[alsomike]

Maybe he is Big Brother, but is that a bad thing? Today's authorities wrap themselves in "anti-authoritarianism", constantly demanding that we express ourselves creativity, think for ourselves and be unique. Far from being subversive, this reflexive self-fashioning and self-expression is harnessed to create profit for the powerful, from the simplest blog post generating page views and advertising dollars, to the creation of new tech start-ups innovating new products to periodically revitalize the aging bureaucratic global corporate status quo.

In Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman claimed that Huxley was correct and Orwell was wrong: we're being oppressed by being drowned in irrelevant, trivial entertainment, not through censorship, explicit control and regulation. For the internet age, this idea is out of date. Today's form of control isn't making us passive, instead, it makes us active in ways that further the interests of power. We're told our creativity is subversive, even radical and revolutionary and therefore deeply significant, and yet nothing really changes. What's most interesting about all this supposedly disruptive change is how in the end, it's purpose is for the exact opposite: the smooth functioning of global capitalism.

Perhaps you can argue that this is a good thing, but it's impossible to argue that anything truly revolutionary is happening. Steve Jobs and Apple are not necessarily good, but they are a kind of progress because they demonstrate that the emperor has no clothes - the supposed revolutionary, world-changing potential of technology is a sham, it's the same old capitalism as usual.