No Billionaires Klub

(bumper stickers avail for purchase $5)

It's so fascinating how over the last 15 years we've gone from fun to oppression with our social digital ecosystem. So, according to OXFAM:

"Billionaire wealth surges by $2 trillion in 2024, three times faster than the year before, while the number of people living in poverty has barely changed since 1990'

The report shows the disturbing exponential growth in inequality while the 2025 billionaires top 10 list is composed of 70% tech titans. The disturbing reality is as AI is unleashed at a rabid unfettered or regulated pace, this trend will only accelerate. How could it not? An even deeper concern is the priority of the top tech companies to divert funds into privatized military defense systems/weapons (also, like Palantir we have our eyes on you) and media outlets. I'm especially curious why people like Jeff Bezos, Laurene Powell Jobs and Marc Benioff are buying outlets such as The Washington Post, Time Magazine and The Atlantic. They claim a desire to preserve these pillars of democracy while also building global power unseen ever before with systems of social engagement that actively erode that democracy. Perhaps they have a glimmer of guilt and humanity? Either way, it's futile in the face of algorithmic curated feeds, partisan media and accelerated digital distribution of unvetted or false information (disinformation).

AI is by no means a bad thing. It's absolutely amazing and can do great things but without ethical governance or democratic shaping of interaction and creation, it will most likely do catastrophic things. So, looking at these top billionaires and how they are positioning themselves, consolidating power and wealth, globalizing an economy exploiting concepts of borders and currency, and dipping their hands all into our government and global defense and surveillance technologies... you can't help but ask yourself... do I really need that USB cord to arrive at my doorstep overnight? Look, I know it's convenient I get it. I subscribed and supported and sadly helped build this global tech oligarchy we see today... BUT we can make a significant impact right now by quitting these services. And honestly, these services have pretty much made our lives objectively worse. We now work harder for less money, kids are proven to hate their bodies and lives, people believe the earth is flat, everything costs more and jobs are disappearing.

So, I cancelled all my Meta apps. You don't really need Instagram. You are a business? you don't even get reach anymore with Instagram you are just giving them content and data to sell, feed their AI that will probably take your job and build more underground island bunkers for Mark Zuckerberg. You don't need Facebook. Friends out of the country? Connect on Signal, write your loved one a letter or send an email with photos. Show intention. Google is harder to phase out but you can definitely dramatically reduce usage: use Proton instead of Google for email, drive/file sharing, Brave is a great browser + search engine in beta or duckduckgo search engine (I can't figure out a Youtube replacement) and instead of google maps I try to use Apple Maps (what you thought I was going to say Mapquest?)

I cancelled Spotify and bought an ipod 3 nano from ebay (which is giving BRAT) and a local library in a Plex account or you can use Tidal to stream, I never bought a Tesla and definitely don't use "X", I painfully cancelled Amazon and I never fell into TikTok but I know everyone loves it... perhaps Pinterest for now instead?? Support a preferred established media outlet that is credible... LISTEN, you don't have to do everything 100% but any reduction of your data or money to these BILLIONAIRES will get you into the NO BILLIONAIRES KLUB and you should get a bumper sticker ;)

The end result of my actions in radically changing my personal digital ecosystem (I'm just getting started, I will start building novel things soon) and cancelling my subscriptions, have been MORE FUN. I literally enjoy life more already. I reach out to people with intention. I subscribe to community newsletters or a substack from a established person I choose to view. I got to places to be with community and build it authentically. I cherish my memories and am present rather than obsessed with dumping it into a passive system of parasocial realities. There is a whole big creative and amazing world of society and technology we can still innovate and shape. That is the most radical and effective change and we all have the power to do, especially leveraging AI (I know it's also fun to see how your dogs would look like as people but it can do more). We can learn to build our own message boards, ways to connect or virtually gather and much more.

For an IRL example, I was at a flea market with a younger friend who was selling her things. She learned some valuable life lessons on logistics and I wandered around and met really interesting people. I especially met another young vendor next to us named Jade who hand crafted these amazing sterling silver rings. Jade showed me the process from sketches to wax molds on their cell phone and when I expressed my admiration for their raw passion and talent they gifted me a ring. I was able to give Jade an artistic T-shirt I had printed in exchange and felt fulfilled in this impromptu barter (I definitely got the better side of that deal and will immensely cherish my ring and that experience). I am also inspired by Jade's work (find Jade at the Sunday flea market outside of Taix in Echo Park) and will make some digital art soon based on it. So there was a little bit of IRL and a bit of digital. Seems like a healthy balance for now. This all goes to say, let's disrupt these current systems and commune with each other and create new ones, both away and at the keyboard.

We can shape our future we just need to embrace mobility and take our power back with the democratization of AI.