Technology

Well, both, really.

Make sure they know you won’t be buying their process anymore because of these policies.

If only there were such thing as cameras that weren't integrated into smartphones.

The thing is - the Internet itself is a fascist technology. Fascists, and especially German Nazis, used electric terms and analogies to refer to their politics. Mostly referring to unification of various parts into one network, except in their case the information medium really used was radio.

But the basic idea was that any kind of fascism thrives as means of mass politics. Anything unique, specific, individual is in conflict with that. But the Internet is the tool to slowly grind through that conflict, because it gradually reinforces one voice, one way and one meaning.

It's a very intelligent trap and one hard to believe in, but our world today is so much more fascist than even in dictatorships 30 years ago, that I think I'm right.

Also consider that the very shock of something so modern and new and comfortable being used as a channel of control is, too, what Nazis did.

And when you want to argue that in the Internet one can post their own opinions and create their own spaces and do their own things, think again. These abilities are inherent to reality as well. Make a thought experiment - could you whisper with your friends at a Nazi meeting in the back rows? Could you not even attend? Could you have private conversations on everything you'd want elsewhere? Yes, these all are true. But the only voices to be heard by everyone and reinforced by that system and order were those from the tribune, and millions of voices would answer them in one and the same way, and millions of hands would raise in salute.

And LLMs and such new tools are going to make this worse, because they are tools of situational speech accord with what you expect, leveled by the common average, just like fascism is an ideology of situational emotional accord with what you feel, leveled by the common average. Fascism is the extreme ideology rejecting logic and semantics, and the Internet on every level has been built to reject logic and semantics as a medium of communication of living people. And LLMs are an even more direct tool to do well only that, all the rest is attempts to sell it, but this is its main trait.

And let's recall again how that stopped - by spending all its resources and being defeated in a war.

A truly visionary and futuristic regime, honestly. It's funny how Nazis were so futuristic despite being blood and soil barbarians, and Stalin's regime was really reactionary despite dreaming of space travel, except Stalin's regime's official philosophy was dialectic materialism which is the only thing convenient to describe this contradiction.

This.... Is a very possible future

Me too, but the lords of Technofeudalism, backed by government, won't allow that forever. Maybe on PCs, but not phones. No "side loading" what they don't approve. Banks and co, only allowing their apps on approved OSs. No satnav traffic data unless you use an approved satnav, rendering them useless.

The problem isn't technological, it's political. We need decent government protecting citizens and enforcing competition laws. The problem is the population don't understand what is being done to them, so don't vote against it.

None of it is new. Liberty vs security, monopoly, etc, aren't new, but wrapping it in technology blinds most people to it.

I didn't say they were?

"what app do you use"

"Uhhhhh Firefox?"