Amazon

“Just think about it. Our whole world is sitting there on a computer. It’s in the computer, everything: your, your DMV records, your, your social security, your credit cards, your medical records. It’s all right there. Everyone is stored in there. It’s like this little electronic shadow on each and every one of us, just, just begging for someone to screw with, and you know what? They’ve done it to me, and you know what? They’re gonna do it to you.” — Sandra Bullock as Angela Bennett, The Net, 1995 A few weeks ago, I called the local Domino’s. The man who answered asked whether my address is an apartment or a private residence. I live in a fairly remote Michigan community of about 8,000 people.

‘During that time it seemed no easy thing to see any man on the streets of Byzantium, but all who had the good fortune to be in health were sitting in their houses, either attending the sick or mourning the dead… and work of every description ceased, and all the trades were abandoned by the artisans, and all other work as well, such as each had in hand.’ That’s a passage from Procopius’s History of the Wars, describing the way the bubonic plague ravaged Byzantium in 541 AD. If you want to feel historical time collapse, and the distance of centuries evaporate, it is worth reading the whole account.

Remember when Donald Trump’s administration courted the likes of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk? What about when the American right was still enamored with Big Tech? That seems a long time ago now. On Friday President Donald Trump tweeted: ‘I am continuing to monitor the censorship of AMERICAN CITIZENS on social media platforms. This is the United States of America — and we have what’s known as FREEDOM OF SPEECH! We are monitoring and watching, closely!!’ https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1124447302544965634?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1124447302544965634 Conservatives increasingly accept that Big Tech is a problem, something that stifles creativity and ideas. But will anyone in power ever do anything about it? Sen.

‘Pay-to-play is not OK; we want a public hearing today.’ That was the chant heard at HQ2-Apalooza, a recent event held by Amazon in Arlington, Va., the Washington, DC suburb that will host the Seattle-based internet giant’s second headquarters. The scene might have conjured some unpleasant and recent memories for Amazon. The firm’s search for a place to build its ‘HQ2’, a year-long, highly publicized sweepstakes that received entries from over 200 localities across North America, concluded with the decision to split the headquarters between New York and Arlington, only to see public opposition force Amazon to scuttle its New York plans. Now, the backlash has spread to Virginia.

Given the immense power that it wields, ‘Big Tech’ has ridden a gentle wave of goodwill. Steve Jobs was beloved, Elon Musk is admired and Mark Zuckerberg is generally seen as a well-meaning oddball. A 2018 study found that Amazon is the second most trusted institution in the US, behind only the military. How much that trust is based on knowledge of its procedures and how much on the relatively swift arrival of its packages is another question. That goodwill is fast dissipating. Across, the political spectrum people are beginning to resent the internet giants. This week, a leftist campaign in New York managed to stop Amazon from building a second headquarters in Long Island, Queens.

Enquiring minds want to know what fallout the National Enquirer story about Jeff Bezos, the proprietor of the Washington Post, will have on the Trump presidency. The Post, to the ire of Trump, has relentlessly pursued Trump, focusing on his illicit business activities.

If reports are true, Jeff Bezos’s penis is on the verge of going viral — waltzing off alone into the great unknown of cyberspace and there, under the glare of a billion eyeballs, having its power as an agent of chaos and shame amplified immeasurably. As you read this, you can be sure battalions of Bezos lawyers are working around the clock to keep the Bezos penis where it has hitherto always been: billeted, shrouded, presumably, in the comfortable privacy of mankind’s finest breathable linens. Good luck to them, for they will have their work cut out.