Sylvia's Journal

I recently finished a book about particle entanglements (The Age of Entanglements by Louisa Gilder). I didn’t understand anything about the physics part, but I loved reading about the lives of these young scientists in pre-war Germany and their amazing intellect. I am always drawn to the articles about particle mechanics and particle dynamics in our weekly New Scientist, even though I don’t understand next to nothing about the topic. I am intrigued by Schrödinger’s cat (dead and alive at the same time) and the idea of multiple universes.  I also love novels about metaverses (the Midnight Library by Matt Haig and Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore).  It’s just that the entanglements and multiple realities resonate with me because I am living in a time of undeniable entanglements and multiple realities (cultures, perspectives). That is, I believe, the draw.

The most problematic entanglements that I experience at this moment are with the companies that order and organize my life. There is Amazon. Axel and I are paying Mr. Bezos an annual fee to be part of his clever ‘Prime’ scheme. It is seductive because we get to read each other’s books and listen to each other’s audiobooks. Not that we do that a lot – we have very different tastes – but it nice to know that we can.

Our two daughters have always disapproved of us trusting an Amazon AI device (Alexa) that let us turn things on and off with a simple voice command (“Alexa, good night). They say our trust in AI from large companies (Amazon, Facebook, Google) is misplaced. And they are probably right. 

But how to disentangle ourselves without moving off the grid? Our libraries, work documents and communication channels are all controlled by these three companies. 

I got a taste of our entanglement with Amazon yesterday.  I decided back in July that there was no point in paying two Prime memberships and canceled mine which ended yesterday. Alexa promptly stopped following our commands. Instead, she proposed an action that we didn’t ask for. It may not be a very serious consequence (which our daughters will probably rejoice in) but who knows what is to follow?

A couple we are doing a home exchange with refused to connect on WhatsApp (“it’s evil”). I had already canceled all my social media over a year ago (no sense of loss there), however WhatsApp, owned by Facebook, is an important communication tool to stay in touch with friends and coaching clients faraway. It serves as a backup when my client’s electricity goes out in the middle of a coaching conversation. I know there are alternatives like Signal, but it will take a lot of effort to convince my network to switch (it may not even be available to them). And what if it that still idealistic company gets absorbed by another evil company?

Many of these companies start out with a lofty mission statement about making the world a better place through technology. But then they get rich, and greed takes over. The ramp goes up, and if it ever goes down, lots of people are dragged down because they got, well, tangled up in the mess.

We will find out in the next couple of days what other fallout there is from my attempt to disentangle, from Amazon, which is only partial because it still stores my books and sells stuff I want, and Axel still has his Prime membership. 

I can’t even begin to think about my entanglement with Google because it is massive and scary. There are more entanglements with smaller companies who have my username and passwords (some used and re-used at other sites). From time to time, I get a warning that they are invaded by dark forces – many of those sites I don’t even use anymore, but I am still entangled with them. Cleaning that mess up will take time I would like to spend otherwise.

On the positive side, I am entangled with my family and friends, many of which have come to support our Afghan adopted daughter and shower her with gifts.