Cyberpunk Dystopia and the Inevitable March of Progress

 

I recently heard the modern world described as a "Cyberpunk dystopia without the neon". It's hard to disagree, though I do have some rather snazzy RGB lighting in the house in what's probably a futile and tragic attempt to delude myself that I'm still young, alongside a burgeoning interest in motorbikes and leather jackets.

One aspect of modernity which is causing a lot of anxiety in our circles and beyond is rapidly encroaching digitisation, data collection and now Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs).

I hate to break it to you, but this is all inevitable. It is part of the march of technological progress that has driven mankind forward since man first learned to make fire and stone tools. I also have to tell you that I'm not particularly interested in doing anything to stop it, though I wouldn't stand in the way of you objecting even if I had the power to do so. I simply say that resistance is futile.

Data collection has always been a thing. Since people started drawing on cave walls and carving information on stone tablets, through to the papyrus scrolls, the Domesday Book and so on. Moreover, digitisation has been happening since the invention of the first computer and CBDCs have been on the cards since the advent of blockchain technology. One cannot prevent the march of technological progress. It is inextricably linked with humanity itself.

The major issue is not technology itself, but power, who wields it, and who they use it for and against.

Regardless of who is in power, these things would all be inevitable. If our guys were in power they wouldn't suddenly send us back to the stone age, they would need to keep up and compete with other states who will be implementing all of these things. Even I would. No state would willingly castrate itself by failing to keep up.

Fear of technology is what the proprietor of a previous incarnation of this blog used to call Luddite Nationalism. He had a futuristic vision for us whereby we colonise space, one that I share. We are not going back to The Shire.

I'm not sure I would enjoy the Shire anyway. Not unless my little Hobbit house had broadband internet and all the gubbins to go with it.

I believe a better way to cope with these inevitabilities is to view them as an unpleasant stage in the evolution of technology. Like when you're growing your hair and it reaches the length that just looks shit, but it has to go through that phase before you can tie it back. The VW Golf MK III phase as I like to call it.

Neither are your concerns limited to the Nationalist sphere. Like Covid, these are issues that affect every man. That's why you have characters like Russell Brand, who will never be one of our guys, railing against the same thing. Nationalism does not have a unique selling point concerning these issues.

Furthermore, becoming distracted by everyman issues, which are being addressed by the masses anyway, amounts to at least for Nationalists, taking one's eye off the ball. All the while we concern ourselves with opposition to the inevitable march of progress, the current government has increased immigration, both legal and illegal, to levels that would make Tony Blair blush. The issue that should concern us is and always has been demographics, demographics, demographics.

You may be able to prevent many things, but the march of technological progress is not one of them.