The Tech Coup: A New Book Shows How the Unchecked Power of Companies Is Destabilizing Governance

Not only governance suffers.

Entertain me for a moment. Imagine a utopia in which you don’t need to distrust technology or guard yourself against the companies that control it. No data harvesting or sharing; your privacy, likes and preferences safe and your own. No schemes to come up with algorithms that enrage you and dominate your attention. Imagine that you could trust LLMs to be trained with only the best, curated sources and where their operation is completely open and transparent. Imagine how we would express ourselves through our tech and through social media. Technology would become deeply, deeply personal, benign, helpful and at the service of humankind... as it should be.

The idea is so crazy that it is borderline unthinkable, right?

Third party campaigning is BS. All campaigning should be done by the candidate and all donations should go through their campaign. All donors should be public or the list should be available to the government for auditing. Companies aren't people, they don't have rights from the Constitution, they shouldn't be allowed to campaign or contribute.

Me: "DUUUUUHHHHHH!!!!!!!!"

Seriously. How many centuries has this been basic fucking common sense???!!!

Where's that Shockface emoji when I need it?!

What's the point of this book? It's nothing new, and would never change anything about the situation.