Critical Future Tech

Issue #19

 In this interview, we dive into the mainstream tech company's ability to influence us through the data that we willingly provide them and the actions we can take to regain control over our digital identities.

At a time where US corporate and governmental interests seem to be converging for each other's benefit, it seems timely to review our choices when it comes to the digital products we allow in our lives.

I also wanted to put out an episode that highlights that even though it seems there's not much we can do as individuals in the face of what looks like unshakeable structures in our society, as the author puts it, we can always try something on our level.

In their case, they opted for writing all the methods they encountered to disengage from big tech surveillance and publish it as a free book. In my case with Critical Future Tech, it's all about creating more alternative narratives and giving space for precisely these things so that others might find them and get some ideas and inspiration to act at their own capacity.

Before we get into the interview, I want to briefly talk about the state of the Critical Future Project and its future.

I started Critical Future in 2020 with the goal of increasing the awareness of technologists on their own work's impact in our lives and general society.

It was originally also meant to provide more visibility for Portuguese based technologies and adjacent professionals to show the rest of the world that there's also folks thinking about these things here in this little corner of Europe.

It has always been very much geared towards the creator and the builder persona with the idea of bridging matters of ethics and morals into the everyday work and thinking process. I'm not sure whether or not the project has been successful at that as I have no way to measure that.

Moving forward, Critical Future will continue to explore the implications and impact of technology in our lives, but I want to expand it to more topics and intersections and narratives.

I'm not yet sure how that format will look like, but we'll definitely keep on having interesting guests.

I might also start doing solo episodes around specific topics I'm exploring, sharing interesting areas of thought you might not be familiar with, seeding new ideas or paths for the audience to wander. I'll also look into taking more creative liberty in the crafting of the episodes as the project evolves.

Regardless, as the title implies, Critical Future Tech will continue to always be about being positively critical towards technology and the possible futures that we might be shaping for ourselves, either as willing creators of technology or simple consumers.

To sum up the vibe of the project, I'll leave you here with this mythical line from the 1982 movie Blade Runner and after that we'll get into the interview.

Enjoy.

- Lawrence

Conversation with
Punching Up Press

Author

Lawrence - Hi, today we are joined by someone that goes by the name of Punching Up Press. Of course that's not their actual name. That is just what we will call them for the sake of their privacy.

How are you doing?

Punching Up Press - Hi! Great! How are you?

L All good. After trying to get the communications working and recording I'm excited to actually start talking with you.

And for the listeners, we got in touch because you wrote a digital book that you then shared on Reddit on some communities. That's where I actually discovered you and we are gonna talk about it, but that's basically just for context how you and I ended up connecting.

P Sure.

L So for those that don't know about it, this is a book called "Disengage: Opting out - and Finding New Options - to Reclaim Your Life From Spammers, Scammers, Intrusive Marketers, and Big Tech".
So, of course, I got interested in it, and here you are to tell us all about it.

P Yep.

L So when I read the book I got curious about who is this person that is giving so much of their time to write what is actually a very thorough guide - and very pragmatic as well - on how you can regain control over your data, over your digital self and with a lot of recipes, let's say, a lot of tools that you can replace.

I was curious. I wanna talk with you. I wanna know why you did it. I wanna know the origin story of how all of this started. So if you could give us a bit of your background, as much as you feel comfortable doing, and tell us how did you end up wanting to write Disengage?

P Sure. So I am a mostly retired freelance journalist and author, and I'd always been offended by the intrusiveness of advertising.

So when I first got online it was spam, you know. So I joined a listserv of people who were trying to fight it, and it was mostly, you know, tech types. Like I was not a tech type, but I was in there doing the thing and reading the headers.

Then we started getting these ads in unusual places: you'd see ads in golf holes, you'd see ads on urinal cakes, you know, so I created a blog about that.

And that actually did pretty well, but I got really busy, so I stopped doing it.

But I was always the type to just dislike that kind of thing and want to do something about it as an individual. And then more recently, right before I was writing the first version of this book about two years ago... it was this weird feeling of always being watched both inside my house and outside my home, and by corporations, by people.

I felt like somebody was always going viral from doing something stupid in front of a Ring camera or like saying something they shouldn't, while someone was recording on their phone.

So it just gave me a really uneasy, weird feeling that you could never kind of escape the internet and even if you wanted to go off of it, you were still on it in a way.

So I started reading Cory Doctorow's newsletter (Pluralistic), and I can't remember how I found it, but then I read a book he co-authored on Chokepoint Capitalism and then that led me to reading about monopolies and surveillance capitalism.

Every time I read a book, or an article or a newsletter, I wanted a solution but all of the literature only talked about how we need systemic measures to stop the problem, which, you know, I get it. It's a systemic problem, we need systemic measures.

But I am not in a position to change the system. I don't wanna get involved in that, you know? And a lot of people don't either, right?

They don't have a lot of time. They're just not interested. And I wanted to know what I could do myself to protect myself and my family and just make a little difference until a systemic solution could be found. That's when I started trying to Disengage.

And those books and newsletters I read helped me sort of frame what the problem was, and then I tried to figure out what I could do within that framework as an individual.

So I just did a lot of experimenting and then once I felt like I was "done", (which you're never really done) but when I did the things I wanted to do, I thought it would be nice to write about it and get it out to people for free, just as a project.

L So essentially you ended up writing the steps you took, the things you discovered along the way. And once you were done with it you were like: "Hey why don't I actually give this to folks out there, it might be handy for others", right? That's the order of how things unfolded?

P Yep, exactly.

L Interesting. And how long ago have you have you started disengaging?

P I wrote the book about two years ago and at that point I think I had spent like six months disengaging. So two and a half years ago I guess.

I started doing it and I decided to update the book because things change so fast and also as you're doing these things, you learn a lot about what works and what doesn't work, and I wanted to be really transparent with people, you know?

For example getting a PO Box. I didn't really love it. I decided to stop doing it. It might work for other people, you know.

L So you got a PO Box, you would get your mail and I guess there's a bit of a hassle about that no? Why did you stop?

P Yeah. Whenever you ordered something online, they would need a shipping address and they would need your billing address and your billing addresses the PO box.

And I tried a virtual PO box. So you paid to have things shredded or scanned. I did a lot of work to make sure I didn't get any actual mail there but then I did get mail there, so then I would have to pay to have it shredded and it was just a hassle.

L Beyond the PO box, did you stop using certain tools, certain platforms as you were disengaging?

P Did I stop using ones that I thought would help me disengage, or did I stop using intrusive types of tools, you mean?

L Well, I don't know.

I'm curious to what extent were you able to truly... you know, I've tried to do this. I've tried to say: "You know what? I'm just gonna stop using WhatsApp" and it's almost impossible unfortunately, if you are gonna interact with, let's say regular folks, that don't think this way.
And I wanted to know about your experience trying to do this or attempting, or how did that come about?

P In the book I talk a lot about going at your own pace and doing what's right for you.

Like, disabled people may really need those smart home products or somebody who's really busy might not want to do some of the more difficult tasks. Or maybe they're not very technologically savvy, which I am not. I'm kind of medium.

So that's what I did. I did the easiest things first. I kind of spent the money I was comfortable with spending, and then I was increasing my efforts as time went on.

There's still a lot of things I haven't done. I'm on an Apple computer right now. I have a couple smart products in my home that I know are smart products and I have no idea what they're doing, and I haven't figured it out. We're on Google right now, right? We're on Google.

L Yeah, exactly.

P Yes. I have a Google account that I had to create for purposes like this. But otherwise I don't use any other Google products. I have completely stopped using Microsoft products, Amazon, and of course people are gonna say: "Well, half the internet is on Google and Amazon".

Yes. I'm still on Google and Amazon in that way, but I am not paying them or using any of their products.

L Yeah. Even if you're not using directly a product, you might be surfing websites or using services that behind the scenes are relying on their infrastructure. So it's very hard to, to truly disengage. I might even say that it's perhaps not possible if you want to have a reasonably functioning day-to-day life.

When you were trying to stop using certain products I don't know if you were sharing that with closed ones or friends or, but how was the reception or how did they take it? To those that you might have shared that you were doing this?

P Mostly the people who have been interested in it have been people that have found me or the book online you know, whether through Reddit or whatever.

Most of my friends and family members are very not interested and that's fine. I do have friends who like the book and I have postcards and they're helping me disseminate postcards and so on but I try to not moralize and I don't wanna come off like, you know, tinfoil hat.

So I really kind of keep it to the people who I already know are interested and those are the people who find me.

When I was on Reddit I would post in subreddits that were interested in that kind of thing. So people who were already inclined that way.

And I feel like things are really going that way though, because after our election and all these CEOs of tech firms at the inauguration, I think people are starting to realize: "Wow! We put them there. Our money is giving them this kind of power over us. What can we do about that?"

And I think it's really drawn people to the book.

At the end of 2024 I had a brand new website with this on it, and I was suddenly getting like 500 hits a day, which I know is not a ton, but for a brand new website, I feel like it is.

And I think it's 'cause people are starting to pay attention and get upset and that's why I wanted to update the book. I just really rushed to update it.

L I see, I see.

I was wondering what made you wanna update it and refresh it. It's not only the current dynamics between the technological companies in the US and the government, but also that the consumer is catching up.

Actually, I was listening to a podcast moments ago, and there's this idea that, indeed the average consumer is starting to truly understand the ramification of free services, of all of those free things that we've been given and become used to and addicted even.

And now people are starting to ask questions so they're looking for answers. They're finding your website. That's great news actually.

P Yeah, I think so. And I think a lot of people are also looking for "What can I do myself"? I understand it's sort of a policy issue and a systemic issue, and that makes you feel hopeless, you know?

I think people are thinking: "What can I do about this"? And it would be really nice to make just the tiniest dent in it, you know?

L It is interesting because a lot of similar attempts to protect your data is mainly about privacy. And of course you talk about privacy in the book, but your lens is more about how not giving data to those tech firms actually is the best thing that you can do as an individual because that you can control, right?

You can minimize the amount of data that you give them therefore, hopefully you will make a dent. And by proxy you also protect your privacy.

That's not really how it started though. It was the privacy invasion that was frustrating you and now one way to hurt them is by not giving them your data.

P I think it did evolve in that way. I feel like the book might come off as a little bit of a mishmash 'cause it's got privacy - online and offline.

And yeah, again, surveillance, capitalism and everything, you know? It's a lot of topics at once, but it all sort of leads to your data flowing from wherever into the databases of these companies.

And it's not just the data either. It's our content, it's our attention, it's our labor. It's our life hours that are being taken from us and feeding these companies that are now so powerful that they can be at an inauguration for a president.

L You don't speak for all Americans, but I do wonder how Americans feel about that. Half of them are conflicted, the other half might not really be paying attention or they might even be cheering that relationship.

But there is definitely a feeling of being powerless. As you were mentioning, you can feel that you can do nothing about that, but you can actually. As the book advises we can have conversations, we can have different narratives and trying to figure out ways to escape this current state of things.

P Right. And I know I've been told that boycotts can be pretty useless: you have to get so many people on board, they all have to agree, the company that you're boycotting has to notice.

But I mean, there's really... I feel like not much else we can do as individuals than deny these companies what we're giving them. So hopefully, enough people do it to make that they do notice.

L I think there are some pockets where we can see some change happening. I've been very interested in the Fediverse - the federated internet - as of course you are aware of it and you talk about it in the book.

And with the blunders of Musk and Twitter and the fact that tech companies are taking sides politically speaking, that just help them financially - they have no ethics or morals - they're just aligning themselves with whatever helps them at the end of the day.

A lot of people have left Twitter. A lot of people are wondering about the spaces they're hanging out online, right? Not about like: "Every day I'm on Reddit therefore I'm giving my data to Reddit". Not in that sense, but more about." I don't wanna be part of that club".

So they're flocking to Bluesky, they're going onto Mastodon, they're looking for alternatives. And definitely in the past couple of years we gotta thank Elon Musk for that actually. People are fleeing to other places, having different types of conversation in those places. And those technologies such as Mastodon are done in a way that is way harder to capture those platforms as Doctorow mentions about those platforms being captured and then degrading the experience and all of that.

That is a positive thing that I've seen that gives me some excitement, right? So in a way, yeah, it is annoying to see that happening, those guys lining up with the current administration.

On the other hand, if that's what it takes to wake up and change things, perhaps it's a necessary evil. That's the way I'm trying to interpret this. Trying to have a positive spin.

P Yeah, that's a really good thing because it could be death by a thousand cuts, which it was up until now. And all of a sudden something where people are waking up like, you cannot not see this.

And I like the way you said it because I was thinking of the Fediverse mostly as a place to get away from regular social media, but you made a really good point about the types of conversations people are having on those platforms that they're not having on Facebook and Twitter, so that's nice.

L I've been thinking about this model of how you are able to have different discussions.

To me it's all about talking with different people that have different viewpoints so that you can converge to some sort of way of existing and working together that is inclusive and positive for everyone.

P That's really interesting because I think we're all in our little bubbles. I was in my own little bubble too, and if you read the book, clearly it's somewhat left leaning but I'm hoping that readers from all different political backgrounds are interested in this topic.

I did add that chapter on Corporate News. That's a brand new chapter because I was starting to see how the corporate news was owned by billionaires or how they had their own agenda, whether it was left or right.

And that's why I started looking at Ground News, we were talking about before the call because they kind of give you a little bias rating of how left or right it is, or how many left and right outlets are covering it and center outlets and it summarizes everything too.
And then there's the thing called Blind Spot, where it'll show you something that you're not likely to see based on your reading.

So I feel like it's really nice to get outta your bubble and see what other people are saying and other people's viewpoints.

And hopefully my book isn't too offensive to people who are not of my political type, because I think we're all in the same boat with that.

L I think you can trace left-leaning writing in the book.

It doesn't mean that everyone is subject to that.

And as you've probably understood these technological companies, they don't have any political ideology except the one that helps their bottom line. That's the reality, right?

The algorithms are not here to polarize you or lock you into a specific view of the world they're just optimized for the financial incentive. It's not about left or right, even though political news will make it about that.

We've seen that over the years that the Right saying (the US Right) saying "We're being censored by Google, by Facebook" even though it isn't true. They are much more amplified because the algorithm "enjoys" the outrage from certain types of right-leaning news outlets.

So it's basically non-political, the way that this affects us all.

P It's true. I think that Americans have trouble thinking - including myself - thinking non-politically, because at this point it's so divisive that your political leanings become part of your identity and whatever group of beliefs goes with that, you need to believe all of it.

L The nuance is all gone, basically.

P Yeah.

L You give a lot of areas that you can disengage. Your data as a whole, your personal data, banking, email, browsing the web.

There's a chapter about your home. As you were saying you were using a PO box, you tried that. We all have smart devices nowadays in our homes from TVs to Roombas to doorbell thingies.

There's the content that you publish. There's a chapter about that.

There's the attention chapter about essentially being careful to not taking things at face value in terms of the algorithms and the news that you see. We were talking about corporate news.

And then the big four, the unavoidable ones: Google, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft products that you advise on how to replace them or just do without them.

So my question is on the impact that you've seen on yourself, your family? Perhaps your wellbeing?

After disengaging what did you notice? What changed? How are you living nowadays after a couple of years of disengaging?

P So as far as how the book or disengaging has impacted myself, I just feel a lot more in control. And there are always days where I just sit in front of the internet and like, go crazy, and then I'm like, what have I done?

And that day doesn't feel good. And the days where I'm able to disengage, they just feel better and more in control.
Issues have been, a lot of the products are not as easy and smooth as, you know, Google and Apple products. For example they don't have all the same features, or they might not interact with each other in the same way.

I use Proton Calendar - my whole family uses Proton Calendar so that's fine. We can integrate our calendars but I can't integrate with the 99% of people that have a Google or iCloud calendar.. Things like that.

I have this used Pixel (phone) I bought and I put GrapheneOS, which is that privacy based OS on it and I can't talk-to-text anymore and it's hard for me to type. You know, just little things like, little inconveniences.

But everybody's adding more and more features. For example, for the longest time, Proton didn't have like a shareable docs where you could just have a document that you could share and edit, and now they have that, so problem solved.

But a lot of times once you install something, you get a replacement or whatever it is you do, you get used to it and it becomes part of your life. And I think the difficult part for a lot of people, including myself, is that you're so used to the way things are. You know, it's just: "I open my Google Gmail and then I talk to my Alexa" and so on and... You know, getting out of that habit takes a lot of work but again, it makes you feel like you have more control.

I hope I didn't get too far from your question.

L No, no, it's about that. I'm curious about your experience, how you've been experiencing it.

P It becomes frustrating because you don't wanna become a moralizer, but you see people chatting into their Alexa or like entering their data into some random form and you're like "No!" You know, that's a little difficult.

Yeah. 'cause you don't wanna be one of those people.

L I know.

If you really wanna change people's behavior, you can't put them down or reprimand them or moralize them too much because you might just get the opposite effect. So it's sort of difficult to... "Hey, don't talk to your Alexa" you know? You can't just say that to someone, I guess.

But also you wanna, perhaps, ask questions and ask them: "Hey, what do you think is happening behind the scenes when you're talking to your device? Have you ever wondered what happens to that data or how it might be used against you?"

You know, you're not impinging anything, you're just expanding a little bit their critical thinking about the situation and then you just hope that they will ask more questions or the curiosity will show up from there.

'Cause it's very hard to have people interested in that cause let's say, in this case disengaging a little bit from the tech behemoths.

P Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

And also people are really busy. A lot of people just don't care. They don't wanna be different.

Like, I have a teenager and my teenager doesn't want to have a weird phone or a weird music streaming program, and I get that you know? But you could just maybe set an example and just do your thing.

And people do ask about it they'll say like: "What's this thing you have on your phone?" I tried out a non-smart phone, like a dumb phone and people were asking me about that and it gives you a chance to explain it a little bit without moralizing and it gets them thinking a little bit. You know, just seeing you do these things. "Oh, I never heard of this music streaming platform. What is that?" You know?

L Yeah. Well, I'm a bit of a sinner in that sense 'cause I do send a lot of data. I do have a very hard time disengaging. But I try.

I've moved some friends over Signal. They look at me sideways like, "Why are we using this? iMessage is fine?"

You'll occasionally hear this thing of "I have nothing to hide" you know, when you're talking about your personal privacy. "I don't have anything to hide" and so on.

I think now you can actually move beyond that and say: it's not about hiding, it's more about regaining control over like what you're being put through with these platforms because they know about your habits, they know about everything that you do. They can better influence you at certain things, which those things are usually consumption related, of course: ads, buying things, et cetera. The worst is when they are used against you to change your political opinions or societal opinions. That's the worst case.

And they'll say: "Yeah, sure. But you know, what am I gonna do?" I'm like, well you can perhaps give a little less data, be a little more private about your stuff.

P Yeah. And also maybe throwing a little chaos in there as well.

L Polluting [read: poisoning] your data? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

P Polluting your data a little bit. I love that. Yeah.

I have no idea how much of an effect it makes. But it's fun. I feel like somewhere in the database there has to be like 20 of me somewhere, you know? Like with different email addresses and different preferences and so on.

L Yeah. Unfortunately, we're always playing against very smart, very well paid individuals, which is always saddening to think about. That you have so many smart, bright people coming out of top universities just to better manipulate you. Your intellect could be spent somewhere else. In a better way for everyone.

And that's also one of the reasons that I started Critical Future.
I wanted to have technologists wonder about the things they're doing.

Everything that we talked about here - from Amazon to Apple, to the smart devices, to all of those gadgets - there's always a technologist that is super excited about the idea of building that thing and about the technical challenge and the possibilities and, of course, the money and all of that.

But never wondering what happens to the user - which is a person by the way - if you actually deploy that thing, the way that you've built it.

And I'm glad that over the years there are more and more conversations and people such as you, what I thought I could do on a personal level is like, "Hey, let's just have a conversation, put it out there." Others will find it and hopefully it will slightly change their perception about how they interact with technology and their role and what they might be able to do as individuals.

That's why I also liked the book when you shared it and when I found about it. That 's what we can do. We can write about it, we can help others figure it out and have a little difference in their lives I guess.

P We all have our different strengths.

I'm a communicator so that's what I do about the problem, you know. If I feel like I've got a partial solution at least, I will try to communicate it to people. But other people might have different abilities and strengths and they can use those toward the same end.

L Yeah, exactly. And combining all of those differences is probably the best way to figure out a way forward and not just from one specific region of the world or one specific type of a professional or a person.

I'm pretty happy with getting to know a bit the origin story of disengaged and punching up press, and I'm curious about what you hope might happen to technology in the next handful of of years. From your standpoint, from everything that you, that we've been seeing in terms of the big tech companies and governments and all the turmoil, how do you think people will react to these?

P That's a big question. I think I can only speak to the part of it that relates to Disengage, which is: I hope that it reaches a lot of people and that they start looking for alternatives and that those alternatives grow so that they can at least somewhat compete with these giant corporations, but somehow without also degrading the experience for people as it happened with Amazon and so on. That would be really nice if that happened, if we had alternatives for people who don't want to give up parts of their life to billionaires who then try to run your country.

L Concerning to say the least.

But there are alternatives as you point them out so well in the book. Unfortunately, they never have as much funding or they don't broadcast themselves as well. And also the first mover advantage of, some of those companies has simply made us so used to that technology that nowadays it's kind of hard to think: "Well why would I not use WhatsApp?" But there are alternatives and by talking about them, showing them as you've been doing with the book and sharing it and people are reacting to it, we have a chance of moving away from this reality right now, right?

Which seems to be the case as we were talking with the Fediverse and all of that. People are starting to say: "Yeah, I'm just gonna move away to something different" and suddenly everyone does it and suddenly you are in a new reality of how things operate.

P I think for those of us who are privileged enough to be able to support some of these things - 'cause a lot of them are free, but they will ask for donations or some things do charge by the month - and if you can afford it and you find it worthwhile to do it, you know, it can really help them grow to a point where it becomes more affordable and usable for everybody.

L Correct. And those of us that are privileged, you should improve things around you and for others. That's one of my beliefs. So I'm happy to be able to do it and I'm happy that others like you are also using their time and skills to try to do that.

P Well, thank you. I'm so glad that you had me on.

L And with that, I think we are about 40 minutes. I'm very happy that you accepted to come over and share your experience and share Disengage with our listeners.

Thank you for accepting the invitation.

P Thank you for inviting me!

L And I hope that we will cross each other's roads somewhere again. And if not I'll be sharing as much as I can the book and I'll hope that it changes at least one person and if that's the case, then I think it's already worth having done it.

P Definitely! Thank you.

Show Notes & More

• "Under Trump, AI Scientists Are Told to Remove 'Ideological Bias' From Powerful Models" by Will Knight.

• "Disengage: Opting out - and Finding New Options - to Reclaim Your Life From Spammers, Scammers, Intrusive Marketers, and Big Tech" by Punching Up Press.

• "Amazon requests a 48% increase in water consumption for its data centers in Spain, Aragon. (Spanish)" by AraInfo.

• "FTC Removes Posts Critical of Amazon, Microsoft, and AI Companies" by Makena Kelly.

• "Apple loses appeal against Germany's special abuse control for Big Tech" by Natasha Lomas.

• "Amazon Uses Arsenal of AI Weapons Against Workers" by Daniel Boguslaw.

• "AI, Elections and Democracy: How Big Tech hijacks our free will and prices our consciousness" by Nikta Sabouri.

• "Will Europe Sacrifice the Digital Services Act in Negotiations with Trump?" by Jakob Ohme, LK Seiling, Claes H. de Vreese.

Credits

• Music:
  "Premonition In The Park" by Justin Allan Arnold - https://ifnessfreemusic.com
  Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0

• Artwork:
  By Bruno Prezado - https://ditongo.com
  Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0