Can technology journalism save us?

Hey. It's been a minute.

You may have probably noticed that I've been taking a break from writing... whatever this is. As more than one friend has confided to me lately, ‘your blog is funny, but it's also depressing’.

Yep. I get it. It's hard to comment on what's been happening over the last nine months (God, has it only been nine months?) without turning into The Dystopian Daily. And yet, it feels completely tone deaf to ignore all that and focus on, say, the dumb/terrifying things AI is doing to our brains. (Also dystopian, but somehow that feels more like an episode of Black Mirror than our daily reality.)

TPM's David Kurtz, author of a political newsletter I read religiously though not always happily, wrote the following this morning:

It’s rare these days for Morning Memo to read like anything other than a litany of travesties, indignities, and setbacks in American public life. For a moment, I thought today’s edition could offer a respite, with some good news to balance the unremitting bad news....

Then Cheeto Benito [2] gathered his generals together and urged them to invade US cities that don't like him, and we're back to square one. But, as Kurtz was going to note before he was rudely interrupted by the Commander in Thief, there are some bright spots. For example:

Jimmy Kimmel returns to the airwaves! (Yay, First Amendment.) Apparently Disney got spooked by the 1.7 million folks who cancelled their streaming subscriptions in protest of Kimmel's egregious suspension. [1]

Federal judges, even those appointed by Benedict Donald, are routinely and aggressively rejecting unConstitutional moves by the US government.

Trump's approval ratings are in the gold-plated toilet. Statistician G. Elliott Morris, author of the Strength in Numbers newsletter, notes that his support among voters age 18 to 29 has dropped by 35 points since last November, while nearly 60 percent of people who didn't vote in the 2024 election now disapprove of Hair Furor.

To me, the most interesting parts of that map above are Texas and Florida, where Dumpster's approval rating is completely flat. On the other hand, Wyoming's 588,000 humans and 1.3 million cows apparently still love him. I guess news travels a little slower in those parts.

Tech journos to the rescue?

For me, one bright spot in this gathering darkness has been my colleagues in technology journalism. As fascist-friendly billionaires continue to snarf up media outlets, and papers like the New York Times sound increasingly like the New York Times Pitchbot, the geeks are carrying the ball.

Wired recently dedicated an entire issue to how Silicon Valley has completely capitulated to Trumplethinskin. Steven Levy, who's been at this racket even longer than I have, wrote a great essay about how disillusioned he has become with the spectacle of grotesquely wealthy titans of technology bending the knee:

"What’s happened to Silicon Valley? Why did the Ayn Rand–loving heroes of tech become Donald Trump’s bootlickers? How did one of the supposedly smartest VCs wind up posting a manifesto that declared war on “trust and safety,” “tech ethics,” and “social responsibility”? What was the point of Jeff Bezos buying The Washington Post for civic benefit, as he claimed, and then right before the 2024 election, killing its Kamala Harris endorsement and changing its opinion section to editorials on “personal liberties and free markets”? And speaking of [Tim] Cook, how is it that the most effective political tactic for the head of a $3.4 trillion company is to march into the Oval Office and solemnly present to Trump a glass-and-gold tchotchke?"

I hear ya, Steve. I used to think that technology would empower the rest of us to fight against government incursions against our civil liberties. That the Internet would allow us to automatically route around censorship, and that hackers would routinely expose the evils within institutions. Boy do I feel stupid now.

As Levy notes, the deal that Silicon Valley has made with MAGA is a suicide pact. There can only be one winner in any transaction with Mango Mussolini, and it's him. [3]

Wired is now renting out billboards and commissioning murals displaying the cover art for its politics issue in major cities around the country. Can you imagine the NY Times doing that? That alone is worth shelling out a few shekels a month for a subscription.

You can also buy that Phil Galloway art on a T shirt, beach towel, coffee mug, or throw pillow. Personally, I'm not sure I'd want to look at all those dogs on a regular basis. But if they made it into toilet paper I'd consider it.

It's time to log off

I would like to think that the Kimmel-Disney example is one we could replicate across the technology industry.

If we don't want Bezos, Musk, Zuckerberg, Ellison, Page, Brin, et al to continue have all the power, we all need to stop using their products. Easy to say, hard to do, short of going Full Amish. But I think we could all use a lot less Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google in our lives, both to send a message to their owners and also to protect ourselves. I don't trust any of these companies to not share all of our data, including our political persuasions and our locations, with the ruling junta. You shouldn't either.

Can you live with a little less tech in your life? Share your thoughts in the comments or email me: [email protected].

[1] Frankly, I'm a little surprised by how quickly Disney caved. I suspect this story is far from over.

[2] That and 400+ other insulting nicknames have been collected here.

[3] Levy notes that many of the technology titans have an exit strategy and dual citizenship in place for when the worst happens. How thoughtful of them.