Chapter 6: The Path to Digital Salvation
Each person must chart their own path toward technological authority. Rather than prescribing specific tools or platforms, consider fundamental questions that reveal whether a technology serves your authentic needs or subtly undermines your autonomy.
Examine independence: Does this device or service function without requiring ongoing connection to distant servers? Can it operate without regular tribute payments to its creator? Does it store your data locally or on infrastructure you can't control? Technologies that function independently of their creators respect your sovereignty, those requiring constant permission or payment create dependence rather than empowerment.
Evaluate honesty: Does this tool clearly communicate its limitations and capabilities? Does it make promises that match its actual performance? Technologies like the telephone present their constraints transparently, you understand you're communicating through a medium rather than standing face to face. By contrast, many modern systems create deceptive illusions, promising perfect connectivity while introducing hidden compromises and manipulations.
Consider purpose alignment: Was this technology created primarily to serve your needs or to extract value from your usage? Business models often reveal true purposes more clearly than marketing materials. When a service is 'free' understand what it harvests in exchange. Even paid services may prioritize data collection or planned obsolescence over genuine utility. The best technologies align their success with your benefit rather than treating you as a resource to be mined.
Reflect on cognitive respect: Does this technology honor your attention and thought processes or manipulate them for profit? Tools designed with genuine respect create bounded experiences with clear beginnings and endings like a telephone call or fax transmission. Those designed for extraction create endless engagement loops, notification systems, and other mechanisms to capture maximum attention regardless of your intentions.
Most importantly, maintain perspective on technological necessity. Many systems presented as essential innovations actually solve problems that don't exist while creating new ones that didn't previously exist. The sleek smartphone app that 'revolutionizes' ordering coffee primarily revolutionizes the extraction of your personal data, the coffee itself wil arrive just like it always has.
Your digital sovereignty begins with recognizing that each technological choice represents a relationship, one that either respects your autonomy or gradually diminishes it. The path forward isn't rejecting technology entirely but enchancing judgement about which technologies genuinely serve you and which subtly erode it. This enlightenment, more than any specific tool or platform, represents the true path to digital salvation.