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We stepped, unknowing, into the shadows
cast
by social media; postmodern realities emerged,
Crafted
from big data. We're caught in the world wide web,
Caught between
"the electron and the switch".
Cambridge Analytica,
Data Propira;
Technocracy,
Algocracy.

Enticed
by a promise
of what could be,
"Trust your technolust"
was the advice those hopefuls gave me.
Their optimism, innocent naivety, glitched history.
I can't sign out
of my social media account.
Anxiety's got me in her grip.

How do we fight the power,
Will privacy prevail?
Data rights
would promise us
a patch for this great hack,
But
there'll always be shadows
as long as there's light,
Those who declare
anonymity is
their right.
Cyberpunks, cypherpunks, crypto-anarchism
won't be enough.
As is, potentials' -liberalism and -libertarianism
duke it out.
The electron remains, but one wonders
as 'the switch' gives way
to something all the more quantum.
Recommended watching:
The Great Hack (2019)

Quotes:
Line Seven from The Hacker Manifesto by +++The Mentor+++ (January 8, 1986)
Line Fifteen seen in Hackers (1995)
The things that tumble out
may ring true, but
in uttering them become a reality.
"Whatever my reasons,
Were they strange or I the stranger, I feel"

how my mind misled me
and misplaced my will
to discern my desire.
Quote:
Lines Four & Five from the poem Preemptive by the same author.
I hear the nightlife scream its thrill, raucous calls
of unadulterated glee.
Drunken voices resolve, then pass, fading
into their night.
I realize love lost for a city I dared lay a claim to.

Keep me awake and I'll finish this poem. I'm into some
serious sleep-debt. One problem
is being too willing to see the other side.

Despite misgivings that've run amok, I trust my ethics enough
to study the dark arts.
Good morning Roman Countryside.
The City of Rome's dawn asks kindly
would I arise?
I catch myself
daydreaming;
I wish I would
just be.

I'm hungry,
Unfulfilled, I ache with potential;
And (stand) still
I catch myself
thinking about
transitioning.
Strange world, my mad head cooled
after a breath of jungle spice;
That acrid smoke, I
feel better
for having inhaled.
Less than 20mg of DMT
reminded me it's OK to relax;
I forgot that it's good for me,
That it can help with my mental health
and thus my productivity. I went without
for too long, tortured myself out of curiosity.
Today I renewed my love for psychedelics,
Exchanging respects with them.
It remembers who I am
after a dip in
the Lethe.
I notice that the motions of my mind
are changed
by practices I engage in on my devices.
I observe alterations
in the fabric of my reward system, I feel
movement in reward pathways
that trace back to application content and

all the screen-time. I feel plastic, at a loss

for time, these patterns and tasks. One

could use the help, nevertheless on.
I write with purpose
Among the company of heroes

in a city of villains.

Being there, immersed
in that strange world, living it
meant something for a time, albeit brief.
Now ask ourselves
what's left?
Vonnegut said "We are what we pretend to be,
So we must be careful about what we pretend to be",
But if you're too careful you'll just become your anxiety.
Whatever of pretense, we question
what is spent.
Quote from Mother Night (1962).
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