Aging in the Era of Techno-Authoritarianism

When I look around at this moment, sinking into the context many of us find ourselves in, we are clearly in a period of rupture. Maybe we are always in such a state of change.

It feels to me, as a US citizen with a distinctly progressive perspective, that most of what I worked and fought for over my decades of cultural activism is being assaulted head-on—negated, erased by a government that doesn't mince words or actions when it comes to undermining cultural and social norms established by the sweeping human rights movements from the mid-20th century to now.

The great leap backward.

As someone transitioning from a full work life to something less—semi-retired? or at least not looking for a new full-time job—I view all this as fairly threatening. But even more, I view this as a threat to my children and the vast majority of people on the planet living under authoritarian rule. The world I see ahead is not one of humanistic flourishing, but rather one where agency, particularly the agency of the marginalized, will be limited again and again. Where voices will be silenced.

So why work on a project about how aging will change in the coming decades? In part to accept the context that is evolving, and in part to recognize that the seeds of resistance and the undermining of these new dictatorial efforts are always present. In people's homes, neighborhoods, towns, and cities, people are not accepting what is being hoisted upon them as the new order.

Let me suggest that the podcasts and essays I'll be sharing over the next 15 weeks represent a line of reasoning about aging now—but more importantly, about how aging might change over the next 25 years. Aging for the socially privileged, as well as aging for the economically marginal.

Why Elderware?

In launching this project, I decided I should admit we live in an era of technological and computing ubiquity. Sitting in my house right now, my heating and cooling system, garden irrigation system, entertainment options of music, video, and film—even my clothes dryer—are connected to a computing device I hold in my hand. My partner Brooke and I are early adopters, but I don't consider myself a tech fetishist. Just a typical consumer in late capitalism, exploring how I can make things work more efficiently, more effectively, and perhaps more economically (that remains to be proven).

According to recent statistics, 70% of humans have a cell phone (5.76 billion people), more than a majority have a smartphone (4.69 billion people), and perhaps over 80% have access to smartphone or internet technology.

In less than 20 years, our gadgets have colonized much of our lives. Conversely, we need other tools—soft and hard skills—to resist this colonization and, to the best of our ability, turn the process around so that technology moves from "ware" that alienates, controls, and makes us dependent to what theorist Ivan Illich would have called Convivial Tools.

Back in the early 2010s, a series of books informed my thinking about our increased reliance on devices: Sherry Turkle's "Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other," Nicolas Carr's "The Shallows," and Jaron Lanier's "You Are Not a Gadget." Along with popular culture's recognition of the dark side of the ongoing communication revolution (note an upcoming discussion of the Black Mirror TV series), there was and is an active intellectual debate about what these hardware/software/networked devices are doing to us. Many of us would have used Illich's perspective as a starting point for our hesitancy, if not outright opposition to, technology consumption.

The thread connecting Illich to Turkle, Lanier, and Carr is clear: industrial/digital systems are designed to make us dependent consumers rather than autonomous creators. A convivial response demands we actively resist this by building alternatives that restore human agency, creativity, and genuine connection.

What might that look like as demands:

User Sovereignty:

• Tools should amplify human capabilities, not replace them
• Users must understand and control how tools work
• No "black box" algorithms determining our experiences
• Local ownership and governance of digital infrastructure

Prioritize Human Connection Over Efficiency:

• Tools that encourage face-to-face conversation over text when possible
• Design technology that requires genuine human input and creativity (countering Carr's "shallow" processing)
• Resist platforms that profit from addiction and engagement manipulation (Harris)

Preserve Contemplative Capacity:

• Protect spaces and times for deep thinking, boredom, and reflection
• Resist the "swiftly moving stream of particles" that fragments attention
• Create "sacred spaces" free from digital intrusion

What that might look like on a personal level:

Digital Sabbaths: Regular periods of disconnection to reclaim contemplative space—meditation, reading physical books, engaging in activities that require sustained focus

Convivial Communication: Prioritize phone calls over texts, in-person meetings over video calls

Creative Skill Building: Learn to design and modify your own tools for production of creative artifacts, rather than just consuming

Community Level:

Co-Living: Creating intentional community processes, architecture, and living situations that ensure human-to-human interaction—the sharing of communal processes of eating, maintaining grounds, managing infrastructure that ground us in interconnection

Maker Spaces: Spaces where people can create, repair, and understand their tools

Community Skills Sharing: Teaching each other practical abilities rather than relying on "experts"

Our argument about Digital Storytelling was always that we were using the tools of the technology sector to undermine the way we think about media in general, and to evolve methodologies that bring people together in genuine, heart-centered exchanges that validate what makes people more human. We never had an openly hostile relationship with technology companies, but rather sought ways to co-opt them into humanistic values to inform the design and usability of their technologies.

Following Illich, our aim wasn't to reject all technology, but to "invert the present deep structure of tools" so they serve human flourishing rather than corporate extraction. This means actively building a parallel infrastructure of convivial tools while gradually withdrawing support from systems that diminish our humanity.

The synthesis suggests that resistance requires both withdrawal from harmful systems and active construction of alternatives—creating what Illich called "a convivial society" where technology amplifies rather than replaces human creativity, connection, and contemplation.

Can we do this in the age of artificial intelligence, neural implants, quantum computing, robotics, nanotechnologies, three-dimensional printing, and other revolutionary disruptive technologies we'll see over the next 25 years?

That is the question.

In the context of aging, in what ways will we turn these processes toward the deeply compassionate work of living in late life and facing death that all of us must face?

Stay tuned.