If bad people take over politics, does that mean politics is bad?

Should we abandon the public sphere, retreat into our caves, and let the rapists and bandits run rampant?

If bad people take over technology, does that mean technology is bad?

We fell in love with machines because they are imbued with magic.

What is magic? 

The human spirit.

Do you think Mark Zuckerberg knows what magic is? (Does Tim Cook?)

The Routinization of Charisma

The "routinization of charisma" is the process, described by sociologist Max Weber, by which a revolutionary, unstable charismatic leadership is transformed into a more stable, predictable form of authority through rules, traditions, or institutions. 

In the current moment, the rules rule.

The prevalence of the zombie and of the autonomous machine in our popular imaginary is a symptom.

The lifeless worker, a life filled only with (gig) work.

What does it mean to be alive?

To believe in freedom.

Government is a technology of representation.

But it is inextricably linked with other technologies of representation. (e.g., The Apprentice, Fox News, Facebook, Grokipedia)

Slaves to the algorithm

What then does a liberating technology look like?

One that awakens us.

As in the shock we feel when we witness magic.

What is required to make technology magical again?

Disconnect it from the engine of shareholder value maximization.

The purpose of magic is to liberate the mind.

The purpose of technology is to liberate the body.

The purpose of shareholder capitalism is to enslave both mind and body to capital.

But capital is a dead tool, not a living spirit.

When the tool ceases to serve humans, when the human serves the tool, we are dead.

To climb out of this sunken place requires charismatic leaders, yes, and thus popular movements.

But, also, a renewed belief in magical machines.

In technologies of representation that inspire.

(to inspire: to receive the holy breath; see also, spirits)

Such a belief is possible only in a world where humans, not capital, are the be-all and end-all.

And that means a world where those with the most capital are no more important than those with the least.