Just because we're not eating human flesh doesn't mean we're not zombies.

Augmented reality headsets are not new, but the new mixed-reality Apple Vision Pro is a dystopian travesty right out of Black Mirror. How far would you go to escape? Would you trade your safety for it? Your thoughts? Just what are we willing to give up to stay on this train to nowhere? If you don’t know what a mixed-reality headset is, it is basically a blend of virtual reality and real reality. You can add things to what you see, and even delete things that exist in reality. With the Apple Vision Pro, users have said that when you look at people, they don’t look human—they look like copies of copies of themselves, avatars. As if we need yet another influence driving us all apart, dehumanizing us.

With a price tag of over $3,500, you’d think that this ensures that only rich people will be muddying their concepts of reality, but like the iPhone, Apple made it more financially accessible to all of us with $0 down financing plans. Probably something like $15/month payments, and when you’ve finally finished paying (years later), you’ve paid upwards of seven thousand fucking dollars  for what will be considered obsolete after 6 months. Don’t be surprised at these numbers, poor people always wind up paying more than these rich assholes and never, ever get a free ride. If they do ever manage to get a little bit of help, every entitled prick on the internet starts whining about paying taxes to support “Welfare queens”. To that, I say “What taxes?”. No, really, what taxes? Because my tax bill as a middle-class person living in a manufactured home came is usually worse than the tax bill of millionaires (percentage-wise). In 2018, I paid $800 in taxes on my $28,000 income and Elon Musk paid nothing. Seriously, he paid zero. This happens all the time, so much it’s basically a rule. Not to mention the loopholes, shady offshore bank accounts, and other privileges these motherfuckers have. Screw these rich bitches with their sob stories about poor people being able to afford food every once in a while.

Okay, I’m off track. So, with these ridiculous headsets on our faces, what reality are we living in? The one that exists outside of dystopian technology or the one we are navigating virtually? Are we controlling what we see, or is someone else controlling it for us? When will this madness end? It is, of course, in the best interest of the money-grubbing corporate and political overlords that we are as removed from reality as possible while still being able to reach our wallets. Right now, every click you make on the internet gives these fuckers more control. They point you in the direction they want you to go in. They are the reason you wind up watching YouTube videos all night and developing new opinions that you think are yours. Big Tech, Big Pharma, Hollywood and the Government—they are the money-hungry scientists in a big old lab, and we are all mice, running around in a maze that seems random, but is calculated for us every step of the way.

We’ve been convinced that we need all this stuff, too—the “smart” doorbell systems, smartphones, apps, washing machines that talk to us while we’re at work, Alexa, Siri, GPS even—and now big-ass goggles that distort reality so that you can be off in some other world while the real world passes you by. “But I DO need those things!”, you say. Naw, you really don’t. 30 years ago it was 1994 and people didn’t need that shit. Which means it’s possible to live without all of it—and not just to live, to thrive. So no, you don’t need GPS. In fact, you’ll most likely learn how to navigate every part of your town or city by memory within a month if you don’t have your smartphone doing the heavy lifting.

I have been asked why I spend so much time writing about the dangers of technology, data theft and smart phones when we are most likely in the middle of an environmental collapse. My answer is this: we can’t do anything about any sort of disaster, danger, or apocalyptic scenario if our brains are off in la-la land with Kendall Jenner and dancing cats. Asking someone who is walking around with a virtual reality headset on what to do about real-world problems seems futile and completely ridiculous, no?

When we buy these things, when we participate in this global acid trip, we give away our money, our data, and the very necessary functions of our brains that have allowed us to evolve to this point. We give it all away, and in return, we get to sit all day on our asses, staring at screens at work, at home, on dates, with our kids or friends, scrolling and bingeing and clicking our lives away. I am not being subtle about what I’m saying here, and that’s because this is a fucking emergency. I can’t beat around the bush anymore and gently suggest that you take a “screen break” for 5 minutes a day. That’s not enough, because baby, we’re getting dumber and lazier by the minute, and the rich and powerful are getting more rich and abusing their power in ways we never thought possible.

It is all fine and good to just throw it out there that in order to avoid losing our sense of humanity, our community, and our selves that we need to just disconnect from it all. At least the three big S’s: Smart phones, Social media, and Smart Devices. But how can we even pull of something that seems so monumental, so impossible without letting our FOMO (fear of missing out) and our FOBSH (fear of becoming sad hermits) take over? How is something like that even possible in 2024? I’m no expert, but what I can tell you is that I did it in 2013. Yes, that was 11 years ago, which is something like 37 big-tech-digital-dog years, but still, smart phones had taken over enough to make me step onto city buses in Portland, Oregon and weep for the future. Yeah, yeah, Facebook was king and not Tik Tok and Instagram, but a social network is a social network and I removed myself at that point, because it all felt not only superficial and toxic, but fucking unreal. So I got off of Facebook and send my final messages to my FB friends with my mailing address, encouraging them to send me theirs, and we’d keep in touch that way. Yes, because I was a naïve little birdie. I wrote actual, physical letters to all 36 of my real friends and family that I was friends with on Facebook, and I got one response—by text—it was my best friend, and she said:

Got your letter! XOXO

I did exchange letters with one other friend twice, but then she lost interest. Which brings me to my first lesson, boys and girls:

Try to get like-minded friends to disconnect with you.

This kind of trippy journey to the nineties within the 2020s is sometimes easier with other people. The shittiest gift given to us by social media and advertising and propaganda is the desire to “fit in”, to be like everyone else. That little addiction to approval can fuck us when we’re trying to change our lives.

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.”

—Mark Twain

Unfortunately what we’ve got right now is is a world population full of human robots walking around staring at little black boxes wishing that they just didn’t have to hold them, wanting to merge with these evil things, to become a techno-human perversion of sorts. That is the majority, and I want you to step away from it with me. Bring your friends.

Do your research to find out how to live

Watch movies from before 2000 to see how people lived before the rise of the machines. Even if you’re old enough to remember it, watch the movies, so you can see it in action. Yes I am asking you to binge watch movies to disconnect, but it’s a means to an end, and no streaming is necessary. No, streaming isn’t the only way to watch movies. Get yourself a DVD player or hook up a desktop computer to your TV and go to the library to grab whatever you want, for free. You can get new releases, shows and more and you can usually take out like 20 DVDs at a time. You can also buy DVDs at thrift store.

I am not saying that you must roll the clock back to the time of churning butter and petticoats, people, just bring it back like 30 years. Enough to gain clarity, to really connect with people, and to take back control of your data (as much as you can), your thoughts, and your body. I guarantee you that you can find a way to do everything you do now when you’re  disconnected. Did you know that the national weather service has a number in every town and region that you can call for daily weather? You can also get free city maps at the library, the Chamber of commerce, and AAA. You can go out with your friends and go flirt with someone instead of swiping right. Most banks have text banking, where you can text to get your balance and transactions, or you can just use a desktop. This brings us to a good point, though. How much do you have to disconnect to keep your sanity, individuality and thoughts intact? What is necessary? Do tablets count?

Most of us can’t  escape completely. So then what?

I work in website design for a living. I don’t really have another viable option, that’s it. It what keeps food on the table. I work on the computer for 3-7 hours a day, seven days a week. I communicate with my clients via email on my desktop. Disconnecting from smart devices is going to be different for those people that are required by work to use a smart phone. I know some people that leave their smartphones at work when they aren’t there and just have dumb phones at home.

I am sure that everyone can come up with a reason that they “need” their smartphone (“But what about my meditation app?!!!”), but you don’t need a smartphone to check email, meditate, work out, count calories, or learn a new language. You also don’t need a smartphone to text, take pictures, listen to music, or get directions. In fact, my Light phone (I know I have mentioned this phone before, but I am not affiliated with them-I just love my phone) has internet-powered directions and a music player.

Likewise, you don’t need social media to make new friends, find things to do, keep in touch with friends and family, share ridiculous memes, or learn about the latest conspiracy theory. All of these things are available to you in real day to day life, new experiences, regular email, and old faithful, the regular old world wide webs. You also don’t need social media to get compliments—just head out to work, the grocery store, or errands without a smartphone to use as a social crutch, and you’ll find that you wind up having friendly conversations and cool interactions with people way more often.

For the same reasons you don’t need smartphones and social media, you sure as hell don’t need Alexa or Siri or “Hey, Google”. Just try to defend the use of those robots and all you have to do is listen to yourself to know you’re full of shit. It’s okay, though, we are all full of shit. But it’s time to start getting rid of all of these technological umbilical cords attaching us to Big Daddy.

We don’t want to have to lift a finger or come up with a creative or original thought—we want a “life butler”. Just plug me in and beam me up, because I’m done living. This is the Matrix. This is the zombie apocalypse. This is what all those movies and prophetic books told us would happen, but we took it too literally. Just because we’re not eating human flesh doesn’t mean we’re not zombies. What happens when they’re able to ditch the goggles and implant mixed-reality capabilities into your brain? Elon Musk’s evil corporation, Neuralink, already implanted a chip in a human that allowed them to use a computer with their brain, so you know mixed-reality implants aren’t far away. And then we really are living in the Matrix. And the rich, as always, will feed upon the poor. They will rape the earth of its resources and use the billions they make off us to colonize other planets, to create bunkers for the other ultra-rich. Black Mirror is now. We all need to disconnect from this tech (smart phones, social media, and smart devices) that has taken over our lives and our brains, because there’s no other option. It’s too late to have an Unplugging Weekend. We need to unplug indefinitely.