Has our species been trained now not to react to catastrophic
danger or even extra super weirdness?
And do we know what really happened on Wednesday in New York
City?
Last Wednesday I was in Brooklyn, New York, at about ten am. I
had stayed in the borough overnight, as I was preparing to meet a
lawyer in Manhattan.
My stay had already become 21st Century-dystopian, as I had
foolishly booked myself at the trendy/discounted hotel, Sonder the
Industrialist. It turned out that the management has turned
physical hotels into a dehumanized data
harvesting operation. I arrived at night in an Uber to
find myself alone in an industrialized area, with a dying phone,
and all the restaurants closing; at which point the app informed me
that there was to be no human being to receive me in the lobby, so
I had to phone a call center in the Philippines in order to set up
my account, and then that I must provide an array of invasive
private information before I would be granted the code to enter the
building.
I followed other exasperated tourists into the lobby, hoping to
bypass the data harvesting, but was told by the sweet, sad security
person at the front desk that he had no powers whatsoever, that
there was no key to give me at all, and that I had to finish
completing my account and checking in online before I could hope to
get to my longed-for room.
This process included a full-on, turn-your-head-right-and-left,
biometric facial scan, which in the Brave New World of digital
coercion, it was too late for me to decline, if I was going to get
anywhere safe to sleep. The lockdown model for forcibly extracting
digital information and behavioral compliance before allowing
anyone anything decently human had taken over yet another former
civilized experience checking into a hotel after a journey in yet
another formerly human space.
I could not manage to update the settings on my camera
effectively to allow the app to data-harvest my drivers license, so
a tall, equally exhausted Swedish businessman loomed into my
personal space in order to help me, thus inadvertently seeing not
only all my biometric information and the purpose of my trip,
but also my room entry access code and my room number. The app thus
having entirely compromised my security as well as having harvested
critical personal information against my will, I fled to my room at
last, reminding myself uneasily to bolt the door.
The next morning, though, was cheery; cool and bright; partly
sunny. There was a faint haze, and a distant smell of wood smoke,
as when leaves are burning in autumn.
I got into an Uber to head into Manhattan.
Suddenly in the proverbial blink of an eye the almost-clear day
turned dead-grey all around us, wi...
