Clapham and District Village Newsletter, October 2024
Can Jeff Bezos save me? The Amazon oligarch is investing millions in anti-ageing research which aims to “make 90 the new 50 by 2030”. His delivery service brings the world to my door in no time: which is wonderful, except when his courier leaves the package on my step in the rain, forcing me to go through the whole vexing ‘returns’ process again.
Maybe Elon Musk can save me? The Tesla billionaire is developing a self-driving car which will get me to Morrisons without my having to steer, accelerate, brake, or navigate. His Twitter once kept me in good conversations with friends, colleagues, and interesting influences: but now X embroils me in a chilling world of paranoid conspiracies about the NHS being part of a genocidal ‘hygiene dictatorship’.
Or perhaps Richard Branson can save me? The Virgin magnate is funding spaceships which in future will let me escape this exhausted earth and take a trip to the Moon, or to live on Mars. I loved his early work, especially ‘Tubular Bells’: but my Virgin Broadband box keeps recording unrequested TV programmes from BBC Wales.
It resonates with me that Jesus never presented himself as a messiah. When his closest disciple Peter called him that name, Jesus said, ‘Get behind me, Satan!’ and described himself instead as a ‘son of man’, a ‘suffering one’. Meaning that his affinity is far less with the tech oligarchs, and far more with the ones who feel - and are made - powerless in the face of all this invasive technology.
To me, this makes the ‘son of man’ one with the 17-year-old first-time driver whose insurance company threatened him with debt collectors when his car’s black box reported him as driving his 18-year-old VW Polo at 540mph. It makes him one with the treasurer of the little rural church pressured to pay ridiculously inflated electricity bills because the smart meter readings bear no relation to reality.
He’s one with those exhausted by the ceaseless task of displaying their public face on social media to keep up appearances; and he’s one with those who worry about what the corporations are doing with all the data about them extracted by their mobile devices, their Alexa or Siri, their TV set and digital doorbell; he’s one with those troubled about which emails are genuine and which ones are ‘phishing’ to flush out our bank account.
Digital technology now dominates education, the social security system, seeking job opportunities and signing up for cheaper gas and electricity. ‘Digital poverty’, not being able to afford to interact with the online world, is many people’s everyday experience. Through groups like Church Action on Poverty and the APLE Collective, people at grassroots are seeking to redress this balance.
We all benefit from the good side of digital tech, but it can cause people to feel alone in this world, it can separate us from others, it does make people vulnerable to the whims of the powerful forces of the corporations which rule our lives. Which is why it is good to see how many people, from the margins, are working hard to rebuild community, to unite with others to resist all which frightens or diminishes us.
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