Dave Eggers

“I just want to talk with you directly. Without you bringing in every other stranger in the world who might have an opinion about me.”

worse, you’re not doing anything interesting anymore. You’re not seeing anything, saying anything. The weird paradox is that you think you’re at the center of things, and that makes your opinions more valuable, but you yourself are becoming less vibrant. I bet you haven’t done anything offscreen in months. Have you?”

think you think that sitting at your desk, frowning and smiling somehow makes you think you’re actually living some fascinating life. You comment on things, and that substitutes for doing them. You look at pictures of Nepal, push a smile button, and you think that’s the same as going there. I mean, what would happen if you actually went?

Here’s the thing, and it’s painful to say this to you. But you’re not very interesting anymore. You sit at a desk twelve hours a day and you have nothing to show for it except for some numbers that won’t exist or be remembered in a week. You’re leaving no evidence that you lived. There’s no proof.

Surveillance shouldn’t be the tradeoff for any goddamn service we get.

Surveillance shouldn’t be the tradeoff for any goddamn service we get.

If things continue this way, there will be two societies—or at least I hope there will be two—the one you’re helping create, and an alternative to it. You and your ilk will live, willingly, joyfully, under constant surveillance, watching each other always, commenting on each other, voting and liking and disliking each other, smiling and frowning, and otherwise doing nothing much else

I expect this is some second great schism, where two humanities will live, apart but parallel. There will be those who live under the surveillance dome you’re helping to create, and those who live, or try to live, apart from it. I’m scared to death for us all.

Knowledge is property and no one can own it. Infocommunism.

But who wants to be watched all the time?”

“I do. I want to be seen. I want proof I existed.”

“Mae.”

“Most people do. Most people would trade everything they know, everyone they know—they’d trade it all to know they’ve been seen, and acknowledged, that they might even be remembered. We all know we die. We all know the world is too big for us to be significant. So all we have is the hope of being seen, or heard, even for a moment.”

The world deserved nothing less and would not wait