Machinae ex Deus

Cartoon by R. Crumb symbolizing the futile attempt of the simple-lifers
to prevent the formation of a total surveillance, mind-control society.

Call me a Luddite, but I don't like it when machines try to read my mind. If I pop a disc in the  DVD player I don't want the TV to turn on. If I write an article about Snarf's Disease I don't want intrusive, pop-up ads for Snarf's Disease to follow me around for the next five years. If I'm in France, I don't want Google, YouTube and every other bloody thing to take me to their respective French websites. If I type "SHIT," I don't want the spellchecker to turn it into "SHOT." If I'm stuck on an actor's name (Jeremy Irons) and type in the title of an Adrian Lyne film adaptation of a certain Vladimir Nabokov novel in which said actor starred, I don't want the !@!# mechano man to assume I'm Papa Perverto and send me a stern warning against following the path of Humbert Humbert. Yeah, I don't like it, you stupid robots. You heard what I said!

Bold statement, huh? Sure.

As bold as an egg in a frying pan saying it doesn't like Teflon and conductive heat.

Tough shit, Mr. Egg. It's just going to get worse ...

In the early years of the 21st century, the stupid !@#$ robots resemble rude bastards who finish my sentences and usually get it wrong. The stupid !@#$ robots don't know what I'm thinking. Yet. But they will.

Consider the grim picture I'm painting, folks. In a nutshell ...

Contemporary cyber-society resembles the delusional architecture of paranoid schizophrenia. Basically, everything everywhere is watching you and it's all part of one big system trying to put thoughts in your head.

That's not the ravings of a lunatic. That's a !@# fact.

Forget Big Brother -- your freaking PHONE is watching you. We all thought 1984 was prophetic -- but it missed the future by a mile. Turns out, The President's Analyst was on the money ...

And the nuts were, too!

Any day now, the nuthouses will release all the paranoid schizophrenics. With a sheepish look on their faces, the Men in the White Coats will say, "We owe you guys a big apology. Turns out, you were right."

"We tried to warn you," the nuts will gibber.

But, by then, it will be too late.