words Garrett Millerick
The subject of tech billionaires is getting a lot of airtime of late. And I get asked my opinion of the subject more than is reasonable. I’m not an expert in politics, or economics and I have about as much understanding of how tech actually functions as my dog does of weather cycles. I’m just a comedian, and I like to find ridiculous things to talk about on stage. Last year I made a show where I posited the comedic idea that these Silicon Valley titans are the literal representation of the holy trinity as taught to me in Sunday school. With Musk as God, Bezos as Jesus and Steve Jobs as the Holy Ghost. Which back when I first sketched the idea out a few years ago seemed like a nice and silly jumping off point for a bit of fun. But as the show developed, time moved on, and events overtook us somewhat. And whilst I don’t think the exact analysis offered in the show stands up to academic scrutiny, there is something that increasingly rings true about the comparison and it’s slightly unsettling.
They may not be claiming to be be the literal representation of the holy trinity, but there’s something in the way these tech titans have begun styling themselves that calls to mind the emperors of ancient Rome. However, the imperial cult had a clever safety valve thrown into the mix, the Auriga. A lowly slave tasked with a simple but important role to play. To follow the triumphant Emperor, quietly whispering into their ear ‘Memento Mori’… Remember you are mortal. An unquestionably elegant solution to grounding your errant demi gods, but is it applicable in our age? To answer that, we must first accept that average tech bro occupies a position well beyond the dreams of a Caesar…
You’ve got the more obvious stuff; the control of media, the political connections, the desire for mastery of the heavens, the rallies, the salutes and the armies of acolytes that they command. But beneath all that there’s something else, something that does actually line up with some of the simple ideas I was fed from a young age about what my relationship with the almighty was… ‘God sees everything you do, God is with you all the time, God knows you better than you know yourself, God acts in mysterious ways, trust your soul to the lord. Etc’. Yep. That all checks out.
Because these people live in my pocket. Literally. The icons are there staring up at me, placed prominently in front of the family photo I keep as a lock screen. Each billionaire represented by a different app. Right there on my all-seeing phone and, however uneasy I may feel about that, I can’t seem to put my phone down.
I’ve tried to divorce myself from this infernal little device. I suspect it’s making me ill, I know for certain it’s making me unhappy. We both bear the scars of our dysfunctional and abusive relationship, it has a cracked screen from when I threw it at a wall in frustration, and I am no longer able to function as a useful adult without it’s help. Before we met, I could do all sorts of simple tasks without assistance. I could read a map for instance. I had a relatively well-developed understanding of the basic principles of right and wrong without having to consult social media, and I could remember almost four complete phone numbers. But alas, no more. I’m utterly and hopelessly addicted to it. I checked it four times whilst writing that last paragraph. And I apologise if the flow of this article is slightly disjointed, but there’s little either of us can do about that. No doubt you understand, you’re likely reading this on your phone whilst avoiding doing something more useful and pressing. So, what can we do to free ourselves from this situation? Sadly, it’s actually more complicated that it seems…
A few years ago, I gave up drinking alcohol, which is a fairly tricky thing to do. Anyone who has attempted to traverse the start of the year whilst engaging in the now ubiquitous festival of Dry January will have some idea of just how tricky it is. Alcohol is an intrinsic part of our culture, it’s everywhere you turn and fairly impossible to avoid. And that’s more than fair enough, people like it, things that people like tend to be everywhere; Taylor Swift, football or gossip for example.
The thing is though, if you are struggling with any of the traditional addictions, there are many ways you can seek out help. And you don’t need to drink, or smoke or gamble etc to function in society. But you do need a phone. Nobody is demanding that you show up to work pissed but try telling your boss you intend to navigate your professional life with nothing but a biro, a landline and a can-do attitude, you’ll likely get a stern look before being shown the door.
So how do we tackle the phones? Well, the first step to admitting you have a problem is to admit that you are powerless to control the affect your addiction has over you. I don’t think that’s a stretch in this case. Good, now onto step two… Step two is give yourself over to a higher power, whatever you understand that to mean. Here we run into difficulty because the phone is clearly the conduit of the higher power. Checkmate. Bugger.
Show me your Gods and I’ll show you who you are… Well, it seems I’ve taken all the old ‘Sunday school’ understandings of God and I’ve placed it firmly in the hands of a small collection of humans who rule the techno space. They know everything about me, indeed they know me better than I know myself, they answer my prayers with next day delivery, and they show me the way when I am lost. I feed them every piece of my mortal being through the church I keep in my pocket, every thought, every sin, every memory. They have every piece of my ‘being’ and now that ‘being’ exists off in a place somewhere, a place beyond my comprehension and understanding, it exists in a place called ‘The Cloud’, and I will live on… everlasting… in that Cloud… long after my mortal remains have returned, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. And my infinite eternity in the cloud will be shaped by my earthly deeds and actions. Fair play. Seems like that’s game set and match to the tech bros.
I guess, short of someone willing to have a good old fashioned ‘quiet word in someone’s ear’, we better just accept that the joke has got well out of hand. There’s nothing left to do but kneel and pray with all we’ve got left.
In the meantime, my new stand up special Just Trying to Help is available to stream wherever you get your Gods. It won’t fix the situation but it’s an hour where you don’t have to worry about anything. And you can’t say fairer than that.
Garrett Millerick’s comedy special Just Trying to Help – where he discusses many things, including the terrifying rise of the tech billionaire – is available to stream on 800 Pound Gorilla now:
https://800poundgorillamedia.com/products/garrett-millerick-just-trying-to-help
