drewdevault.com

History-will-not-remember-us-fondly.md (5385B)

---
title: History will not remember us fondly
date: 2021-01-07
outputs: [html, gemtext]
---
Today, we recall the Middle Ages as an unenlightened time (quite literally, in
fact). We view the Middle Ages with a critical eye towards its brutality, lack
of individual freedoms, and societal and technological regression. But we rarely
turn that same critical lens on ourselves to consider how we'll be perceived by
future generations. I expect the answer, upsetting as it may be, is this: the
future will think poorly of us.
We possess the resources and production necessary to provide every human being
on Earth with a comfortable living: adequate food, housing, health, and
happiness. We have decided not to do so. We have achieved what one may consider
the single unifying goal of the entire history of humanity: we have eliminated
natural scarcity for our basic resources. We have done this, and we choose to
deny our fellow humans their basic needs, in the cruel pursuit of profit. We
have more empty homes than we have homeless people. America alone throws away
enough food to feed the entire world population. And we choose to let our peers
die of hunger and exposure.
We are politically destitute. Profits again drive everything — in the
United States, Citizens United gave corporations unfettered access to buy and
sell political will, and in the time since they have successfully installed
politicians favorable to the elite class. Our corporations possess obscene
wealth, coffers that rival those of nation-states, and rule over our people via
their proxies in political office. Princeton published [a study][0] in 2014
which showed that the opinions of the average American citizen has a
statistically negligible effect on political outcomes, while the opinions of the
elite can all but decide the same outcomes. Our capitalist owners have
unchallenged rule over society, and they rule it with the single-minded
obsession to create profit at any cost, including lives.
[0]: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B
The US Capitol was overrun by armed seditionists yesterday. Armed seditionists,
who, by the way, were radicalized on the internet. As a computer engineer, I am
complicit in this radicalization. The early internet was a sea of optimism, full
of enthusiasm about the growing connectivity between people which had the
potential to unite humanity like never before. We early adopters felt like world
citizens: making friends, collaborating, and uniting with no respect for borders
or ideology.  What we hadn't realized is that we were also building the most
powerful tool the world has ever seen for censorship, propaganda, and
radicalization.
The companies which built this technology are modern slave drivers, broadly
eroding worker freedoms in the first world, and in the third world seeking to
exploit the cheapest slave labor they can find. We are developing technology
which facilitates the authoritarian and *genocidal* policies of China. Anyone
who speaks out is fired, corrections are quickly issued, and a statement of
unconditional support for the profit generating, population murdering thugs is
proclaimed. I speak passionately to my peers in my field, begging them to fight
back, but many lack the courage, and most don't care — so long as their
exorbitant paychecks keep coming in. Money, money, money. We are at one end of a
process which launders money to wash off the blood. Morals are dead.
It's not just America — democracy is on the decline world-wide. A friend
in France recently took to the streets to protest against the introduction of
laws protecting the police from citizen oversight. Populist traitors tore the
UK out of the EU, effective last week, dooming their people to economic and
political destitution. The Greek economy has failed, right-wingers are passing
discriminatory laws against LGBT Poles, and conservative populism has taken hold
of much of Italy, just to name a few more. Social and political systems are
regressing worldwide.
<a href="https://l.sr.ht/Gd_r.png">
  <img
    style="max-width: 100%"
    alt="A visualization of democratic decline across Europe and Eurasia, showing that declines have outweighed gains in each of the past 10 years, demonstrating a persistent net decline in democracy."
    src="https://l.sr.ht/Gd_r.png" />
</a>
<small style="display: block; text-align: center">Source: <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/nations-transit/2020/dropping-democratic-facade">Freedom House</a></small>
Our entire society boils down to one measure: profit. We are being eaten alive
by capitalism. Americans have been brainwashed into a national ethos which is
*defined* by capitalism. In the relentless pursuit of profits, we have eroded
all political and social freedoms and created a system defined by its remarkable
cruelty in a time when we have access to greater wealth and resources than at
any other time in history.
Perhaps future generations won't remember us after all, considering that in that
same relentless pursuit of profits we are vigorously rendering the Earth
uninhabitable. But, if they do live to remember us, they will remember us as a
wicked, cruel, and unempathetic lot. We will be remembered in disgrace.