I never asked for this.

A world of advanced technologies overwhelms and dominates us. The poor consumers cannot comprehend the power they wield, and the power that controls them.

We all know what I'm talking about. Your smart phone. Your PC. Your microwave, stereo, augmented body parts, even your VR goggles. Your little quadcopter drone. Even a car, something nearly akin to a tank, is available. It's all purchasable by you, and once you own it, what power do you have?

So much.

What is stopping us from using these grand powers to do anything we want? If a small, wimpy computer was enough to get NASA astronauts to the moon, what can our ultra-powerful smartphone do? The smartphone even has a digital assistant.

Can we really restrain ourselves much further? What about our children?

For me, I grew up in a world of dial-up internet and very slow computers, and watched it all develop before me.
I saw every increase in computing power. I upgraded my software from a time of CLI, to that of 2D software, and then I saw the emergence of 3D capabilities, and finally advanced 3D graphics processing, capable of impressive, real time animations and use.

My hardware became more powerful too. From a basic Pentium 1 CPU, which I overclocked by manipulating little pins on the motherboard, to more powerful hardware, capable of generating millions of hashes per second, just so I could mine Bitcoins, or generate advanced 3D graphics, such as the level of games like Crysis. I saw it all happen.

I saw it become smaller and smaller. Now even miniaturized smartphones are capable of impressive 1080x1920 display screens, equally capable of displaying advanced 3D graphics, at very reasonable speeds.

But what of modern children?

They are growing up in a world where it's nearly forbidden to open up your own electronics.

Their most powerful computers, computers that they will be using their entire life, are glued shut, and impossible to open, and even if opened, impossible to modify unless you have access to a factory that can assemble these devices.

What will hacking be to them? Will they even be able to comprehend the idea of going beyond Android or Apple, and installing their own operating system? Will they never know the joy of upgrading to a new CPU, or overclocking it, and actually seeing it make a difference? Will they understand the concept of hardware level code? Or will they always be stuck in VM based code, such as Java? What will they be missing if they are never allowed to touch their own hardware with code they write?

This future of this world is dark. Technological corporations have done all they can to close down their software, and lock down their hardware, as if they thought hacking should be a crime. Not only this, but malicious organizations such as the NSA, and other government organizations around the world, are collecting our personal data. For what? I can't think it could be good.

This sort of situation, where devices are impossible to modify, and where we're all slaves to a corporation, all forced to use Internet that needs to pass through tapped wires, and where everything we do is recorded in some form, is madness.

I never asked for this world. Where did the GNU initiative go? Where did the hackers of the old era disappear to?

Who here truly values their freedom? And can I believe you when you're using a proprietary OS, using an unhackable smartphone, working for just another faceless corporation, and completely content in your complacency towards evil organizations spying on you and your children?

It's not like we've even bothered to leave this internet. We're stuck here, because we're slaves to them.

There's no where else to go.