So, you’re saying you want to go? I hear you – but wait. If you were a person, I’d write you a letter with a real pen, in real ink and on a real piece of paper. And I’d ask you to at least read it through to the end and listen to what I have to say before you go. However, I suspect that you’re not a person,
“No taxation without representation” was the battle cry that eventually led to the United States independence from its British motherland back in 1776, sometimes also rendered as “Taxation without representation is tyranny”. It was complemented by the times’ enlightened thinkers’ belief that human beings are capable of rational decision making, sometimes even abstracting from their most immediate needs and wants in favour of some common good. A consequence of this double conviction – similarly enacted in other revolutionary movements in various places and times – was the emergence of the modern state as the main form of organising our ways of living together.
Today, the state is in crisis[1].
We live in digital times. Our universe is suffused with digital devices, digital communications, and global ideologies constructed from and around digital structures – physical, virtual, and intellectual. We can’t help but be permeated by this digital space in all its forms and formats, from the finest dust particles in our pockets clogging our smartphone’s power jacks to the vast and all-encompassing data clouds containing our memories, plans and projects, and current locations. Some say this pervasive presence of the digital takes us away from our true potential as human beings, destroying our jobs, scattering our attention, confusing our minds; some say it can help us to get closer to what we can be,
