By Woody White
At this moment in world history, we are the richest, healthiest, smartest and most connected humans that have ever lived. Our drinking water is cleaner than it has ever been. Our GDP is the highest, babies are healthier, lifespans are longer and our food is abundant. (Ex: 150 years ago, a cow produced 1000 pounds of milk in a year. Today, a cow produces 16,000 pounds annually.)
Progress in every measurable category continues to move forward. We have learned that the earth is round, we eradicated slavery in much of the world, achieved womens suffrage, invented railroads, airplanes, discovered quantum physics, electricity, indoor plumbing and how to perform organ transplants. We even sent men to the moon and now here we are at a coffee shop with our ubiquitous smartphones and their portal into a universal store of all human knowledge ever known.
These advances occurred due in large measure to the foundational institutions that had held us together even in those times (like now) when we were tearing each other apart; our commitment to an unwritten social compact; the rule of law; our rights to the free exercise of religion and speech; and the premium we place on due process.
The cornerstone of everything we know about building a successful society has been the idea of fairness and equality. Starting with the Magna Cartas rudimentary acknowledgment of democratic rights, to the Declaration of Independence setting in motion our national democratic experiment, then the loosely applied but practical Articles of Confederation that bound us together until the Constitution and its Bill of Rights enshrined universal civil liberties and led to the official founding of the nation.
With each chapter in history, our commitment to fair and just has deepened its root system in our lives, including in the modern age, as we have retained the Senate filibuster rule to protect us from the fevers of a rabid majority. And our appellate courts still publish dissenting opinions to recognize the value of differing points of view.
But in the span of a few years, everything has changed in how we view what is fair. The methods we use to govern ourselves and communicate our disagreements have led to an erosion of public trust, once unquestioned but now undeniable, in our most revered institutions: each new days fresh outrage and crisis results in someone dying a death by a thousand tweets.
Just short of halfway through this American experiment, we survived a bloody civil war fought over the Constitutions structural inconsistencies. Indeed, it was a worse time than what we are living through. But not by much. The prospect of sewing it all back together today seems as elusive and beyond our grasp as it probably did in the months before the first battle of Bull Run in 1861.
The lines of civil discourse are blurred out of existence. We have our TV stations, Twitter accounts, echo chambers of groups within groups, where we seek one-dimensional validation of our viewpoints, with little chance of acquiescence to a point well-made by someone with whom we might disagree.
Socrates subjected his opponents to a series of cross-examining questions in the public square, with logic and reason providing the framework of conflict resolution.
Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas stood on wooden stages for hours, on seven different occasions, in the intemperate Illinois weather, to explain their different visions of America. As in all elections, one won, the other lost. Life went on.
But todays 24-hour social media news cycle rages in a never-ending debate, where there are no winners.
What are we going to do?
Since most of our public policy conversation takes place on the social media stage, if we are to find a way out of our self-made Sargasso Sea, it must be in a mass repudiation of big tech. Not in the sense that large tech must cease to exist, but the way we use it must change. If we fail to find a better way to communicate with each other, the democratic experiment we value will morph into something worse than anything we could imagine.
Each time the thought police censor and delete views on their platforms, they become incrementally less relevant. It may feel good in the short term for these tech giants to hit delete on unapproved posts or to suspend accounts, but over time, reasonable people start to take notice and do not like it when voices are silenced, even when it is one with which they disagree.
Our basic notion of fairness stubbornly persists. Recent jury verdicts and the ascension of the Joe Rogan Podcast are just two examples of how our sense of fairness has overcome our new biases. For the most part, Americans are fair and decent people.
We are not systemically racist. We do not support censorship. We do not pull for cheaters. When we see an unfair application of rules, we do something about it. Or at least, we used to.
If the rules of censorship and cancel-culture were applied consistently, it would be bad enough. But reasonable people know that rules which allow terrorists to tweet, but not former presidents and current members of Congress, something is inherently unfair.
And the people making these disparate judgment calls in real-time are political activists/employees of big tech, recent devotees to The Hunger Games dystopia, sitting in Silicon Valley cubicles manipulating us to achieve what they see as a larger utopic, pre-arranged outcome.
But guess what: as a whole, people are smart, and eventually, we figure out when we are being herded into a pasture, we prefer not to graze. This phenomenon is referred to as a pendulum swing. And while COVID-19 has reconfigured everything we thought we knew about how society functions, the double standards in public health, sports and everyday life that we have endured for the greater good have now brought us full circle. The herd mentality is starting to go the other direction.
And it is because we still value our basic sense of fairness. Somehow, through all of historys upheavals, here we are at the pinnacle of human achievement, invention and progress. It is starting to dawn on us that unless we get a grip on all this unless the sane grownups in the room do something we could go backward for the first time in a while.
It has happened before.
Victor Hugo once wrote that There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.
The time has come when we must change our relationship with, and expectations of, large tech. They must adopt the rules of fairness that underpin every other facet of our lives. If we do not insist that they do so, it may be the final straw in the downward spiral we see all around us.
This guest opinion piece by Woody White, of Wilmington, N.C., was made available by The Carolina Journal.
FOR MORE COLUMNS AND LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, CHECK OUT OUR OPINION SECTION HERE.
Read the rest here:
- Report Sounds Alarm Over Growing Role of Big Tech in US Military-Industrial Complex - Common Dreams - April 18th, 2024 [April 18th, 2024]
- Big Tech's ad transparency tools especially X's are failing at their jobs, report finds - Mashable - April 18th, 2024 [April 18th, 2024]
- Big Tech Taps AI Agents to Drive Revenue Growth - PYMNTS.com - April 18th, 2024 [April 18th, 2024]
- National privacy standard eyed by Congress for data harvested by big tech companies Nebraska Examiner - Nebraska Examiner - April 18th, 2024 [April 18th, 2024]
- Big Tech is on a generative AI hiring spree - Fast Company - April 18th, 2024 [April 18th, 2024]
- Disruptive Innovation in the Era of Big Tech - HBR.org Daily - April 18th, 2024 [April 18th, 2024]
- Betting on US Big Tech? Top Earnings Reports to Watch in the Coming Week - FX Empire - April 18th, 2024 [April 18th, 2024]
- Big Tech Earnings Are Just Around the Corner - Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) - Benzinga - April 18th, 2024 [April 18th, 2024]
- WATCH LIVE: Will Cain holds panel to discuss Big Tech and Trump trial - Fox News - April 18th, 2024 [April 18th, 2024]
- Google fires 28 workers in aftermath of protests over big tech deal with Israeli government - The Bakersfield Californian - April 18th, 2024 [April 18th, 2024]
- Big Tech offices are getting smaller and that spells trouble for landlords - Quartz - April 18th, 2024 [April 18th, 2024]
- Asking Big Tech to police AI is like turning to 'oil companies to solve climate change,' AI researcher says - Fortune - April 18th, 2024 [April 18th, 2024]
- Big Tech Comes to Small Town: A Bitcoin Mining Story in Spur - CoinDesk - April 18th, 2024 [April 18th, 2024]
- Big Tech loses its appetite for office space, adding to landlords woes - Inman - April 18th, 2024 [April 18th, 2024]
- Google restructure leads to job cuts - Mobile World Live - April 18th, 2024 [April 18th, 2024]
- FTC's Lina Khan talks big tech monopolies on The Daily Show - The Ticker - April 18th, 2024 [April 18th, 2024]
- Digital public infrastructure will drive the future, not big tech: Amitabh Kant - BusinessLine - April 18th, 2024 [April 18th, 2024]
- Big tech is downsizing work space in another blow to office real estate | Mint - Mint - April 18th, 2024 [April 18th, 2024]
- UK Plans Talks With Big Tech to Limit Online Harm for Teens - Bloomberg - April 18th, 2024 [April 18th, 2024]
- Canada to Start Taxing Tech Giants in 2024 Despite US Complaints - Bloomberg - April 18th, 2024 [April 18th, 2024]
- US quarterly earnings to feature big growth in tech-related companies - Reuters - April 18th, 2024 [April 18th, 2024]
- Our View: Big Tech: Google continues to harm news groups for its own profit - Mankato Free Press - April 18th, 2024 [April 18th, 2024]
- Deepfake victims must punish Big Tech because Congress wont - The Hill - April 18th, 2024 [April 18th, 2024]
- Big tech kneecaps anyone researching it. The online harms bill needs to remove barriers to analysis - Policy Options - April 18th, 2024 [April 18th, 2024]
- Global future will not be driven by big tech but by India's DPI: Amitabh Kant - Moneycontrol - April 18th, 2024 [April 18th, 2024]
- Kids Code bills prompt epic showdown between regulators, activists and big tech firms - Biometric Update - April 18th, 2024 [April 18th, 2024]
- Tech Firms Retreating From Office Market - The Real Deal - April 18th, 2024 [April 18th, 2024]
- UKs antitrust enforcer sounds the alarm over Big Techs grip on GenAI - TechCrunch - April 18th, 2024 [April 18th, 2024]
- Time for government to regulate big tech - ACS - April 18th, 2024 [April 18th, 2024]
- UK Markets Authority Warns of AI Market Capture by Big Tech - BankInfoSecurity.com - April 18th, 2024 [April 18th, 2024]
- 2023 Boosts Big Techs AI monopoly? Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, and others wield money power - HT Tech - January 2nd, 2024 [January 2nd, 2024]
- Alphabet (GOOGL) and Meta Shows Power of Ads Over Subscriptions - Bloomberg - January 2nd, 2024 [January 2nd, 2024]
- Looking Beyond The 'Magnificent 7' Analysts Just Upgraded These Three Large-Cap Stocks - Anheuser-Busch - Benzinga - January 2nd, 2024 [January 2nd, 2024]
- Mapping the Biggest Tech Talent Hubs in the U.S. and Canada - Visual Capitalist - January 2nd, 2024 [January 2nd, 2024]
- Google, Meta, other tech giants slash DEI-related jobs, resource groups in 2023: Report - Fox Business - January 2nd, 2024 [January 2nd, 2024]
- South Koreas proposed tech regulations would be a gift to China - The Hill - January 2nd, 2024 [January 2nd, 2024]
- Outlook 2024: Big changes to expect in personal tech - The Indian Express - January 2nd, 2024 [January 2nd, 2024]
- Big Tech Dumped $17 Billion Into AI Companies in 2023 Despite Frozen Market - The Messenger - January 2nd, 2024 [January 2nd, 2024]
- Why OpenAI signals the start of the post-Christensen startup world - Tech.eu - January 2nd, 2024 [January 2nd, 2024]
- Opinion | Lindsey Graham and Elizabeth Warren: When It Comes to Big Tech, Enough Is Enough - The New York Times - July 29th, 2023 [July 29th, 2023]
- Globe editorial: Canada can't tackle Big Tech on its own - The Globe and Mail - July 29th, 2023 [July 29th, 2023]
- July jobs report and more Big Tech earnings are in the week ahead after markets notch historic run for Dow - CNBC - July 29th, 2023 [July 29th, 2023]
- A Setback in the F.T.C.'s Fight Against Big Tech - The New Yorker - July 29th, 2023 [July 29th, 2023]
- Be strong in the fight against Big Tech, Canada - Canada's National Observer - July 29th, 2023 [July 29th, 2023]
- Decoding volatility: Are big tech stocks as stable as we think? - CryptoSlate - July 29th, 2023 [July 29th, 2023]
- Patients think their health data will be leaked and don't trust big tech ... - Contemporary Pediatrics - July 29th, 2023 [July 29th, 2023]
- The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Big Tech Earnings Season - Fagen wasanni - July 29th, 2023 [July 29th, 2023]
- The problem with Big Tech's voluntary AI safety commitments - Emerging Tech Brew - July 29th, 2023 [July 29th, 2023]
- How the Crypto Market Prepares Ahead of Big Tech Earnings ... - BeInCrypto - July 29th, 2023 [July 29th, 2023]
- Tony Anscombe: It's Misleading to Ask if Big Tech Wants to Read ... - BroadbandBreakfast.com - July 29th, 2023 [July 29th, 2023]
- The Week Ahead: Fed, ECB and BoJ set rates, and Big Tech ... - Financial Times - July 29th, 2023 [July 29th, 2023]
- China's Big Tech making a comeback with Beijing offering fresh ... - The Straits Times - July 29th, 2023 [July 29th, 2023]
- Montgomery County school district sues Big Tech over youth mental ... - Washington Times - June 18th, 2023 [June 18th, 2023]
- Big Tech knows most Brits don't know how to protect their online ... - TechRadar - June 18th, 2023 [June 18th, 2023]
- The time for talk is over is time for action on data privacy - The Hill - June 18th, 2023 [June 18th, 2023]
- Meet the man calling out Big Techs climate hypocrisy - Corporate Knights Magazine - June 18th, 2023 [June 18th, 2023]
- Letter: UK watchdog's tough stance on Big Tech should reassure MPs - Financial Times - June 18th, 2023 [June 18th, 2023]
- Peter Thiel on Big Tech: A Throwback Lecture - Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence - June 18th, 2023 [June 18th, 2023]
- Big Tech Is Big Tobacco - The Lever - May 6th, 2023 [May 6th, 2023]
- Graham fires warning shot at Big Tech: Were going to unleash the courtrooms of America on you - Fox News - May 6th, 2023 [May 6th, 2023]
- Experts weigh the current cost of anticompetitive behavior in Big ... - NYU Law - May 6th, 2023 [May 6th, 2023]
- Big Tech lobbying on AI regulation as industry races to harness ... - Center for Responsive Politics - May 6th, 2023 [May 6th, 2023]
- 'Big Tech is knowingly fueling a mental-health crisis in this country ... - Morningstar - May 6th, 2023 [May 6th, 2023]
- EY's Abandoned Split Exposes Obstacles to Big Tech Consulting - Bloomberg Tax - May 6th, 2023 [May 6th, 2023]
- Apple CEO Tim Cook calls mass layoffs a last resort, as the company avoids the giant job cuts of its Big Tech peers - Yahoo Finance - May 6th, 2023 [May 6th, 2023]
- Big Tech stocks are flying! Which ones are the best buys today? - Motley Fool UK - May 6th, 2023 [May 6th, 2023]
- Why Indian start-ups have accused the Internet and Mobile Association of India of spreading Big Tech propaganda - The Indian Express - May 6th, 2023 [May 6th, 2023]
- Intimate Images Protection Update Big Tech Warned To Be Ready ... - BC INJURY LAW - May 6th, 2023 [May 6th, 2023]
- Apple Stock and Big Tech Are Winners. Why Cathie Wood's ARK Is Still a Loser. - Barron's - May 4th, 2023 [May 4th, 2023]
- White House officials will meet Big Tech CEOs as President Biden looks to tackle AI safety concerns - Yahoo Canada Finance - May 4th, 2023 [May 4th, 2023]
- The top 10 buzziest companies Gen Z wants to work fornone of them are in Big Tech, says new report - CNBC - May 4th, 2023 [May 4th, 2023]
- Apple Reports Earnings Today. What to Expect. - Barron's - May 4th, 2023 [May 4th, 2023]
- Big Tech Earnings: Time to Take Another Bite of Apple? - Yahoo Finance - May 4th, 2023 [May 4th, 2023]
- Vibe Check: Big Tech Is Losing Its 'Luster' For The Class Of 2023 Amid Mounting Layoffs And An Uncertain Economy - Forbes - May 4th, 2023 [May 4th, 2023]
- Lindsey Graham says Big Tech will kill online child safety bill, teases plan with Elizabeth Warren - Washington Times - May 4th, 2023 [May 4th, 2023]
- 'Break them open' new EU rules coming for Big Tech - TNW - May 4th, 2023 [May 4th, 2023]
- EY's Abandoned Split Exposes Obstacles to Big Tech Consulting - Bloomberg Law - May 4th, 2023 [May 4th, 2023]
- Open Source Communities Need More Than Funding From Big Tech - DevOps.com - May 4th, 2023 [May 4th, 2023]
- Night School, Class 3: Big Tech vs the insurgents - Financial Times - May 4th, 2023 [May 4th, 2023]
- MM View: The Big Tech monster is coming for you - but only if you let it - Money Marketing - May 4th, 2023 [May 4th, 2023]