Seeking Solace In Troubled Times — Seeing Past The Collective Dissonance

Photo by Everett Bartels on Unsplash

It is easy to lose hope. It is hard to see through the chaos and cruelty — for lack of a better word and as a counter-expression for empathy — in this period of the country’s history. It is also hard not to identify the place that I made and have known as home for the past three decades as the chief operating center of the tech oligarchy that has apparently taken over the reins. Arguably, it is one individual while the rest are acting either as enablers or bowing to oblige and comply. In either case, it is driven by the motivation to grow bigger, stronger and of course richer, or at least to not lose any ground.

There are far too many instances in the days since the presidential inauguration that substantiate the above. As I look around for some semblance of sanity — I only get drowned more than ever, whether a tech giant known for its motto of not being evil renaming a gulf in their maps or more importantly updating their AI principles to allow use of AI for weapons or surveillance, or numerous mass layoffs by the FAANG companies using performance as an excuse rather than the fact that they can get away with it just fine thanks to the precedence being set from the top along with the blueprint to go with that.

But there is hope. If not, we need to invent it. It comes in many forms but falls in…