhaps 5 old acquaintances.
Well, I suppose I’ll read my book and hope to drift off to sleep. I had thought about visiting one of two friends who are here in Florida but one is busy and the other about 4 hours away. I hope to be back so perhaps I’ll give it another shot.
Goodnight.
