Soylent Tech is PEOPLE… it’s people.
How did Chuck Heston manage to get so many iconic roles like Moses and etcetera? These days the iconic characters shaping our lives are the heads of multinational technology companies that are leading the world into a technology centered utopia. This future requires an abundance of one fuel in particular… increasingly personal, publicly traceable, erasure resistant, human interactions. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IKVj4l5GU4
Behold a list of companies that are shaping the landscape of our future of interpersonal disruption and digitally connected hook-up culture. They’ve been ranked in order of scale and impact.
|
Company |
Stated Intent |
Actual Intent |
Potential Impact |
1. |
Apple |
Better living through technology: great ideas have a way of becoming great products, services, and customer experiences very quickly |
Steve Jobs: benevolent and elegant world domination of every consumer transaction
Tim Cook: ???? |
What If you had a girlfriend or boyfriend who was really organized and creative and they created a wholly integrated life around you? When would it start to feel creepy? When would you want to make more choices for yourself? Maybe you wouldn’t even notice for a long time. The honeymoon period is long and geez Louise the games and activities are really engaging. Everything just kind of ticks along, connected, integrated, each function as it best should be, until … well… it just isn’t. Then you see your current partner’s plans and systems aren’t easily compatible with much else.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/16/jonathan-ive-on-apples-design-process-and-product-philosophy/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
|
2. |
|
Don’t be evil: We provide a variety of services for people and businesses.
|
Pure evil.
Revenge of the nerds: |
What If you had a girlfriend or boyfriend who was really organized and efficient and they decided to engage every significant interaction around you? Most of the time they improved the process. Sometimes they’d rifle through all your gear and reorganize the way you keep all your stuff. No biggie. Hey, it’s for your own good. There’s no way to misinterpret added intelligence. That’s pure value right? You don’t need to drive anymore? When you go to a bar you don’t have to remember what happened on your crazy night out. Your mates have recorded & backed up the whole thing, to a cloud server (very secure) right from your unconscious face.
http://www.thewire.com/technology/2013/04/rise-term-glasshole-explained-linguists/64363/
|
3. |
Amazon |
The worlds store: We seek to be Earth’s most customer-centric company for four primary customer sets: consumers, sellers, enterprises, and content creators. |
Consumer enslavement
Bezos is socially dangerous. |
If Amazon succeeds, Having a job for 90% of society will be moving things between automated delivery systems, in windowless massive warehouses in the desert, while waiting to be made redundant by an automated system. There can be no lasting prosperous economy if services and products are marketed without a value attached that actually allows that employees can earn a decent wage. If Walmart were a digital company they’d be called… Amazon.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/amazon-drones/
|
4. |
|
Connect with friends and the world around you on Facebook, Instagram & etc… |
Low Self Esteem Production |
When you compare yourself to others constantly the result is a skewed perspective: A billion people can’t be wrong? Phil’s vacation looks soooo COOL. How can I make my life seem cool? How does my community define cool? Is it possible to keep the user constantly clicking and map that clicking until they are completely lost in the search of cliquing? How much revenue can be derived from this herding of the deprived.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/technology/07brain.html?pagewanted=print
|
5. |
Intel |
Faster, Better chips that exceed Moore’s Law for every device… |
Profit |
I just like intel… the ads… the logo. They’ll just buy anyone that out competes them (if they see it coming.) Every once in a while they make a good chip and sell the crappy older ones to second-rate electronics suppliers and makers. They just make money.
|
6. |
Cisco |
Business & social Networking support & solutions |
Profit |
Routers are the arteries & heart valves of the new totally connected society. Maybe Cisco won’t be the last tech company standing in 20 years, but they focus on the essential elements that allow “the Internets” to keep us perpetually and seamlessly plugged in.
|
7. |
|
Connect with your friends — and other fascinating people. Get in-the-moment updates on the things that interest you. And watch events unfold, in real time, from every angle.
|
???????? |
I don’t tweet, Hash Tag, it seems completely stupid. It’s sad that people confuse tweets with news, information, actual experience or knowledge. |
8. |
Ebay |
The worlds other store:
|
People got stuff to move. |
Fighting the global hoarding epidemic one click at a time. Maybe, they’ll be replaced by Baidu or ali Baba.
|
9. |
Netflix |
Netflix is the world’s leading Internet television network |
Consumer addiction |
Media is the thin blood we all share in the body of the networked future. If you watch TV you are wasting time. Enjoy responsibly!!... Everyone does it. Anything that helps with that is, well…. anyway, there are too many problems with their business model. I just feel like The big three (apple, google, amazon) are waiting until they have a grasp of the model and then they will control this space. Netflix amounts to a very well formatted training program for anywhere content distribution.
|
10. |
Microsoft |
Our mission is enable people and businesses throughout the world to realize their full potential by creating technology that transforms the way people work, play, and communicate.
|
Technological bottom feeding |
What If you had a girlfriend or boyfriend who was not really organized and efficient but they offered to assist you in every significant interaction around you? Would it matter right away that everything they did was mediocre? Would it be your other friends that had to ask why you accepted the assistance for so long when it was clearly uninspired and just usable at best? Would this say something about you if you continued the working relationship? |
11. |
Hulu |
Consumer addiction |
Consumer addiction |
If you watch TV you are wasting time, especially if there are commercials interspersed!! There’s just no reason to watch ads in programming anymore. Anything connected with that... I say poo. When Hulu launched they were completely honest, in ads that featured Alec Baldwin no less. They are a plot by aliens (AKA: rich corporate schlubbs) to eat our brains. The service is awkward it will be folded into something better, bought or simply cease to exist.
|
12. |
Comcast |
Comcast brings together the best in media and technology. We drive innovation to create the world's best entertainment and online experiences. |
Monopoly of consumer internet access |
Service providers are the veins of the new connected digital world. If they shut down, how can we all interact? Would we be stuck with talking across a table at dinner? Isn’t that what made our ancestors so savage and violent? Anyway, the only thing a service provider wants to do is become a bigger vein so you can shoot more blood though and they can charge you more. It’s not drug dealing. Its blood dealing and blood, even the thin 21st century stuff, will fill many hours. This circumvents self-exploration or the drift of existential contemplation.
|
13. |
Dish Network |
Provide TV customers with the highest quality programming and technology with the most choices at the best value. |
Monopoly of consumer TV & internet access |
… Ditto from above.
Dish pioneered anywhere media. (blood must flow everywhere) It remains to be seen how many players there will be in this space. All next generation devices will be water & shock resistant like the new Samsung phones so people can engage a tiny screen at all times.
http://www.samsung.com/levant/consumer/mobile-phones/mobile-phones/smart-phones/SM-G900HZWAMID-features
|