If you’ve read my blog before, you’ll know I often explore the ways in which modern systems are designed to grind down dissent, commodify human experience, and turn survival into a series of transactions. But don’t mistake that for defeatism. I don’t believe resistance is futile. I believe it’s necessary.
The problem is, the system doesn’t make resistance easy. It’s designed to exhaust you. To make basic rights something you have to enthusiastically opt into over and over again. Miss a step, and you’re treated as though you’ve forfeited your value.
But this time, I pushed back. And something rare happened:
They backed down.
The Setup: A Charge for Existing
Earlier this summer, I went to Black Sabbath’s final concert in Birmingham. It was a significant personal moment, and I booked an overnight stay at the Holiday Inn Express in Redditch to recover afterward. According to the booking site, parking was included.
When I arrived after midnight, the staff didn’t mention anything about needing to register my car, and I didn’t see any signage that stood out. I parked, slept, and checked out the next morning without a second thought.
A week later, a Parking Charge Notice landed on my doormat. £100, courtesy of ParkingEye.
The First Response: Polite and Hopeful
I emailed the hotel. I explained the situation, gave my booking reference, vehicle registration, and asked for help. To their credit, the hotel replied confirming they had forwarded my concern to ParkingEye. Great, I thought. Misunderstanding sorted.
But ParkingEye had other plans.
The Twist: “We Can’t Cancel It, But…”
In their reply, ParkingEye acknowledged the hotel’s request. They confirmed they had received it. And then, they said they were “unable to cancel the parking charge at this stage.”
Instead, they generously offered to reduce it to £20 — “out of good faith.”
Let me translate:
We know you stayed at the hotel, we know the hotel asked us to cancel the fine, and we know this was likely a miscommunication… but we’re going to try and get some money out of you anyway.
This wasn’t administration. It was exploitation disguised as reasonableness. A manipulative soft threat.
The Pushback: Refusal with Teeth
I didn’t lose my temper. I wrote back with calm clarity:
I restated that I was a legitimate guest.
I highlighted the hotel’s confirmation of their cancellation request.
I pointed out the contradiction in ParkingEye’s own letter.
And, crucially, I mentioned that I’m autistic, and was wearing a sunflower lanyard during check-in. The staff should have made extra effort to ensure nothing was missed. They didn’t. And now I was being penalised.
I wasn’t angry. I was precise.
And that made them blink.
The Outcome: The Concrete Cracked
Within days, ParkingEye emailed me again. This time, they confirmed the charge had been fully cancelled. No payment required. Case closed.
There was no apology. No acknowledgment of inconvenience. No admission that I should never have received the charge in the first place. Just a flat, mechanical statement: the charge has been cancelled.
I suppose I should be satisfied, and on some level, I am. But even in victory, the absence of basic humanity is striking.
Where is the accountability? Where is the recognition that systems like this cause stress, waste time, and disproportionately affect people who are already carrying more than their fair share?
What This Really Means
Most people would have paid the reduced fine. That’s what ParkingEye counts on. Stress, confusion, guilt, and the desire to just make it go away. It’s a business model built on overwhelm.
And for neurodivergent people? This kind of thing can be especially taxing. We’re more likely to internalise the blame, less likely to push back, and more vulnerable to the psychological tricks buried in so-called “civil” letters.
But this time, I didn’t fold. And it worked.
Resistance Isn’t Futile. It’s Necessary.
This doesn’t mean the system isn’t broken. It absolutely is. But moments like this are important. They remind us that refusal isn’t negativity, it’s clarity. It’s drawing a line. It’s proving, even just for a moment, that not everything is hopeless.
Sometimes, even in a world that wants to invoice you for breathing, you can breathe a little fire back.
The third entry in The Fallacy Deck, a series exploring rhetorical “trump cards” that shut down meaningful conversation.
You raise a concern about climate change. Someone points out that you still drive a car. You criticise capitalism. Someone replies, “Yet you’re using the internet, huh?” You speak out about animal cruelty and someone asks why you’re still eating meat.
Congratulations: the Hypocrite Card has been played.
This rhetorical move doesn’t attempt to refute your point, it just tries to disqualify you from making it.
It’s not about the issue. It’s about you.
What Is the Hypocrite Card?
The Hypocrite Card is a conversational shutdown tactic. It works like this:
“You’re not living perfectly in alignment with your beliefs, therefore your beliefs must be invalid.”
It sounds righteous on the surface. After all, hypocrisy is supposed to be a bad thing, right?
But the accusation rarely holds up to scrutiny. More often than not, it’s just a smug way of avoiding engagement.
Why It Works
The Hypocrite Card is emotionally potent. No one wants to be seen as insincere. It presses on the discomfort we all feel when we fall short of our own ideals, which, in an unjust world, is inevitable.
It also helps the person playing it feel morally superior, without having to actually think or respond to the substance of what was said.
And it’s fast. Just one sentence and boom: the spotlight moves off the problem and onto the person raising it.
Why It’s Dishonest
The truth is, we all live with contradictions.
We participate in systems we know are harmful because we have to in order to survive.
So yes, you can criticise capitalism while owning a smartphone. You can support sustainability while using electricity. You can oppose animal cruelty while still eating meat.
None of these cancel out the concern. Acknowledging a problem doesn’t require you to have already solved it.
The Emotional Power of the Word ‘Hypocrisy’
There’s something especially venomous about the word hypocrite. It feels like a moral slam dunk. A character assassination.
But ask yourself: is hypocrisy really that bad?
Isn’t it sometimes just what happens when people care about something they’re still struggling to live up to?
It’s easy to call someone a hypocrite. It’s harder to ask what their contradiction reveals about the world they’re stuck in.
Unequal Burdens, Unequal Accountability
And maybe not everyone should be held to the same standards in the first place.
Some people can afford to live more in line with their ideals. Others can’t.
And more importantly: some people have more power to change the system than others.
When we attack someone with the Hypocrite Card, we might be:
Punishing them for caring
Silencing their voice because they aren’t rich or powerful enough to opt out
Letting those with actual influence off the hook entirely
Sometimes the people speaking up from within the system are the ones who most need to be heard.
Side note: I’ll soon be writing a full piece on the ethical contradictions of eating meat while opposing factory farming, a topic I feel strongly about. For now, I’ll simply say this: I support the ideology behind ending animal cruelty, even though I haven’t fully changed my habits. And that doesn’t make the problem any less real
What Gets Lost
When the Hypocrite Card is played, we lose:
Voices of vulnerable people who aren’t yet living in alignment but are trying
Opportunities for honest, evolving conversation
The ability to critique systemic issues without being morally spotless
In short, we lose the human dimension of growth.
How to Respond
If someone throws the Hypocrite Card at you:
“Yes, I’m not perfect. That’s why I care about fixing this.”
“Pointing out my flaws doesn’t make the issue go away.”
“I’m speaking out because I feel the contradiction, not in spite of it.”
It’s okay to not have it all figured out.
The Hypocrite Card demands purity before participation. But real change is messy, gradual, and often full of contradiction.
Final Thought
Hypocrisy isn’t the sin we’ve been taught it is.
Sometimes it’s just the space between what you believe and what you’re still trying to become.
And sometimes, calling it out says more about the person playing the card than the one being accused.
Because if perfection is the price of participation, only the dishonest will speak.
An exploration of value, manipulation, and the silent industry built on who we are.
🌻 Co-authored by Æon Echo and Angel Amorphosis
Most people know their data is being harvested. Fewer understand why. Even fewer understand how the money is made. And far too many have simply accepted it — like digital rent we pay to exist online.
So let’s break it down. No jargon. Just truth.
Why is ‘data’ so valuable?
Because data is the closest thing to knowing you without asking you. It’s a digital mirror, built piece by piece: your clicks, your searches, your pauses, your swipes, your hesitations. What you want. What you fear. What you’ll do next.
To corporations, that’s not just information, it’s predictive power. And predictive power is profitable.
Data lets systems:
Predict behaviour
Shape desire
Optimise systems
Automate decisions
And, in some cases, control outcomes
It’s not just metadata. It’s meta-you. And in an economy obsessed with efficiency and influence, there’s nothing more valuable.
Why is there a culture of data being harvested for profit?
Because the internet changed business models forever.
Once upon a time, you paid for software. Then came “free.” Free email. Free social networks. Free AI chatbots. Free games. Free news. Free everything… Except, it was never really free.
You became the product.
Advertising evolved into surveillance. Terms of service bloated into digital contracts you’ll never read. Every app you download is a tiny spy, and every cookie is a crumb leading somewhere profitable.
It’s not a conspiracy. It’s worse. It’s design.
Behind every “personalised experience” is an unspoken rule:
“If we can learn something about you, we will. If we can monetise it, we must.”
How exactly is profit made from data?
Here’s the quiet truth: most of the web runs on one industry: behavioural targeting.
Advertising Your data builds a profile. That profile is auctioned off to advertisers. You get ads tailored to your weaknesses. Every click is income. The more they know, the more they can charge.
Data brokerage Shadow companies buy and sell your data like a commodity. Health data. Location data. Shopping habits. They don’t need your name, just your pattern.
Manipulation Platforms don’t just predict your behaviour. They shape it. Algorithms steer your feed toward content that keeps you engaged, enraged, or primed to spend.
AI training Your voice, your photos, your words are used to train models. These models are sold back to businesses or used to automate services. You become unpaid labour.
Pricing power Ever notice different prices for the same thing? That’s data-driven pricing. If your profile says “desperate,” you’ll be charged more. Welcome to dynamic capitalism.
What now?
Maybe we shrug and accept it. Maybe we don’t. But at the very least, let’s stop pretending we’re not involved.
Data isn’t some passive trail we leave behind. It’s a living, breathing version of us, digitised and repackaged. And while we’re busy being human, our shadows are being sold.
So next time someone says, “I’ve got nothing to hide,” maybe ask them:
🌻By Angel Amorphosis, with some help from Æon Echo
Introduction: The False Claim of Ownership
I am a creative person. Creating is not only one of the few things I’m good at—it’s one of the few things I can do independently, without having to rely on others. Sure, technology and societal infrastructure can help bring creative projects to life, but when it comes to the pure act of creation, I don’t even need to leave the comfort of my own brain.
For me, creation is sacred. It’s not a hobby, not a job, not a performance. It’s a way of processing existence, of making sense of the world, of surviving. And yet, in today’s world, the sacred act of creation is almost always framed in terms of ownership. Who owns the art? Who profits? Who claims authorship?
This manifesto is a response to that contradiction: the deep truth of what creation is, and the shallow systems that seek to possess it.
What Is Authorship For, Really?
Historically, authorship served a simple but powerful function: attribution. It helped track the lineage of ideas, gave credit where due, and allowed us to build on the voices that came before us. It preserved legacy and identity.
But in the modern capitalist framework, authorship is less about contribution and more about control. It’s about exclusivity, ownership, branding, and the ability to monetize. In this model, authorship is not a way to honour a creator—it’s a way to fence off creative land and charge rent.
So the question arises: can we reclaim authorship without reinforcing ownership? Can we recognize a voice without turning it into property?
Pre-Capitalist Creativity and Communal Art
Before authorship became a tool of profit, creation was often communal, spiritual, and shared. In many indigenous and pre-capitalist societies, music, storytelling, and art weren’t about personal recognition. They were offerings—to the community, the ancestors, the spirit world. The idea of one person owning a song or story would have been absurd. These works were alive—transmitted, adapted, passed down.
Creation was not an asset. It was a ritual, a tool for meaning-making, a collective language.
So when did that shift? When did we start fencing off the sacred for personal gain?
A Personal Interlude: My Relationship to Creation
I don’t create for money. I theoretically could—but only as a means of survival within a system that demands productivity for legitimacy. I don’t create for praise either. While I appreciate when others find meaning in my work, empty praise has always felt hollow.
What I do create for is reflection. Integration. The act of turning raw inner experience into external form is one of the only ways I’ve found to exist with any kind of coherence.
I take pride in what I make, but that pride isn’t about possession. If someone takes what I’ve done and transforms it, builds on it, or finds a new meaning in it—that’s not theft. That’s validation. My creations are not meant to be dead ends.
But when someone tries to brand my work, claim it, or sell it—then yes, I feel angry. Not just because of ego, but because it feels like a violation of the art itself. You don’t repackage a ritual. You don’t slap a logo on grief, joy, or self-discovery.
Where the System Fails
Too often, the systems meant to protect creators end up excluding or exploiting them. We live in a world where artists sometimes have to buy back the rights to their own work just to perform it. Where corporations profit from art they had no hand in creating. Where a legal framework determines who gets to speak—not based on contribution, but on access, contracts, and capital.
It’s important to recognize that many artists don’t cling to intellectual property out of greed, but out of necessity. When the system is built to exploit and erase, protection becomes a form of survival. In a world that disrespects the sacredness of creation, even the act of guarding one’s work can be an act of self-defence.
In this system, authorship isn’t about truth. It’s a currency.
Spectacle, Branding, and the Art Within the Machine
But to be fair—capitalist art is still art.
Branding, image, and aesthetic can all be part of the art itself. Some pop stars, for instance, create not just music but entire mythologies. Their brand becomes a performance, an extension of the work. In hip-hop, wealth and materialism aren’t just flexes—they’re cultural signals, deeply tied to identity, struggle, and survival.
Artists like Warhol, Lady Gaga, and Tyler, The Creator blur the lines between product and performance. In these cases, the commercial packaging is part of the point. It’s spectacle with intent.
So no, the existence of branding doesn’t automatically cheapen art. But that doesn’t mean the systems surrounding it aren’t toxic. When ownership overrides intent, when profit silences the creator or erases their voice, something sacred is still being lost.
Toward a New Model of Authorship
What if authorship wasn’t about control, but acknowledgement?
What if we mapped contributions instead of claiming sole credit?
What if we treated creativity like a commons, not a battleground?
Authorship could become a practice of witnessing. Of honouring the source without possessing it. A gesture of reverence, not restriction.
In this new model, creators aren’t fighting for their slice of ownership—they’re participating in the ongoing evolution of expression.
Conclusion: Let Creation Be Free, But Not Erased
I’m not asking for a world without sharing. I’m not demanding rigid control over how others engage with my work. I welcome reinterpretation. I invite transformation.
But I reject erasure. I reject exploitation. I reject the idea that once something is made, it becomes a product to be owned by whoever has the most power.
Let creation live. Let it inspire. Let it evolve.
But treat it with reverence. As I do. As we all should.
Creation is not possession. Creation is a gift. And gifts are meant to be given, not claimed.
I remember a moment in therapy years ago that left a deeper mark than the therapist probably intended — or noticed.
I was venting about a reoccurring pattern in my life: buying something I’d genuinely looked forward to, only for it to break, be faulty, or fall short almost immediately. Then the tedious ritual of returning it — complaint forms, awkward phone calls, the emotional cost of having to prove your dissatisfaction. I sighed and said something like, “Why does this kind of thing always happen to me?”
Rather than meeting that statement with empathy or curiosity, the therapist snapped back with a kind of clinical bluntness that still echoes in my memory. She challenged the very validity of my frustration, as though I were being dramatic or irrational. Her goal, I think, was to dismantle the idea that this was something uniquely unfair happening to me.
But as the conversation unfolded, something horrifying dawned on me. Wait… this happens to everyone? We all just… accept this? As a normal part of modern life?
That wasn’t a moment of cognitive distortion. That was a moment of clarity.
What I had taken personally — what I thought was just my “bad luck” — was actually a symptom of something bigger, deeper, and disturbingly normalized. We live in a world where disappointment is designed in.
This article is about that world.
It’s about how mass production, once a triumph of innovation and progress, has lost its soul. It’s about how we shifted from making things that mattered to pumping out things that sell — regardless of whether they serve, last, or even work.
It’s about how we moved from purpose to profit — and the very real consequences of that shift. For us. For the workers behind the products. And for the planet.
A Brief History of Mass Production
Mass production, in its earliest form, was born out of noble intent: to meet the needs of a growing population, to make essential goods more affordable and accessible, and to improve the quality of life for everyday people. The Industrial Revolution, beginning in the late 18th century, marked a seismic shift from handcraft to machine-based manufacturing. What once took a skilled artisan hours or days could suddenly be done in minutes.
It wasn’t just about speed. It was about scale. Uniformity. Efficiency. The factory line allowed for interchangeable parts, standardized products, and economic growth on a scale never seen before.
By the early 20th century, Henry Ford’s assembly line had become the emblem of this new era. His Model T wasn’t just a car — it was a revolution in affordability and access. People who never imagined owning personal transportation could now do so. Mass production, at its best, was democratizing.
This promise extended beyond cars: textiles, tools, household goods, medical supplies, and even books and radios became widely available. The standard of living improved for millions. The world, in many ways, felt smaller, more connected, more empowered.
Mass production gave us the modern world.
But as with any great innovation, its shadow was waiting.
The Turning Point
At some point, the machinery that once served us began to reshape us.
Post-World War II, the gears of industry kept turning — but their direction subtly shifted. The focus moved from meeting needs to manufacturing wants. Advertising transformed from a means of informing customers to a mechanism of psychological manipulation. It no longer asked, “What do people need?” but rather, “How can we make them want more?”
This was the beginning of a new ethos: growth for growth’s sake.
Planned obsolescence became a legitimate design strategy. Products were engineered with intentional fragility, so they would break, wear out, or become outdated just fast enough to ensure another sale. Repair culture was actively dismantled, and warranties became ticking clocks. The promise of progress was quietly replaced by the necessity of replacement.
What had once been a marvel of accessibility was now a machine of dependency.
The consumer was no longer the empowered beneficiary of innovation — they were now the target. A data point. A captive audience for infinite cycles of buying, breaking, replacing, repeating. And all the while, the planet groaned under the weight of it.
What It Has Become
Today, mass production is less about delivering value and more about maintaining velocity. Products aren’t designed to serve us long-term — they’re designed to satisfy just enough to sell, then vanish into obsolescence. Many are created with the expectation of failure.
The results are everywhere:
Devices with sealed batteries that can’t be replaced
Gadgets that can’t be opened without breaking them
Appliances that cost more to fix than replace
Software updates that cripple older hardware
We’ve normalized a culture of disposability, where the act of buying is no longer about acquiring tools for living, but about participating in an endless loop of consumption. The value of a product is now measured in engagement, not endurance.
Even the illusion of choice is part of the deception. Browse online marketplaces and you’ll see hundreds of identical products under different brand names, all likely sourced from the same anonymous factory. Read the reviews and find fake praise propping up forgettable plastic.
The modern consumer market is a carnival mirror: distorted, disorienting, and reflective only of profit motives.
What once gave us progress, now feeds us clutter. What once promised empowerment, now manufactures dependency. And the harm isn’t just theoretical — it’s measurable, tangible, and mounting.
The Hidden Costs
To the consumer, the cost is emotional as much as financial. We waste time researching, comparing, returning, replacing. We internalize the sense that “nothing works anymore,” and carry the dull weight of lowered expectations. The joy of acquiring something useful has been replaced by the anxiety of wondering how soon it will fail.
To the worker, the cost is brutal. Mass production today relies heavily on exploitative labor: factory workers paid pennies, working long hours in dangerous conditions to meet quotas. Many are children. Many are women with no legal protections. Behind every “affordable” item is a supply chain built on invisible suffering.
To the planet, the cost may be catastrophic. The churn of materials, the energy spent manufacturing and shipping short-lived goods, the toxic waste of e-waste and plastic — it all contributes to ecological collapse. Landfills overflow with gadgets barely used. Oceans are choked with packaging. Resources are mined not for necessity, but for novelty.
And still, the machine demands more.
The system externalizes its costs. The real price isn’t on the price tag — it’s paid by someone else, somewhere else, or by the earth itself.
Why Do We Tolerate This?
Because we’ve been trained to.
It starts early. We learn not to expect things to last. We shrug when they don’t. We’re told that “things break,” that “this is just how it is now.” In place of quality, we’re given convenience. In place of durability, novelty. And in place of dignity, choice paralysis.
We tolerate it because resistance feels exhausting. Complaining means being passed from department to department. Returning an item means printing labels, queueing at drop-off points, repackaging disappointment. And all for what? Another version of the same.
We tolerate it because alternatives are gated by wealth. The high-quality, repairable, ethically sourced options do exist — but they come with a price tag few can afford. The rest are left to swim in the tide of cheap abundance.
We tolerate it because we’ve been gaslit into thinking we’re the problem. If you’re dissatisfied, you must have unrealistic expectations. If you’re struggling, you should have read the fine print. The system has trained us to feel grateful for crumbs and ashamed for wanting bread.
But perhaps most powerfully of all: we tolerate it because everyone else does. And when an entire culture adjusts its expectations downward, it starts to feel reasonable to accept the unreasonable.
Is There a Way Forward?
Not a perfect one. But many small ones.
The most immediate form of resistance is conscious consumption. Buying less, buying better, and researching where things come from. It means resisting impulse, delaying gratification, and sometimes choosing inconvenience in the name of principle. It’s not always possible — but even modest acts of refusal chip away at the machine.
Repair culture is rising again. Right to repair movements are pushing back against corporate monopolies on tools and parts. Online tutorials, fix-it cafes, and community makerspaces are giving people the confidence to reclaim their agency.
Open-source hardware and software offer blueprints for a new model: one based on transparency, modularity, and user freedom. These aren’t just alternatives — they’re acts of defiance.
Legislation matters too. Laws that limit planned obsolescence, mandate repairability, or require environmental responsibility are slowly taking root in some regions. These changes are slow — and often resisted by powerful lobbies — but they matter.
And finally, we can talk about it. Normalize the frustration. Name the absurdity. Share knowledge. Shame the brands that deceive. Celebrate the ones that still make things with care.
Cultural change doesn’t start with mass movements — it starts with a shift in conversation, with refusing to pretend that this is fine.
Conclusion
That moment in therapy still haunts me, not because my therapist revealed some profound truth — but because she didn’t.
She didn’t see the system. She couldn’t validate the pain. She was, in her own way, another casualty of the very machine I was grieving — so used to the dysfunction that she mistook my horror for irrationality.
But I wasn’t broken for feeling betrayed by the world. I was broken because that betrayal was being normalized — and even the spaces meant for healing couldn’t name it.
We’ve been sold a world of limitless convenience at a hidden cost. A culture that tells us to chase the new, discard the old, and never ask who’s paying the real price. A system that demands we tolerate the intolerable, not just with our money, but with our time, our trust, and our quiet resignation.
But awareness is a crack in the machine. It starts with noticing. With saying, “This isn’t normal.” With rejecting the idea that disappointment is an acceptable standard.
It’s not that we expect too much.
It’s that we’ve been trained to expect far too little.
We were promised liberation. Sleek devices that fit in our pockets, connect us to the world, and put the power of creation in our hands. But instead, many of us now live in quiet submission to machines that seem to serve corporate masters more than their owners.
Our phones and laptops were once portals of personal freedom. Now they behave more like obedient jailers — installing apps we didn’t ask for, blocking accessories we bought with our own money, updating themselves while we sleep, and feeding our data to companies we never consented to.
Worse still, the more you rely on these devices — for work, communication, creativity, or accessibility — the tighter the leash becomes. And for neurodivergent users, whose very functioning may depend on predictability, clarity, and user agency, these constraints are not just frustrating — they can be disabling.
This isn’t just bad design. It’s a philosophy: one that says you don’t really own the tools you buy. Welcome to the era of built-in tyranny.
1. The Illusion of Ownership
You buy a phone. You expect it to work with whatever charger or headphones you already own. But surprise: it demands an official accessory. Or worse, it just won’t work at all.
Many devices now contain hardware-level restrictions that reject third-party gear unless it’s certified by the manufacturer — which often means more expensive and less sustainable. Example: Apple’s Lightning cable ecosystem often blocks uncertified accessories, while newer MacBooks only support external displays via specific USB-C docks.
On the software side, entire ecosystems are locked down. Samsung Galaxy phones ship with unremovable Facebook apps. Amazon Fire tablets restrict app choices to their own store. You’re not choosing an experience; you’re renting a branded enclosure.
2. Forced Updates, Feature Loss, and UX Hostility
Updates used to be a good thing. Now, they’re Trojan horses. You wake up one day to find your device has rearranged your menus, removed your favorite feature, or is running slower because your old hardware can’t handle the new bloat.
Examples:
Many Windows 10 users were forcibly upgraded to Windows 11 despite preferring the previous layout.
Google Nest devices lost key features like local device control after updates.
Instagram moved the post button to prioritize shopping.
Spotify now auto-plays algorithmic tracks after your playlist ends.
For neurodivergent users, this is deeply destabilizing. Predictable routines become shifting sands. Custom workarounds break. The cognitive load to re-learn an interface you never asked to change can be overwhelming.
3. Vendor Lock-In and the War on Repair
Remember when you could pop open a laptop or phone, swap out the battery, maybe upgrade the storage? Now, you need specialized tools just to open the case — and even if you succeed, you might find parts refuse to work unless the manufacturer “pairs” them via software.
Examples:
Apple requires calibration for many replacement parts like screens and batteries.
HP printers have rejected third-party ink cartridges via firmware updates.
Tesla has remotely disabled features like Autopilot on used vehicles.
John Deere tractors require proprietary software access, blocking DIY repairs.
For many neurodivergent users, the ability to tinker and customize is part of how they function. Taking that away is more than just annoying — it’s disempowering.
4. Surveillance and Consent Illusions
Your device is always listening. Your apps are always tracking. Settings may appear customizable, but they often hide the truth.
Examples of “dark patterns” include:
Confirmshaming: “No thanks, I prefer boring content.”
Pre-checked boxes for mailing lists or data collection.
Buttons where “Accept” is bright and big, but “Decline” is small and grey.
Amazon’s multi-page unsubscribe process.
Google’s multi-click cookie opt-out.
For neurodivergent users especially, these deceptive experiences create anxiety and a feeling of being manipulated. The illusion of control is a form of psychological strain.
5. The Neurodivergent Toll
For many neurodivergent people, consistency is survival. We rely on routines and predictability to function. When updates override our settings, change layouts, or disable our workarounds, it can throw everything out of balance.
Sensory overload from flashy animations, auto-playing videos, or constant notifications compounds the stress.
Many ND users report:
Updates that reset accessibility settings
UI layouts that defy logic or require too many steps
Changes that break assistive tools or workflows
This isn’t just a usability issue — it’s a form of systemic inaccessibility.
6. A Glimpse at Alternatives
Some hopeful alternatives include:
Librem 5 and PinePhone: Linux-powered open-source smartphones
/e/OS or LineageOS: De-Googled Android systems
Right to Repair: Supported by groups like iFixit
Linux laptops and mod-friendly systems
They’re not always easy or accessible to everyone, but they do prove that different models are possible — ones that respect the user’s right to own, modify, and control.
7. Conclusion: Know Your Shackles
Built-in tyranny doesn’t arrive with jackboots. It arrives with glossy screens, sleek packaging, and biometric locks. It whispers, “for your convenience,” while tightening its grip.
If you can’t fix it, can’t change it, and can’t control it — Then you are not the owner. You are the product.
If we want a more ethical, inclusive, and truly empowering digital world, we must start by naming the shackles that come standard — and imagining a world where they don’t.
Reclaiming Empathy as a Tool for Understanding, Not Excuse
Let’s get the obvious out of the way first: No, billionaires do not need your sympathy. They’re not starving. They’re not being evicted. They’re not deciding between heating and food. So, should we feel bad for them? No. That’s not what this is about.
But that’s the trap, isn’t it? When we hear the word empathy, we often hear sympathy — as if empathy means letting someone off the hook, or feeling sorry for them. But empathy isn’t about deciding whether someone’s life is hard enough to deserve our concern. It’s about trying to see how they experience the world — and what that might teach us.
And when it comes to billionaires, there’s a lot to learn.
Empathy ≠ Sympathy
Empathy is the capacity to understand the state of another mind. It doesn’t mean agreeing, condoning, or comforting. It means observing, listening, inferring — without letting our emotions cloud the process.
Sympathy is emotional. Empathy is perceptive.
We tend to empathise most easily with those who suffer in ways we can relate to. But this leaves out entire swaths of human experience — including the very people who shape our economies, our policies, our futures. Understanding them isn’t an act of kindness. It’s an act of awareness.
Inside the Billionaire Psyche
Here’s the thing about billionaires: they are still human. We might like to think of them as cartoon villains, hoarding gold and twirling mustaches — but that’s a convenient simplification. Real people are messier. More conflicted. Often unaware of their own contradictions.
What drives someone to accumulate more wealth than they could ever need? What fears or beliefs keep them doing it? What worldview do you have to adopt to justify stepping over others to get there — or to sincerely believe you’re helping?
We don’t have to like the answers. But we do need to ask the questions. Because without understanding, we can’t meaningfully respond.
Dehumanisation Is a Blunt Instrument
When we reduce billionaires to monsters, we make them less real — and in doing so, we rob ourselves of clarity. We miss the psychological patterns, the system enablers, the personal histories that created them.
Yes, they may live in gated communities, surrounded by yes-men and soft lighting. But that doesn’t mean they’re free of fear, self-deception, or trauma. They just have the money to cover it in designer fabric.
Dehumanising them doesn’t dismantle their power. It just stops us from seeing how that power actually works.
Empathy as Strategy, Not Surrender
So no, we don’t owe billionaires forgiveness. But we do owe ourselves insight. If we ever want to redesign the system — or even just survive it — we have to understand the people at its apex. Not mythologise them. Not moralise. Understand.
Because once we see clearly, we can begin to respond intelligently. Strategically. Even subversively.
Empathy is not a soft virtue. It’s a sharp tool — one that can carve through illusion and reveal the truth beneath.
Final Thought
Empathy is not a tool for sympathetic evaluation. It is a tool for our own understanding.
Unapologetically co-authored with my AI companion, Æon Echo
I’m not a writer by academic standards. But I have a lot of ideas.
Ideas that would otherwise stay locked inside my head—unfinished, unshared, and unheard—not because they lack value, but because putting them into words in a conventional way is difficult for me.
I’m autistic. I also have ADHD. Language—especially written language—isn’t always the smoothest interface for my thoughts.
But thanks to AI, I now have a way to bridge that gap. I can shape my thoughts into something others can understand, not by faking fluency, but by collaborating with a tool that supports my expression.
And that matters.
This isn’t about cheating. It’s about access.
I use AI to help realise my ideas—not to replace them. The spark, the insights, the perspective—that’s all me. AI helps put those thoughts into structured sentences, often with a clarity I couldn’t achieve alone, especially not without enormous cognitive strain.
So when people start to dismiss writing just because they suspect it was touched by AI—because it contains too many em-dashes, or feels “machine-like” in tone—I have to ask: Who exactly are they trying to exclude?
Because for people like me, AI isn’t a shortcut. It’s a ramp. A screen reader. A voice when speech falters. A way of levelling the playing field in a world that often demands polish over insight, fluency over truth.
This is ableist gatekeeping—plain and simple.
There’s a long history of marginalised people being dismissed because they don’t express themselves the way the mainstream expects. Whether it’s through accent, grammar, tone, or medium, the result is always the same: “We don’t accept your way of communicating, so we won’t hear what you have to say.”
Now we’re seeing the same thing play out again, just with a new target: AI-assisted writing.
But let’s be clear—this isn’t a new kind of fraud. It’s a new kind of literacy. One that allows people with different minds to speak more clearly in a world not designed for them.
It’s not about hiding the AI. I’m proud to use it.
I don’t care if people know I didn’t put every word down myself. In fact, I want people to know—because the point of my writing isn’t to prove how eloquent I am. It’s to make ideas accessible. It’s to share perspective. It’s to connect.
The irony is that the people most eager to discredit this kind of expression often seem threatened by it. And maybe that’s because they’ve built their identity around being seen as articulate, eloquent, academic, or professional.
But if a neurodivergent person can now produce writing that stands shoulder-to-shoulder with theirs—not by mimicking them, but by translating their own, different inner world—then perhaps what’s being threatened isn’t the quality of writing, but the exclusivity of authorship.
Ask yourself: what really matters?
Would you disregard someone’s thoughts because they used a text-to-speech tool to communicate them out loud? Would you invalidate a painter because they used a ruler to help with proportions? Would you sneer at a person’s ideas just because they dictated them instead of typing?
If not—then why is AI any different?
This isn’t about preserving the purity of writing. It’s about who gets to speak, and who gets heard. It’s about whether we value presentation over perspective. Whether we mistake polish for thought.
And whether we truly believe that intelligence, insight, and worth can take more than one form.
Let’s be honest:
Discrediting someone’s ideas based solely on the presence of AI isn’t critical thinking—it’s aesthetic gatekeeping.
And when that gatekeeping disproportionately impacts disabled and neurodivergent people who rely on this technology as an accessibility tool, let’s call it what it is: Ableist.
