As a casual observer of the former colonies, occasionally I find myself concerned.
India: in fairly good shape, on the up industrially. China: we gave it all back, calm down. And why is my wifi network uploading so much overnight? Australia: I’m enjoying your laws on avenging trees. And then we come to … the Americas. Oh dear.
Honestly, I could do without a Starbucks on every corner in Europe, that’s always been something we’ve done rather well; shady street corners and little local coffee places with nothing much on the agenda apart from sunny, shady courtyards and a good book. No ambition, you know?
But along come Starbucks into every supermarket and fuel stop and they then push out smaller coffee places simply through methods of (1) ‘clever’ tax evasion, and (2) child labour [the coffee itself], with which other coffee places cannot compete (because they actually care about … paying people etc etc). Cool. Same with Uber; wreck your workforce, destroy the existing industry, pocket the difference. Same with Amazon; force producers to offer low prices on your platform, wreck entire economies. Convince thick people they’re ‘saving money’. Same with streaming services, same with fast food chains.
It’s annoying, I’ll be honest. The Enshittification of the internet is sadly not limited to online spaces, it seems. And now AI is used to weaponise selfishness with a new vigour previously only dreamt of in the age of the bots and slave labour.
I don’t blame America for it really, after all it was the UK who invented the internet. Sorry about that. And there are a bunch of countries who do this blind Capitalist thing; enabling the subscription model of utter, utter bullshit with no thought to the slop it creates. Car manufacturers everywhere are climbing over each other to get you to subscribe to your own bloody seat settings and radios. But as a casual observer there does seem to be a commonality of these completely unregulated monopolising brands starting in ‘Merca … it does make me wonder just how united these states must be. The 20 year-old joke of America being the new Rome is getting less and less funny, because it seems to be getting more and more accurate.
My small hope is that the path of such destruction will begin to die with the Orange One. It seems that everything he touches dies, much like Midas but with one subtle difference. The Reflecting Pool. The Whitehouse. A war with Iran?! Fucking hell. My one hope is that his intimate touching of the Republican party will similarly result in some serious rebuilding there, it’s certainly been a long time coming. (And the other party, sure sure. Lots of learning all round. Please. Please, fuck please.)
But it’s not just one incompetent’s fault. We’re all connected. Like the mycelium we ignore beneath us. And if we are connected, as I believe we are, then perhaps the Age of the Individual is slowly coming to an end, one burning meadow and poisoned drinking water source at a time.
And so, broadly, perhaps it’s not a bad thing. As CS Lewis pointed out, after all we do want to live in our kindergartens, we do want to be selfish and pampered, and the one thing that tends to pop us out and into the world of the mature life, is suffering.
So those humans (all of us) in this space who are moving from this inherited culture of individualism and into a place in which we realise how connected we are, how reliant on each other we are … are bound to have a pretty hard time of it.
🥂
So. What to do about societal, cultural and economic enshittification? As an across-the-pond dweller in San Diego, here’s what I’m doing.
First, we must fight through all the AI slop, ‘fake news’, and implicitly biased reporting. We need folks who consistently dig for verifiable ground truth to keep those in power accountable. Folks who follow the money and the handshakes happening behind the scenes of the staged PR events.
To me, this starts with financially supporting local independent investigative news organizations. San Diego is blessed with a bunch of good ones, and I support each of them as I become acquainted with their content and build trust in their reporting. I will also support the occasional local corporate new organization with a subscription when their work generally warrants it.
Nationally, I support investigative groups like Pro Publica. Internationally, I support groups like Al Jazeera, and other groups, like The Guardian, who make their bias explicit, and who diligently work to separate and clearly label fact vs. opinion within their content. I also use online aggregators like Ground News.
Most of these groups are listed as beneficiaries of my estate. As a member of the Boomer generation, I feel this is one of the best legacies I leave behind to help clean up the mess our generation helped create.
Second, we must support work that improves society, general health, the environment, and overall quality of life. This includes research and development in medicine, energy, AI and many other technologies. It also includes making government financially and structurally stable while also being responsive and effective.
Most of these programs are beyond the influence of individuals, so I focus on electing representatives and leaders who have the knowledge and skills needed to operate within the current system to help evolve it to become the one we need to do the things that need doing. For example, I was a card-carrying member of the ‘Yang Gang’, as even a modest UBI has benefits far beyond the money itself, and those benefits are not partisan.
Sadly, the US lacks a Count Binface to match idiocy to idiocy. But we do have The Onion! Humor, wit and sarcasm are also fantastic tools.
Sounds good, chief. Yeah I think these things can seem overwhelming but so often we need to remember; what are we doing ourselves? How are we living and changing what we can right where we are before getting angry about everyone else? Then once that’s established and our values are clear, there is also a place for true resistance.
As a resident of a former colony which daily seems to be turning into America, the delusion that what they see on TV (do people still call it TV?), or I suppose streaming services and brain rot services like that clock app thing, is reality. Critical reasoning seems to be non-resident in their minds. I find it worrisome that kids today seem to know less than I did at their age; and what they do know is of no real value or is completely incorrect. Despite having access to the collective knowledge of our species at their fingertips. I think I read somewhere that the current generation is for the first time in history intellectually worse off than the previous generations. While anecdotal, from my observations and lived experience, I tend to agree.
To further @BobC’s sentiment about generational mess, I’m reminded of a thought on the matter. People always talk about leaving a good world for the children, but never about raising children so the world remains in this better state. Leave them equiped to continue to work on improving themselves and the world.
As cynical and hopeless as I am about future of the working class, I did in fact find a positive aspect from this post. “Enshittification” is a magnificent word. Absolutely brilliant – and quite sadly, useful and accurate these days.
Yeah I love that word! Think it’s a Cory Doctorow original, the ‘enshittification of the internet’ is a big thing – look it up it’s all pretty well established.
Well you lobster backs, Canucks, and other Europeans, HOW DO YOU THINK WE “COLONIST’S/YANKS” FEEL!
WE have a HERITAGE FOUNDATION RUSSIAN CONTROLLED REPUBLICAN REGIME THAT RATHER MURDER IT’S OWN CITIZENS BY LACK OF GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT AND INCOMPETENT ACTIONS.
WE have had over 35 FOOD RECALLS due to Everything from ass droppings to Zenite, NOT Forgetting our National Treasures the World Envy’s, our National Parks and Forrests now being sold to VON SHITZINPANTZ’S LOSER’S, VON SHITZINPANTZ’S PAINTING EVERY SINGLE THING IN WASHINGTON DC AND PUTTING HIS NAME ON EVERYTHING.
ITS DISGUSTING, How the REPO-BLIND-CANTS REGIME IS DESTROYING THEIR OWN COUNTRY FOR A QUICK PAYOUT/OFF THAT ONCE DONE WILL MAKE THEM MORE DESTITUTE THAN APPALACHIAN TOWNS.
Of the Project 2025 is completed the Currency of the United States of America will be completely WORTHLESS!
As of today we have absolute NO GOLD to back up our Debts! We will be OUT of our oil Reserves by March 2027, REGARDLESS OF the VON SHITZINPANTZ’S Venezuela ‘deals’, STEALING IS A DEAL NOW,🤬😡😡🤬😡🤬, The USA will be a BANKRUPT NATION, BY A SICK FUCK LOSER DEMENTED PSYCHOPATH INSANE TRAITOR & PUTIN LACKEY tЯâ˜mp, HIS SPECIALTY!
Sure, sure, but how do you really feel? Come on, now … don’t hold back …