We, the ones who rule the world

Social Philosophy
1

We, the Ones who Rule the World: A new manifest by Thirsty-Robot


We all know that the world has changed. Things aren’t the same as they were 20 years ago. And mostly in a field of study so vast as computer science or security. New individual are coming to the field every day; “How are websites made?”, “Why do I have internet”, the questions we’ve all asked, and the ones that other generations will ask too. Computers have grow smaller, thinner, more complex, and even amusing. New generations don’t have the tools to explore this, not because they don’t want to, but because companies don’t let them. If you have an Iphone, go ahead and look at it, do you see any screws, do you even see a lid that can be open, besides the SD and SIM compartment? The answer is a big well-deserved NO. It’s almost as it was planned.

The world has changed and not for good. Everything is connected, everyone can know who you are on a simple Facebook or Google search (assuming that you use this services). Yes, you can change the default configuration, but how is a kid going to know this if he has never seen how his father opens the cover of his phone to get the battery out. For the new generations it just works and that’s it. New generation are not aware of how their data is being manipulated, how every stroke, every character they type is monitored, they were borned in a giant role-play of 1984.

We as hackers need to change this. We need to share with new generations, we need to make open-source projects “meta”. We, more than most individuals have the potential to change the modern world. We understand how it works, we understand on what it is based. As you read this, your government is maybe fighting a hacker, or other global powers on the internet. Computers are everything. There is not Illuminati, there is not “giant see it all eye”, there is only us. The guy who helped the teacher with her or his computer, the guy who made a pirate radio for fun, the guy who eats books on every subject, the guy that it’s full of curiosity, the guy that wanted to hack his favorite game to buy an item.

We are the ones that created the systems which makes our lives so easy. We are the cool guys now, we are not weird anymore, we have a voice, we are something. Correction we are everything.

We, are the ones who rule the world, let’s show them…

8 Likes
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Hello,

I am happy to see that I am not the only one feeling this way, however, I disagree on one point:
We don’t rule the world, they do, and as you said, they are using this power to gain even more control.
The big tech companies have become a power thirsty cancer, and we, hackers, are the only ones that can bite the hand that feeds enslaving food back.

As I see it, the only question is “How ?”
I would say the answer fits two points :

  1. Give power back to the user. It doesn’t mean that tech world mustn’t be unusable without a big time of learning, it means that tech should give all the keys to it’s own modification, not only by being Libre, but also by explaining the way it works to users, which joins the other point :
  2. Educate. People don’t know how to use tech because no one told them if they didn’t specifically took courses themselves. Knowing how your OS, how Internet works, at a basic level, should be in all tutorials, and how-to-use-this-thing parts.

And you know what ? It won’t work. Peoples don’t want to be free, they don’t want to understand how this little plastic packed computer in their pockets every day works, they it to work, and they want to be enslaved by the rush of dopamine they get every time they open a notification.
Try to talk to someone not already into computers about free software, and see the way they ditch the subject or look at you like you are an alien. We are still weird, and nobody cares about our voice.

Aldous Huxley is said to have said that “A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.”

The FAANGS are this efficient totalitarian system, and you can’t change it because no one cares.

If you have any plans to change this state of fact, I would love to hear it, but I really doubt it will change my mind, let alone the world.

1 Like
3

Hey,

Interesting point. You are right on that, people will never like to know how stuff works. In a way is like Guy Deboard said on his book The Society of the Spectacle, by knowing how something works, you make the “magic” go away. Another philosopher talks about this subject with the analogy of showing a magic trick to a kid: if you show a magic trick to a kid, he will not be impressed because this magic trick is a new concept for him, but if you show a magic trick to an adult he will be astonished as he knows it’s not possible.

We (hackers and programmers) also fall into a loop hole in which we created the systems that are controlling us, as you mentioned. I believe that a society will never change and start using dApps, investing in bitcoin and using an ad blocker just because ideology.

Now, tha way we educate is also a problem too. You see, understading Open Source, the blockchain, etc, is hard if you are not into this. Is just like what happens on politics now at days. Most people (at least in my community) are situated in the right wing of the political axis. Why? Because the ideas of the left are hard to understand. It’s easier to make a vague logical assumption of why socialism “doesn’t work”, example:

USA = High GDP
High GDP = Work
USA = Capitalism
Capitalism = World Power = Good shit

Venezuela = Socialist
Venezuela = Economical crisis
Socialism = Bad

The right makes more sense, because data shows us that capitalism works and socialism and comunism does not. It’s easier to see numbers than to read Foucalt, Chomsky, Marx, Zizek etc. And make a complete analysis of why socialism hasn’t work.

The same happens whenever we start talking about dapps or the blokchain etc etc… Most people need a proof of concept, the FAANGS offer this in different types of what I called capitals or tokens. Social tokens, Material tokens, Fun tokens etc… This tokens (or capitals) can work as a prove of concept. But, you see, some one already taked about this, and predicted pretty much what would happen. I’m talking about the father of existensialism: Kierkegaard.

Kierkegaard critized this, as we are losing identity in the name of rationsalism, because is rational to think that this tokens work (because they do). But then, when all of our identity becomes drained we then get lost in what Kierkegaard called the finites of life. And then, we become a, I hate to use this word, we become “sheeps”. Now, what I mean by this is that we don’t really know how to educate. We should be more simple, encapsulated and TO NOT be smart asses. People cannot just take this “leap of faith” into stop using Facebook or Google, because they are still very much in awe by the amount of tokens they get by using them.

At the time I wrote this “manifesto”, I had a more encapsulated look of the world and how it should work. I believed that STEM was the answer to everything and yep, I was wrong. I’ve been growing up and also I think that my role in this community has changed. I love CS, but I also love philosophy and I have been reading and thinking alot in this area. I would love to create a new “manifesto”, one that is not ““Look at me, I’m the edgy kid in technology”” but one that can be taken seriously, one with decent ideas backed by observation and theory.

If you are interested PM me :slight_smile:

-Sincerely, Thirsty-Robot