In 1984, when I wrote CHARGED BODIES, my history of the creation of Silicon Valley, the Mac promised to be “the computer for the rest of us.”
Forty years on, in 2024, Apple brags it will crush human creativity — and spirit — to grow beyond its trillion-dollar valuation. As in the Apple one-minute ad for the new iPad Pro Plus
Apple makes it official on behalf of the entire tech industry that any work of human creativity not digitally generated has no value.
CHARGED BODIES recounts the first years of the digital revolution in Silicon Valley, when the goal was to increase human productivity, not reduce us and our descendants to data-point playthings in the hands of multi-billionaires.
For nearly twenty years we have allowed ourselves to be trapped in digital lobster traps. It was so easy to enter, but now almost impossible to escape.
Public attention must be paid NOW. We are running out of time to claim our humanity back from a small clique of multi-billionaires who hope that AI will soon make them multi-trillionaires. We will
To quote the guy who interrupted breakfast at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941: “This is not a goddam drill. We are under a goddam attack.”
(The 40th Anniversary edition of CHARGED BODIES points back to some of the original hopes at the beginning of the digital revolution. It is available now at Amazon.)
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It’s very worrying Tom, but I do feel somewhat reassured that a lot of people are waking up. I’m not sure if you follow TikTok but there is currently a Blockout campaign where a large number of users are blocking celebrities who are not speaking out about things that matter.
This helps explain what happened:
https://www.tiktok.com/@blanca_perdomo/video/7366674573313543467
It led to the person who made the original video apologise and with some of the celebs who attended losing millions of followers 
Some people think a revolution is on the horizon. I guess we can only hope?
Ashton, You are right. This vapid fog of celebs, digital-illuminati and hangers-on has truly gone over the top with no end in sight. We have to stop watching because they won’t stop preening.
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It will be interesting seeing how things go, but I definitely get the feeling people are wising up to the state of things. Tiktok is full of vids like this at the moment:
(not looked at parts 2/3/4/5/6 yet)
I agree that the ad is tasteless. But let’s look at this from a different perspective: does Apple actually come to your house and destroy your piano and your watercolors?
No. You can buy a different kind of tablet (Windows, Linux). Whatever tablet you buy. you can choose to use only the features that enhance your creativity, instead of discouraging it.
You can learn how to draw using pen & paper in your free time.
These are just tools, The decisions are ours on how to use them.
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You are right, creative people gonna be creative. But un-creative people are filling the pipelines with drek, making it harder for talent to be seen.
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That’s always been the case, even before all the modern tech. The Dunning-Kruger effect dictates that people who are most likely to promote themselves as experts are in fact average at best:
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