Having sworn off Hong Kong politics I am certainly not going to start writing about American ones.
Besides, what American electors get up to is really none of our business. If citizens of the Land of the Free wish to be represented on the international stage by a convicted criminal, serial sex pest and compulsive liar, that is their choice.
I am, though, concerned about reports that the titans of US tech have been lining up not only to make the usual polite noises about a new president, but to throw money at his inauguration and express admiration and allegiance to the Orange Catastrophe.
Press people are not much better, I admit. Six months ago Mr Trump was being written about in the sort of condescending tones usually reserved for unsuccessful stand-up comics. Now we are treated to thoughtful analysis of Mr Trump’s possible policies.
In their innermost thoughts most of these writers are well aware that Mr Trump does not have policies. To have a policy you must first read and think about the issues involved. Mr Trump notoriously does neither. Where other people have policies he has prejudices and impulses.
The prejudices are unchanging and unchangeable. The impulses come and go from day to day, under the unhelpful influence of Fox News. Neither the prejudices nor the impulses are hampered by any close examination of the real world.
Still, none of the press people has been adopted as courtiers. Whereas at the Inauguration on Monday the tech tycoons were lined up for the cameras. The nobodies in the background are members of the new Cabinet, who are apparently going to get the same respectful attention as Mrs Thatcher’s Cabinet got from her.
The problem this poses is nicely exemplified by the flourishing market in bumper stickers for embarrassed Tesla owners to put on their cars. These run to variations on “I bought this car before we knew that Elon was mad”. An entertaining option: “I bought this car before Elon became First Lady.”
Fortunately I had not got round to buying a Tesla of any kind. Also, having never been a Twitterer I have effortlessly avoided X. As I have no ambitions to move to Mars I suppose I am pretty Muskproof. Which is just as well, because I know what a Nazi salute looks like and I am looking at one now.
However my computer is an iMac. It is a very fine computer and it is a recent purchase. I can hardly give it up. But I understand the big Apple man has made his bow although he doesn’t seem to have attended the inauguration.
Definitely in the picture, though, are the billionaires responsible for my two favourite pieces of time-wasting software, Youtube and Facebook, as well as the modern journalist’s essential tool, Google.
This integration of digital imperialism with the political kind must be a worry in a good many places. There is mounting evidence that indulging in extensive internet use is toxic for children and young people. And if there is no attempt to stem the torrent of lies it can be pretty disturbing for adults, too.
It will be a source of much justified resentment if attempts to deal with these problems in Europe or South America are opposed by the US in the name of “free speech”.
We all like free speech and we all recognise, as our local government occasionally reminds us, that it has limits. Steven Pinker asserts (in “The better angels of our nature”) that humanity was elevated to a new level of sympathy and gentleness by the invention of the novel, and the resulting invitation to put yourself in other people’s place and imagine what they must be thinking and feeling.
According to Mr Pinker this was a slow but dramatic change, leading to a great reduction in violence generally. This raises the question: what is five hours a day of web browsing doing to people? I am not sure what the answer to this question might be but it seems increasingly likely that the answer is “nothing good”.
So the titans of tech are poisoning our minds. And if we use their stuff I suppose we are in danger of complicity. They invite you in, but only so that they can sell you to advertisers. It seems under the circumstances the least you can do is install a good ad blocker. This also has the important benefit of making Youtube much more enjoyable.
I cannot unfortunately recommend the further step of urging our government to restrict nasty internet content. This is because our leaders have a track record of using laws intended for other purposes to harass or punish activities they disapprove of, like fund-raising for unliked causes, playing unliked tunes in public, running independent bookshops or dubiously loyal restaurants, and so on. They’re doing quite enough censorship already.
tim's experiment 