A Response

The essay below is a response to an article titled, Are Neighborhood Watch Apps Making Us Safer? To read the original article, please click here.

Reading or watching the news, I am left with the impression that we live in a golden age of technology with advancements made every day. There always seems to be some new app, service, or piece of hardware on the market intended to make our lives easier and help us connect with the people and things that matter most. Without almost any exception, these advances occur without consideration of the unintended consequences.

In my lifetime, I have experienced the emergence of social media. I have also witnessed these tools become gathering places for racist, xenophobic, and/or homophobic ideas. Horrified, I have watched as disinformation, lies, and conspiracies spread like wildfire on these sites.

In my lifetime, I have seen the service economy explode via food delivery, rideshare, and task-centered work without consideration of a living wage and labor protections.

In pursuit of increasing the bottom line, we are now living through an economic shift. For jobs lost to automation, I fear we are merely standing on the starting line.

Since the birth of the industrial revolution, we have slowly created an environment that is becoming unlivable. Why? Ramifications be damned. Our lives must…