What’s the Rush?
It is not surprising that those addicted to digital technologies are pushing for high-speed internet in the same way that any drug addict might eventually desire to increase the dosage. The only difference is that digital technology addicts (including myself to a limited degree) usually don’t think of themselves as addicts and the larger society openly encourages (even demands) both their addiction and their acceptance of the illusion that it isn’t actually an addiction. After all, there are profits to be made by contractors like CityWest and votes to be won by Regional District politicians in satisfying local high-speed internet addictions. So, accordingly, government bodies are only too eager to partner with corporate fibre-optic purveyors in facilitating speedier access to a networked netherworld that is increasingly composed of the toxic interactions that characterize (anti-)social media, computer surveillance, and the passive consumption of the empty distractions that allow us to avoid dealing with the impoverished version of reality known as the “new normal”. Furthermore, in spite of an abundance of green virtue-signaling on other island issues, it seems that the high-speed show must go on regardless of any potentially negative impacts to marine ecosystems due to the installation, maintenance, and repair of the supposedly “environmentally-friendly” cables in Lambert Channel. What if instead of letting our addictions rule us in knee-jerk fashion, we asked ourselves: Why accelerate the state of addiction and reinforce the addiction to the state?
Ron Sakolsky
