The Axis of Evil shifts gears
“Don’t be evil” is the motto of Google’s corporate code of conduct according to Wikipedia. Sounds good, until one considers that “evil” is subjective when one has unhinged himself from the rock of truth.
Silicon Valley, previously looked to as a redeemer of the American economy, is transforming itself into a suspicious Angel of Light preaching something far different than life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Unless happiness translates to “the worst of American capitalism – squashing competitors, using indentured servants, attempting to fix wages, depressing incomes, creating ever more social anomie and alienation,” as noted by Orange County Register.
The big five – Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon – far from sating leftist groupies with progressive insights, are now causing alarm. The reason? The invasive attempt to get to know individual customers – really know them. Perhaps not in the biblical sense, but the left seems to be mulling the question of “consent.”
“These firms are fostering what British academic David Lyon has called a “surveillance society” both here and abroad. Companies like Facebook and Google thrive by mining personal data, and their only way to grow, as Wired recently suggested, was – creepily – to “know you better.”
Check out the video below where one-time magician Tristan Harris, former design ethicist at Google and co-director of Time Well Spent (an organization opposed to mind hacking) has to say about how well known you already are.
[jwplayer KUW4BM2N]
But what if you don’t want to be known – in the biblical sense or in any other fashion? What if you choose to say “No” and be that free-thinker who actually uses the brain God gave each one of us to make decisions outside the collective?
Watch out. The tech-daddy patriarchy (oppression marketed under any other name is just as oppressive) is grasping after control – for your own good, of course. Resistance is futile in their playbook. And with, “whole industries, such as education, finance, groceries, space, print media and entertainment,” sighted for takeover, the wisdom of Isaiah 5:20 might be preached in the streets – and by the equivalent of Balaam’s ass:
Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil: that put darkness for light, and light for darkness: that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.
“Although the vast majority of all political contributions from these firms, not surprisingly, go to the Democrats, many progressives – at least not those on their payroll – are expressing alarm about the oligarchs’ move to gain control. Left-leaning luminaries like Franklin Foer, former editor of the New Republic, rant against technology firms as a threat to basic liberties and coarsening culture.”
So, don’t be evil. But do the homework to learn what that actually means before engaging in social media that has no real desire to help you, but only its own vision of what your life should be.
To everything turn, turn, turn
Water-wheel technology has been around for a long time. But folks in Baltimore aren’t marginalizing the resourcefulness of the past when tackling the modern-day dilemma of city garbage clogging the waterways and making cities unsightly. Take a peek at the video below to catch a sight of Mr. Trash Wheel at work:
[jwplayer Dha4sIp0]
Whether the public views this device as a waterborne Pac-Man or a mechanical squid doesn’t matter. What matters is picking up the trash, but whether it’s 1818 or 2018, public approval helps – mostly when it comes to funding.
So, enter Mr. Trash Wheel with the goggle eyes and a social media presence.
The trash-eater’s inventor, John Kellet, was opposed at first, fearing the PR campaign would make his creation appear foolish. But while times change, people don’t. Waterfront Partnership, the group that funded expansion of Kellet’s pilot project, made the decision: Putting a personal spin on Mr. Trash Wheel has worked, increasing public support and funding on a global level.
“Mr. Trash Wheel is the world’s first and only sustainably powered trash collecting water wheel. Installed in May 2014 in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, he has taken the world by storm with his own funny and quotable Twitter account and a hilarious “Ask Me Anything” on Reddit.com,” Custom Link reports. “Now you can support clean oceans and be the envy of all your friends and neighbors when you purchase the Mr. Trash Wheel t-shirt!”
Mr. Trash Wheel now has a close relation, Captain Trash Wheel, residing at Masonville Cove. And so, the family grows along with the attack on waterborne garbage.
Halo brow?
Yes, we’re all angels (the benefit of subjective evil), but do you have your halo yet?
If not, forget those pesky costume headbands that elevate a wobbly circlet above your sainted crown. Today’s new look? The halo brow is here to signal virtue with the best of them, although reactions are mixed.
“She (Lyne) explained,” to the UK Daily Mail, “that she and one of her friends came up with the idea while discussing another trend that went viral last month, the fishtail brow – which saw people altering their eyebrows to make it look as though the end was split like a fishtail.”
Maybe not time well spent.
Take a peek at the video below if you want to know just how foolish the foolish can get:
[jwplayer kaWJEp4M]
Predictions are we’ll see these on the street in 3018. Thankfully, none of us today will be around to see it.
