Set aside all your tired arguments for using cash and relearning the art of stepping outside without a Smartphone. You’re absolutely right, but doesn’t it get a bit boring, arguing for the bleedin’ obvious, on everything from privacy and the NHS to trying to stop a genocide?
Take a short break, pop down to the library or your favourite indie bookshop and see If you can get hold of a book called Radicalized by Cory Doctorow. It’s a set of novellas presenting possible futures in a certain light. Read the one called Unauthorized Bread, which is all about a girl who goes to war on an electronic toaster.
After that, hanging onto the opportunity to use cash and step outside without a Smartphone feels far more inspiring. On the other hand, you might decide to get on down and get really internet savvy.
If you like Unauthorized Bread, if it sets you thinking, you might like to go back in time a decade or so and try Doctorow’s For The Win. A lot of the kids we’re bringing up these days are a lot less clued up than the previous generations. It begins to cost money, and more people are poor than used to be the case but back then, it was possible to step inside that extraordinary novel and agree to believe the premise that a bunch of youngsters could find each other across the globe, pool their skills and go from outwitting online gaming systems to busting the stock exchange and seriously changing the world.
On the other hand, that might not be for you – perhaps settle for spending a couple of hours reading Unauthorized Bread, and ponder the fact that the only reason we know or care about what’s going on in Gaza is that people in Palestine grabbed the opportunity of getting online, finding out how things work and getting connected to the world when they had the chance.
Either way, see you on the street somewhere – or maybe in the library.
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Dear Reader,
Times are hard, and so the articles on this site are freely available but if you are able to support my work by making a donation, I am very grateful.
Cheers,
Kay
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Kay Green 