“When your job and healthcare depends on building the Torment Nexus, but you actually learned the lesson from the popular book Don’t Build the Torment Nexus, how do you keep your soul intact and try to put less torment into the world?” […]
What you’re actually looking for, I believe, is someone to absolve you of building the Torment Nexus because you took a job at the Torment Nexus Factory. Which is a thing I cannot do. […]
You cannot keep your soul intact while building the Torment Nexus. The Torment Nexus is, by definition, a machine that brings torment onto others. It destroys souls. And a soul cannot take a soul and remain whole. It will leave a mark. A memory. A scar. Your soul will not remain intact while you’re building software that keeps track of undocumented workers. Your soul will not remain intact while building surveillance software whose footage companies hand over to ICE. Your soul will not remain intact while you build software that allows disinformation to spark genocides. Your soul will not remain intact while you hoover up artists’ work to train theft-engines that poison the water of communities in need. Your soul will eventually turn into another thing altogether. An indescribable thing. […]
Ultimately, the names of everyone who built the Torment Nexus will be engraved on the Torment Nexus, or possibly on a plaque below the Torment Nexus. Or possibly on a beacon in space roughly where Earth used to be, sending out a repeating signal to other civilizations saying “Don’t build the Torment Nexus!” That list won’t have categories. It won’t be broken up into “people who wanted to build the Torment Nexus,” “people who were tricked into building the Torment Nexus,” and “people who just really needed healthcare.”
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