Submitting to the Machines

Sharing assumes everyone has something to offer.

We live in a Sharing Economy. We share emails, family photos, Facebook posts, Uber rides, Bird scooters, AIRBNB rentals, restaurant and travel reviews, and just about anything and everything. Seems rather benign, right?

The Digital Generation has no fear of hooking up with multiple partners, of sharing their most intimate and private moments and making themselves the center of attention. Narcissism used to be considered a serious mental disorder, now, thanks in part to our Personal Electronic Devices, it is the New Normal.

Young people live in a virtual electronic atmosphere devoid of real world boundaries. They have a symbiotic relationship with their personal electronic devices. They trust them implicitly. Their PEDs are like family.

In the digital world, the concept of a geographical "neighborhood" has been replaced by the borderless "digital neighborhood" of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Though little time is spent in direct conversation or personal interaction, the Digital Generation will tell you they are connected to a huge support system and they maintain enormous numbers of online friends.

But they can't tell you the name of the person who lives across the street.

The political battle over illegal immigration reflects a new definition of 'community', suggesting the Digital Generation prefers to ignore property lines, borders and citizenship. They practice global citizenship, where business products and natural resources are considered essential public assets, and national allegiance is considered divisive. Where there is an app for everything, from balancing a checkbook to hiring a babysitter.

Why should we be surprised when a recent network news 'Man-on-the-Street' series of student interviews exposed a strong generational appeal for a socialist revolution? Millenials and XGens have been given damn near everything from birth: toys and awards, a college 'education', and a nice home filled with non-stop electronic entertainment. Having spent years in an education system that treats them as children, they have been living in a pseudo nanny state most of their lives. As they matriculate and are confronted with the reality of providing for themselves, they wonder, "Why?"

Many are telling political leaders they want an annual living allowance, just to make life more equitable.

Sharing assumes everyone has something to offer. But, as Margaret Thatcher famously said, "The trouble with socialism, is eventually you run out of other people's money." Collectivism relies on doers giving up their labor rewards to provide for takers because takers outnumber the doers, and can therefore prescribe penalties for nonconformity. Isn't that legalized extortion?

Sharing economy icons like Facebook and Uber would have failed had they not figured out how to monetize their product. Like the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers, the founders of Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Amazon, in a very capitalistic way, have ruthlessly monopolized their market segment. How can Zuckerberg and Bezos justify their support for a collectivist ideology that would hand their businesses over to a commission of government bureaucrats?

George Orwell's iconic novel Animal Farm, described how communism pits one group against another as a means to control the angry masses for the benefit of a few elitists. He wasn't predicting the future, he was reflecting the past excesses of communism.

Recent studies suggest addictions to PED's can destroy ambition, and that social media programers can cause psychological dependence. Users get trapped on the electronic plantation, as their future is assimilated by automated intelligence.

Animal Farm was required reading in my freshman year in college. It never occurred to me that I would someday witness the realization of Orwell's disturbing vision, except instead of the Animals battling the Humans for control, it may ironically turn out to be the Humans submitting control to their Machines, voluntarily.