As we hurl with an escalating rapidity toward a future where the lines between reality and the artificial disappear with each keystroke, I wonder why I even try to remain me. I mean, if I am given an identity that is not born of my inner workings, but rather is crafted, assumed, or mistakenly assigned to me by others, either in the real world or in the on-line stew, why should I care? Allowing myself to believe what is said to me is a no-win game. I can't know what is real and what is not even if I am always truthful with others. And the fact that I can be dismissed at any time for any reason means, in reality, there is no me.
But yet my heart aches in real time with real sighs. As we leave our physical selves on the Net floor and assume the life of a file in some coded number game, I often think if we are truly progressing or just masking our descent. There is no denying that most of our lives are already at the mercy of numerical manipulation. The bad and the good share the same pathways and can, without our knowledge or consent, establish any us they choose.
We need to reclaim ourselves and stop viewing our freedoms as a balancing act between the economic and the human.
The main justification I hear for this state of affairs is that we must balance economic interests and human interests so our freedoms will not be abridged. If I must live in fear of not being who I really am, how are things really more free than they were many years ago?
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