From Silicon to Servitude

We built the machine to help us. But now? It controls us. We’ve become subservient to the very tech that was once our servant. As we slide deeper into dependency, the question isn’t how we got here—but what we’ll do now that we’re trapped. This isn’t about futuristic nightmares—it’s about today. This is the world we’re already living in.

Ironically, the very forces we claim to rally against—the elite, the deep state—are often those we empower. The tech that we think is liberating us is, in reality, the puppet master, pulling the strings behind the scenes. And the more we resist, the tighter the grip becomes.

It’s a system designed to keep us distracted, divided, and dependent. It’s classic manipulation, but with modern tools. And just like in the film Terminator: Rise of the Machines, where the military general said “Skynet will crush the virus,” John Connor’s response rings truer than ever: “Skynet is the virus.” The very systems we’ve built to fight for us are the ones that will destroy us—and the worst part is, Skynet isn’t coming… it’s already here.

Technology was once our tool. We created it to serve us—giving us efficiency, comfort, and control. But today, it has evolved, and we have become servants to it. From smartphones that monitor our every move to AI that tells us what to buy, where to go, and even how to think, we’re no longer in charge. It’s a pattern rooted in convenience, driven by laziness, that began the moment we invented the wheel and chose ease over effort. This isn’t inherently dangerous on its own—but when left unchecked, it slips from advantage to dependence, and from dependence to quiet domination.

The cars we drive, the appliances in our homes, even the food we eat—everything relies on a system we don’t understand. Even in the early 2000s, cars had already evolved into rolling computers, controlling everything from fuel to safety features. Now, with updates sent directly to vehicles, even driving itself isn’t entirely in our control anymore.

And it’s not just about cars. We rely on GPS, smart devices, and cloud-based systems for nearly everything. Without power, we are helpless—and if the system crashes, we won’t just lose convenience; we’ll lose our ability to function.

Even in business, the human touch has all but vanished. Customer service, once a pillar of professionalism and pride, has been reduced to a cold, automated gauntlet. We’re forced to navigate endless prompts, answering hollow, computer-generated questions—just for a chance to speak to someone alive. And when we finally do, it’s rarely better. The person on the other end sounds more like a mouthpiece for the machine, reading from a script, unprepared for anything that veers off the screen. Initiative is gone. Empathy is gone. What’s left is a system so stripped of humanity, it barely remembers we’re human.

We’ve allowed technology to weave itself into every part of our lives—Until we’ve become dependent on it. What was once a tool to make life easier has now become something that dictates our every move. We don’t just use the machine anymore; we follow it. Our cars drive us, our phones track us, and even our homes have become “smart”—controlling temperature, lighting, and even security.

The deeper we integrate technology, the more we lose our ability to function without it. We rely on systems beyond our grasp, systems that could fail at any moment. The more we depend on them, the more vulnerable we become.

When the system fails, it’s not just about losing convenience—it’s about losing our ability to function entirely. Driving a manual transmission used to be common practice, but now, most people wouldn’t even know where to start. This is a small example of how basic skills fade as convenience takes over. We are being conditioned to trust technology more than our own instincts, and it’s already beginning to show in how helpless we become without it.

The reliance has led us down a path where we no longer control it—it controls us. But technology didn’t just stop at convenience—it began to manipulate. Once, it was a tool. Now, it’s a weapon of control, shaping everything from what we see on the news to what we buy and where we go.

This power of influence isn’t new—and it’s no accident. Whether through calculated design or gradual erosion, the result is the same: control through repetition—something computers excel at. It’s a tactic as old as authoritarianism itself. Dictators like Hitler and Putin mastered it, repeating the same messages until the public could no longer tell the difference between truth and propaganda. What once took speeches, posters, and state-run media is now accomplished through algorithms, social feeds, and targeted ads. In the United States, it’s no longer just repetition—it’s amplification, echoing endlessly through the very technology we once believed would liberate us, now quietly shaping what we believe, how we think, and even who we choose to vote for.

Social media platforms, news outlets, and even algorithms repeat and amplify certain ideas, molding public opinion without us even realizing it. The truth no longer matters—the repetition does. As the narrative shifts, so do the beliefs of the masses—often to the point of contradicting their own values—and the true elites profit off the confusion.

“If it’s repeated enough, people eventually consider it fact.” This principle has been used for centuries. Dictators understood that repetition could reshape public perception, making lies indistinguishable from truth. But today, technology has turned this tactic into an industrial operation—our brains moving down the assembly line, shaped and stamped by the machine.

With social media algorithms, 24/7 news cycles, and endless content being pumped into our lives, we’re no longer just exposed to information, we’re drowned by it. Every lie, every sensationalized headline, every manufactured narrative is designed to repeat itself, endlessly, until it becomes the new reality.

The elite have tapped into this power. Through manipulated narratives, they control what we see, how we think, what we believe, and even how to feel. The more outrageous the claim, the more it spreads, and the more divided we become. The cycle feeds itself, and those at the top gain from it, never having to address the root cause of the issues they’ve created—because chaos keeps them rich, and control keeps them untouchable. And at the center of it all is one constant: greed. It’s not a bug—it’s a feature, designed for the powerful who know how to exploit it.

It’s not unlike The Hunger Games, where the wealthy lived in comfort, distracted by excess, while the rest of society struggled to survive under manufactured scarcity and control. The spectacle kept the people pacified, the inequality justified, and the power structure intact. In our world, the names and tools are different, but the strategy is the same—keep the masses divided, distracted, and desperate, while the elite play God behind the scenes—and disturbingly, there are many in our society more than happy to worship them as just that.

It’s an irony that many miss: those who claim to fight against the elite or the “deep state” are often empowering them. Figures like Elon Musk and Donald Trump, often portrayed as outsiders or champions of the people, are actually deeply embedded in the very system they’re supposed to disrupt. Some of the very people connected to the White House today—like Peter Thiel, and Stephen Schwarzman—are billionaires with deep political ties, not to dismantle the system, but to fortify it in ways that continue to serve their own interests.

This isn’t a conspiracy theory—it’s about control, power, and influence. The people who claim to fight against the system are often the very ones driving it forward. Technology, media, and wealth are used to reinforce the status quo. By supporting these figures, we inadvertently bolster the very systems we believe we’re resisting.

In essence, the battle we think we’re fighting isn’t against an external force—it’s within the system itself. And as we feed it, the system only grows stronger. From buying products we don’t need to voting for wolves in sheep’s clothing, every click, every scroll, every passive choice feeds the machine and tightens its grip. Worse still, the money we pour into these meaningless goods and services is funneled upward—fueling political campaigns that serve the elite’s agenda while working directly against our own.

Control doesn’t always come from wealth or technology—it often stems from belief. In the TV show Caprica, technology wasn’t just used; it was worshipped. And while technologically based control doesn’t always present itself as faith, it can feed off it—drawing power from the same human need to belong, obey, and believe. In the series, a digital consciousness became a god to its followers, blurring the line between faith and programming. Today, we see echoes of that in real life. Many cling to narratives—political, religious, conspiratorial—not because they’re rooted in truth, but because they validate what they want to believe. Logic, evidence, even lived reality gets pushed aside for the comfort of conviction. And the powerful know this. They use it. They feed it. Because when people follow blindly, control becomes effortless. This is nothing new. Religion has been used to control the masses for centuries, often suppressing critical thought and rejecting any information that challenges deeply held beliefs—even the Bible references this kind of manipulation multiple times. So it’s no surprise that the powers that be have chosen to target belief systems—because they know that once a mind is anchored in faith, it becomes far easier to steer. Belief doesn’t require proof. It only requires repetition, emotion, and a sense of belonging—and those are the very tools used to shape perception today.

We’ve built a fragile system, one that thrives on interconnectedness, but is completely vulnerable to collapse. Imagine a world where electricity is gone, where the grid fails, and suddenly, everything stops. Our cars, our phones, our banking systems—all of it relies on technology that is vulnerable to the slightest disruption.

A solar flare, an EMP attack, or even just systemic failure could bring the entire world to its knees in an instant. Everything we’ve built—every convenience, every system of control—would cease to function, leaving us helpless and unprepared. Most people wouldn’t even see it coming, because they’ve been living in a false sense of security built on the illusion that the system will always be there—an illusion so deep-rooted that even institutions like the U.S. military wouldn’t be immune to the fallout.

Just like in the TV show Revolution, where the power goes out and society crumbles, we are living on borrowed time. If the systems we rely on fail, we’ll be left with nothing but chaos. The reliance on technology has made us powerless to adapt when it’s taken away. And when it all comes crashing down, we’ll be left to face the consequences of our dependence.

When everything collapses, it won’t be gradual. It will be instant—a complete reset. The systems that seem so entrenched in our lives today will disappear, leaving us with nothing. No power, no communication, no modern infrastructure.

In the show Battlestar Galactica, humanity made the choice to abandon all technology, to wipe the slate clean, in an attempt to start fresh. But even then, thousands of years later, the cycle began again. The technology humanity tried to escape wasn’t destroyed—it was reborn, and the same mistakes were made. This is because the danger isn’t necessarily the technology itself, but the enduring system of manipulation that simply found a new tool to wield.

This is the danger we face: without a fundamental shift in how we live, we will be condemned to repeat the cycle. No matter how much we try to abandon it, the system will inevitably rise again if we don’t fundamentally change our approach to how we interact with technology, power, and each other.

The truth is, this reset isn’t just a possibility—it’s inevitable if we continue down this path. We can’t simply adapt to the system and expect it to change. We must reject it. If we want to survive the coming collapse, we need to break the cycle of dependence—not just on technology itself, but also on those who wield its controlling power.

Like the flea on the dog, even the smallest act of resistance can disrupt the system. It might not seem like much at first, but when enough of us stand up, stop relying on puppet masters to make every decision for us, and begin rebuilding from the ground up, we can start to starve the beast that holds the reins.

The problem is that we’ve fallen into a hole, and every time we try to dig ourselves out, more dirt falls in. Each solution we apply only deepens the pit. The more we try to climb out, the more the weight of the system pulls us back down, until the walls eventually cave in on us. And then, a storm comes, washing it all in, finishing the job. The road ahead will be difficult. But if we don’t make the effort to learn self-reliance, restore real connection, and disconnect from the systems that control us, we will be left with nothing. It’s up to us to make sure that when the storm comes, we aren’t buried by the dirt, but are ready to build again.

There’s still time. We can still reclaim our future, but it will require a shift—a conscious decision to disconnect from the systems that have created our dependence. We need to teach ourselves and future generations to be self-reliant, to grow our own food, to fix our own cars, and to return to the essential skills that made us strong in the first place.

This isn’t just about rejecting technology; it’s about using it wisely. When used properly, it can serve us, but when we allow it to define us, it becomes our master. The challenge isn’t in abandoning all tech—it’s in regaining control over it. When we stop living in service to our devices, we can build a future where tech works for us, not the other way around.

Even the smallest steps—learning how to grow food, teaching kids about real-world survival skills, choosing to walk instead of drive—starve the beast and make the system weaker. If enough people start rejecting the cycle, we’ll begin to build something better, something based on human connection, not the manipulation of algorithms and machines. But it’s not enough to relearn these skills ourselves—we have to teach them to our kids, and to anyone who will listen. Survival can’t be a lost art passed down in panic; it has to be a legacy of resilience.

In my early years as a computer specialist, I didn’t just troubleshoot systems—I helped design them. I believed in what we were building. These tools were supposed to make life better, not control it. But over time, I saw the shift. So I walked away. I chose a simpler life because I no longer saw a future I wanted to be part of. People no longer tell computers what to do—they tell us. And that was never my intention.

That’s where we are now, as a society.

We’ve piled layer upon layer of systems—governments, financial networks, AI, social engineering—onto an aging foundation that was never meant to carry this kind of weight. The cracks are visible. Our infrastructure is brittle. Our culture is fractured. Our minds are overloaded.

And when the collapse comes, it won’t be a clean reboot. It will be a reset by force. By failure. By catastrophe.

Just like in the previously mentioned series, Battlestar Galactica, where humanity destroyed every trace of its technology in order to start again, we may soon face the same choice. Or worse… we may not get to choose. And even then, the cycle began again. Thousands of years later, humans rebuilt the very same systems that nearly destroyed them the first time. As was often repeated throughout the series: “It’s happened before, and it will happen again.” And so it does.

We’ve convinced ourselves that we can control this machine, but the truth is, the machine is already running the show. We feed it our data, our labor, our attention—every moment of our lives. And we tell ourselves it’s progress. But when fiction warned us, we laughed. Now, we live in its shadow.

Einstein once said, “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” It’s more than a quote—it’s a prophecy. If this system crashes hard enough, we’ll lose everything we’ve come to rely on. And most people won’t know how to survive without it. They won’t just suffer—they’ll panic, lash out, destroy.

Cash will be worthless. Food will be scarce. And those who laughed at the idea of growing their own, fixing their own, learning the old ways—will have nothing left but desperation.

But those who were prepared, those who returned to simplicity not out of fear, but out of wisdom—might just endure.

That’s the final truth in all of this. The reset is coming, one way or another. The question is: will you be buried with the system? Or will you be ready when the dust settles?