Midas has been known for his golden touch. Our mythological figure is not so relevant anymore but the horrible changes of our modern life are quite the same. The path of golden touch is all that most of us are caught up with, as we don’t have any time to take care of ourselves. Worktime is 12 hours or more in many industries, though they claim to follow 8 hours a day routine in papers.
Psychopansy is a religion of our politicking today. If you don’t go by the catcalls, your political boss may not mind you being side-lined. Protests, demonstrations, processions and all kinds of puppet shows in the name of debates or discussions are born to reflect seemingly real political witch-hunt. We find a few working very hard to fulfil the ambitious urge of their political supremos and land in trouble by briefing the press or stay catapulted with the blind adherence to the stated ideological plimsole.
Secrets are not divulged so easily, but data theft is rampant. Data privacy seems to be a canon of the unthinkable dogma for some of these barons. In case, marketing widens up so fast, they may not know what is called privacy. Data breach will become another zone of chaotic actuality whereby none knows the sudden pitfalls of any business deal brokered over a few decades. Synergetic social media will zoom in and out of the business growth, whatsoever be the case of magnetic marketing done in the name of customising the core of online business.
Indeed, business for the sake of business is what you can contemplate on and off these days. Some don’t even cognise the need to fulfil the customer needs and so everything remains as usual till the business revamps itself with new packaging of the old products. No black humour intended. That is a positive disruption of business for the sake of business.
We dream about business for people these days. None seems to be aware of it. Profiteering over body and mind is all that we understand as the DNA of business nowadays. What would one do with these profits without caring for one’s body and mind? Stigmatic business ethics offer you a way out of consumer welfare. Cosmopolitan consumerism pitches itself beyond the known burials of traditional ethics of social well-being.
Business has become a political game wherein politics of automation will stay ahead of the politics of human labour as the Messiahs of Artificial Intelligence (AI) will usurp the traditional hold of manufacturing industries. The brilliant display of online commerce has diminished the logic of real-time business through marketing and direct sales in several avenues of consumerist episteme.
The conceptual design of “digital curtain” is all about supporting the data leveraging companies or organizations without the knowledge of the public in general. How are we going to face this scenario? There could be stringent regulations to protect the data privacy. A recent survey in Australia says 83% of Australians want strict regulations to protect the private data of consumers.
However, there could be another revolution of neoliberal democracy pitching against the values of digital hegemony intruding into our perception and lifestyle beyond our imagination in future. Each of us owns a digital identity because of digitised transactions being used to map all that we buy or sell online.
Our social and professional networks keep track of how we go about our social and professional life. Any data collection mechanism might be an easy way to access the intricate details of our behaviour, preferences and intercultural interface if used with a specific motive to fulfil the commercial or political agenda. Nothing remains sacrosanct for the data mining operations besides the smart utilization of our data for commercial purposes. On such occasions, all of us need to ask them—what is “data privacy”?
It is obvious to note the fact that a large number of data mining operations are being used to support small firms, digital start-ups, besides small and medium scale businesses too. No doubt, mostly MNCs are going to be the champions of such data proliferation and data interpretation in future.
Gigantic tides of data protection are yet to begin from the entire Australasia and North American societies. We could configure the neo-imperialist agenda of Surveillance Capitalism riding on the back of the data collection modes of governance and distribution as the idea of “profit over people” will submerge the space of liberal voices and rebellions through highly sophisticated and micro-managing entities of the Political Leviathans.
Syncopating the rhythms of political bosses can be new ethos till they plunge into chaos. Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson announced his resignation on 7 July 2022 because of the tremendous pressure from his party colleagues and opposition party leaders.
The entire episode of Brexit might have certainly caused an irk in the ranks and files of European Sovereigns and catapulted the inner “party” rivalry to outsmart his leadership within the political gambling.
Media narrative constructs political and socio-cultural reality everywhere. The discourse of electronic imperialism has started shaping our attitude and preferences in almost all the domains, including politics. Silences are not silences for all of us. It is imperative to be silent when hegemons tend to heal by adding insults to injury.
Tryst with destiny begins with social media today. Political blankets and red carpets are reserved only for those who reinvent themselves by using the media narratives through innovative immunity promoted by corporate legalism and psephologically engineered activism. Corruption controls everything with or without our knowledge. It is politics of complete corruption and meagre display of tokenism unravelled with the orchestrated publicity campaigns even in Asia.
Violence usurps peaceful Japan when Abenomics has seemingly become a way of life for political leaders in power. The longest serving Prime Minister of the Japanese history was easily targeted due to careless security cordon. Shinzo Abe’s assassination has sent shockwaves across the political spectrum. Let us recall the lines of Roethke: “Love is all I know; All I know is love.” Social media could stay away from the political hatred or religious hatred if used wisely with love.
The author is a course developer, educator, corporate trainer and textbook writer.