Opus 2021-193: Maybe Not Extreme Mennonite

I suggested in a previous post that we might all need to go extreme Mennonite.  Groups like the Amish have rejected much of modern technology and effectively withdrawn from addiction to planned obsolescence.  Maybe we don’t need to go all the way.  There may be a way to just go simi-Min.

Put aside the political decay for a minute.  Let’s look at the damage being done by technology.  If we want our freedom preserved we are going to need to liberate ourselves from the invasive nature of digital life.

We should go back to stand alone devices without wifi.  I know that most of the things I want to protect, I was doing before I had internet.  Remember those days?  Remember CP/M?  It did everything I really need to do except e-mail and e-mail was not a factor then.  I can do word processing and spread sheets on dedicated machines for that purpose.  Some games could be isolated.  If you needed the thrill of group games then it could be over specialized routes, and who would want to waste the time to hack your game?  If they did it would not allow them to steal your identity or empty your bank accounts.  In fact, it might be part of the challenge.  Not so true of my finances and writing.  

E-mail can be done from another stand alone station.  

We could develop one way protocols.  That way you could do your actual work on the word processor and transfer it to the E-mail device for sending out.  If all it did was send and receive text and pictures then there would be little to gain by hackers.

We might actually be forced to go back to in-person banking.  It would not kill us.  It might slow down the process.  It would have its own class of challenges but would not involve compromising all of our private information.

There are things that could be done.  The main barrier is our laziness.  We have gotten used to things being quick and easy.  I remember once someone saying that most tasks have three elements:  Speed, cost and quality.  The problem is that you can only have two of the three.  If we want to keep the government out of our business we may need to give up some of the speed involved.

homo unius libri