To Fight the Giants
I had a conversation with some friends last night when playing Halo 2 multiplayer1, and the conversation came up about internet privacy. It came up after I had mentioned that I have a kernel virtual machine that contains a windows ISO that lets me play multiplayer games that might be barred on linux.
Friend 1: Why did you put windows on a VM?
Me: I get the same performance and don't have to run spyware on bare metal.
Friend 2: I guess I don't really see the point. I don't really care if they have my data, I've got nothing to hide.
Me: Everyone has something to hide, mate. Why do you think we shit behind closed doors? You wouldn't want strangers knowing your location at all times, or everything about you, why make Corpos the exception?
"I have nothing to hide", this defeatist principle that allows authority to trample over us. The cops who try to coax you into letting them search your car or house because "what do you have to hide?". Every day, Corpos encroach further and further into our private lives, and more recently what we as adults are allowed to do with our money.
The goalpost has shifted, what was once "what do you have to hide?" has now become "think of the children". It's all manipulation, it's all about control. Companies do not want you to be happy, they don't care. They just want to control how you spend your money, where you spend it, and to keep you hooked on their product to keep siphoning your time and money.
As futile as it may be, I take pride in sticking it to these giants. They may have my data, they may have a LOT of my data. Even if I buy some service to have them remove my data, they can still rebuild it, but I won't make it easy for them to get anything more. I get joy in being a nuisance to companies that want nothing more than to siphon everything they can from me.
I refuse to comply with the emptiness machine, and you should to.
I get frustrated with people who recognize the issue, but then do NOTHING about it. It's one thing to not take action because you need greater numbers, its another thing when all you have TO DO is NOT take action and then doing it anyway. Take the Switch 2, if you bought one, cool. However, if you were someone that bitched about Nintendo's anti-consumer practices, threatened/advocated for a boycott, then bought a Switch 2 anyway, then YOU are part of the problem.
For things like the VISA/Mastercard situation, there isn't much the individual can do. This is a fight that will have to be had between Big Finance and Big Gaming. When they pick the wrong target, and they will, they will get ensnared by the bear trap. I don't know if it'll be Steam, or Rockstar, or who have you, but it will happen. Big Money is going for the porn games now, but they WILL come for violent video games as these groups tend to do. If the organization is there to put pressure on politicians to do SOMETHING about it, then join in the protests, but I'm not optimistic about that since we all know our politicians are bought and paid for by Big Money.
Look, at the end of the day, companies might still try and encroach on our lives. In some cases they may outright win, but that doesn't mean give up. I encourage you to do what you can to take control away from these big companies and become ungovernable to the Corporatocracy. Use alternative operating systems, minimize your usage of systems and applications that track your information and sell it to 3rd parties, use alternative applications, ad blockers, boycott games/products that implement anti-consumer practices. You owe it to yourself to disconnect from the machine that only wants to take your life away from you.
The fight may be futile, but the fight is worth having.
Reply via email: me@absurdpirate.com
This game night was actually really cool because we played a modded version of Halo 2 on the original XBOX. Basically they backported maps from the Windows Vista version of Halo 2. Absolute PEAK gaming.↩