Can we take it back?

Why are we doing this? Do we fucking care? I keep telling myself that I'm only intrinsically motivated. What approval do I need? None, right?

Fuck you and fuck me. I feel some artificial desire to do more than watch the wind dance. I need to eat, fuck, and sleep in peace.
Shit.
I've probably dated myself with my expletives. I'm too old for this, but not old enough to quit. I guess I'm fucked. 

I look around, waiting for someone to step up. I don't want to be the asshole. It's fucking dust and tumbleweeds. Those who can help are corrupted, and everyone else has the fucking emerald glasses obscuring the decay and crust.

I'm a fucking hero, right? That's a good fucking lie. It feels like my moral compass is pointing north, but who fucking knows.

I like the idea of objective truth. 

It's trivial to edit the past. I can be wherever I wanted to be. 1984 doesn't have shit on today. There's not state sponsored bullshit, there's just you, me, profit, and sin. People were cute when they talked about late stage capitalism. You don't buy indulgences, you just edit them in.

Holding up a sign looks great on tickgram, but it is just showing that a State can pretend tolerance. Take the pat on the head of free speech while the machine marches on.
Maybe I'm a little bit bitter. Maybe a lot bitter. 

I guess it's time to take it back.

John Henry

I was looking through my obsidian notes and ran across the blurb below. I vaguely remember writing that out. I was very likely baked and/or tired. On the re-read, John Henry's quote after being captured really jumped out:

"Big secrets hurt everyone, little secrets save us."

I really feel this is true. Information wants to be free (as in freedom). 

I am not going to argue against operational security, or even IP in a lot of situations. It's a fucking nuanced issue.

We should only keep secrets as long as they are necessary. Try not to do or endorse things that are directly exploitative or destructive in nature, and accept that people make mistakes, or do not understand the consequences of their decisions or actions. Be open and empathetic.

Why do we need secrets?

We need secrets because people are assholes. We need secrets because people are afraid someone else, somewhere, is going to do something that will take away something we hold dear, like human rights. In the current state of software, or anything digital (from the web to your centrifuge or furnace) relies on secrets to maintain identity. We need secrets because individuals or groups will persecute those who think differently than they do.

What really sucks, is that the same folks who are working to undermine the little secrets are usually sitting on big secrets.

Here's your prompt:

John Henry as a cyberpunk story. Him against the AI's. his rule based systems and generated black box weapons against a borg-like attrition attack, like Russia in Ukraine. A US corporation was enlisted to track him down however possible, and they were itching to try their new adaptive penetration learning system (APLS (everyone calls it Alps, like the mountains, because that would have been a better acronym)).
They came at John Henry with everything they had. Alps learning to penetrate all systems until they had him cornered. When they brought him out he said. They can get at anything you store. "Big secrets hurt everyone, little secrets save us." He had referred to things like pass codes and primary keys as small secrets. It's up to interpretation what qualifies as a big secret. He was a big advocate of printed media and analog techniques. Use the tools of the digital age to build tools that help with our digital life, but also bleed into the analog world. He would advocate for public discussions about policy