dystopia

"If you are not paying for it, you are the product being sold". That holds true for many today's digital services. There is no shortage for free services that are willing to take you as one of their products.

The movie Social Dilemma should probably be classified as a horror movie. At least I was terrified after watching it. Hardly any real horror movie is able to do me that. And that was despite the fact that I knew the topic and all the things presented in this documentary prior watching it already. 

In many ways we are already living in a Brave new world, dystopia envisioned by Alodus Huxley. You could imagine there is more than enough content for us to consume and dull our minds. But the wise corporate leaders have decided to protect us at least to some extend from excessive consumption by imposing regional restrictions to the content.

Aldous Huxley's iconic work has gotten a new live adaptation in HBO's series bearing the same name. While the series carries the same premise and some plot elements it's not the same thing.

While the book might have been a presentation of it's time and the fears of the future back almost a hundred years ago those same threating pictures are more relevant than ever today. We are living in a world where algorithms are feeding us with the next thing to watch, overwhelming us with the pleasures of neverending stream of entertainment.

Existential threats are an excellent motivator to progress human knowledge. We have seen the result what happens when such scenarios are dismissed.

I write quite a bit about such things. Yet I find them hopeful. When I think of all those horrible things that could happen I also end up thinking how awesome people can be when presented with such a challenge. There is always hope for us as long as we don't deny those threats.

When talking about the dystopian features of our time the de facto references are Brave new world by Aldous Huxley and Nineteen Eighty-four by George Orwell. While they have their resemblances in modern times luckily either of them have realized even if they both got some things scarily to the point.

As I have been anxiously waiting for a new phone and especially the release of Pixel 4 I decided to watch the whole Made by Google event yesterday live.

Straight from the start I was impressed on Googles efforts for the environment. They have been carbon neutral since 2007 and are constantly pushing and supporting their supplier network to achieve the same. They are also looking into ways to make their products more sustainable: for example using recycled materials in Nest or removing the need to buy new devices all the time with Stadia.