Routine Revelations

Tripp Fuller has written an essay titled “The New Colonialism: Power, Data, and the Transformation of Human Experience” that I commend for your reading (shared highlighted link from Readwise.)

Trip writes:

Let me take you back to a moment in history that illuminates our present situation. In its early days, the internet was envisioned as something radically different from what it has become. It emerged from a unique fusion of military pragmatism and countercultural idealism – a publicly funded network imagined as a tool for human freedom and cognitive enhancement. Those early pioneers dreamed of a decentralized space where information could flow freely, uncontrolled by any single authority.

But over three decades, we’ve witnessed what scholars call a “triple revolution”: the commercialization of the internet, the rise of mobile devices that keep us constantly connected, and the emergence of social media platforms that mediate our relationships. This transformation has fundamentally altered the nature of digital space in ways that undermine genuine human connection.

Tripp goes on to note that there has been a systematic pattern employed by the social networks that “eerily mirrors historical conquest.” Later he writes:

But perhaps the most telling parallel lies in how this new colonial class views its own power. In 1899, Rudyard Kipling wrote of the “white man’s burden” – the supposed moral duty of colonizers to “civilize” the colonized. Today, we hear echoes of this same patronizing ideology when tech leaders speak of “connecting the world” or “making the world more open and transparent.” The language has changed, but the underlying assumption remains: that a small, privileged class has the right – even the duty – to reshape how billions of humans live and connect.

Most concerning is a loss of our autonomy, instead how we see the world is being shaped by our digital overlords:

This erosion of autonomy is particularly evident in how platforms shape our understanding of the world. The algorithms that determine what news we see, what perspectives we encounter, and what information we consider credible are optimized not for truth or understanding, but for engagement. This creates what tech critics call “reality tunnels” – personalized versions of the world that can differ dramatically from person to person, making shared understanding increasingly difficult. There’s a reason so many of us think family and friends live in a different world - they do and it is a feature, not a bug in the system.

What to do? Tripp reminds us that what we have is not how the Internet was intended to be:

To understand how we might resist digital colonialism, we must first remember that the internet wasn’t always a colonized space. Those early pioneers, many steeped in the revolutionary spirit of 1960s California, envisioned something radically different from what we have today: a decentralized space where information could flow freely, uncontrolled by any single authority.

Tripp’s conclusion starts:

The challenge we face isn’t simply technical or political – it’s fundamentally about what it means to be human in an age of algorithmic governance. When platforms reduce our complex social lives to data points, when algorithms shape our perceptions and choices, when our most intimate moments become resources for extraction, we lose something essential to human flourishing: our capacity for genuine autonomy and authentic connection.

The path forward requires us to develop digital wisdom – a way of engaging with technology that preserves our essential humanity while benefiting from digital tools. This means creating rituals and practices that help us maintain our autonomy while participating in digital life. It means building platforms and networks that serve human flourishing rather than corporate profit. Most importantly, it means remembering that we are not passive subjects in this new colonial regime, but active agents capable of shaping its future.

I keep reading articles about how the things Musk and Trump are doing are illegal, which applies under a democracy with rule of law. Democracy is no more in the United States once the Supreme Court ruled the President is above the law. Trump can’t be touched and neither can Musk (or anyone working for Musk) because Trump will simply pardon them.

In their decision SCOTUS reserved the right to decide what is a Presidential act, implying that it could still decide whether the President broke “the law.” If they do such rule who will enforce it? If Congress impeached and convicted Trump, who will enforce it?

So my advice is to stop thinking about whether or not something Trump does is illegal. of course it’s all illegal, but that does not matter. I think he welcomes any confrontation with Congress or the Supreme Court.

The Senate could have convicted Trump twice, but Republican Senators were too scared to do it. The Supreme Court could have concurred with Colorado in that the 14th Amendment prevented Trump from holding office, but was too scared to do so. Both branches failed in their role as a check against tyranny as the founders intended.

Laws now only apply to those with whom Trump and Musk have a grudge against.

The essay that I wrote earlier today was written in Obsidian. I copied and pasted the content to lillihub.com and then published it to this blog. I looked for and found a community plugin that suggests I can post notes directly from Obsidian and if I have it configured correctly this note should appear on my blog.

That worked as expected, not this sentence is an edit, can I publish this edit back to the same post? Yes I can! Now, I need to check whether I can do this across other devices.

Alright, I installed the plugin on my Macbook Pro and so let us see whether I can post this update. Final test to see how this works from the iPad Mini.