Cake or Death?

Comedian Suzy Eddie Izzard did this great bit ostensibly about the Spanish Inquisition, but really about choice, and when isn’t it one anymore.

I just bought a shiny new laptop, and I was reinstalling software manually (a ‘clean install’ for the nerds). I was wearing clothes...

I’d bought the Microsoft Office package a few years back and wanted to install it, but I kept being prompted to subscribe to Microsoft 365. I didn’t want to pay a monthly fee for Microsoft—like all sane human beings, I hate Microsoft—but I need it cause it’s the industry standard. (PowerPoint is like standing on the 3rd floor balcony and asking two ninety-year-olds to bring your groceries upstairs. They’ll probably get the job done, but it won’t be pretty, and they may need a restart halfway through.) I tried this way and that, but no matter how I sneaked up on the infamous software monopoly, all paths led back to a monthly subscription. In my frustration, I called down fire from heaven to consume their server farms, but to no avail. I guess the last 8 letters of his name should have been a clue: William Gates. He sure knows how to shut them!

Dilemma: I need Microsoft to make a living, but I don’t want a subscription, especially since I’ve already paid for the software.

Of course, I could use Google Docs or Open Office, but then I’d have to convert every Word or Excel attachment in every random email twice—once to read it and once to modify it and send it back. And all that just to tweak a meeting agenda from Barbara! With a little help from ChatGPT, I solved the problem, but it got me thinking.

Is it really a choice if opting out isn’t realistic?

If you’re still wondering about that sentence about me wearing clothes, I just put that in there to make you read on. No one’s going to read about software installation otherwise, right?

Now, Microsoft is just impractical; you can get around it if you really want to. But what about two-factor authentication? QR codes? Chipped passports? Cards only? And, what happens when it’s the state? What about DigiD? (RealMe in NZ, GOV.UK One Login in the UK.) Not all countries have a single digital identity, but it’s moving in that direction. The Dutch are ahead of the game, because, well… they’re the Dutch! So we use DigiD for: taxes, healthcare, the local council, benefits, vehicle safety inspection, the list is endless. But is there a terrible price to being this well organised, especially if it’s basically mandatory? More Jews died in the Netherlands during the Second World War than in the much larger France. Why? Simple! The Dutch kept better records.

And it’s a slippery slope. It’s fair enough that the government wants a safe way to verify that the person asking for a neighbourhood parking space, a tax deduction, or healthcare is who they say they are. But to do that, you need two-factor authentication—so a phone, which means a provider. And you need to be able to scan a QR code—so, not just a phone, a camera phone, and internet. You also need an address for the initial letter to set up your DigiD code, and to have an address in the Netherlands, you need to be registered with the council. See, how quickly not being able to opt out of one thing has turned into six!

I’M NOT A CONSPIRACY THEORIST! I don’t think the government is out to get us, and I love technology. I’m thankful I don’t have to do my taxes on paper or remember a login for every government department I interact with. But if everything in life is a trade-off, what’s the cost of this convenience?

Imagine you genuinely don’t want a smartphone and a computer, what then? Could you, like Henry David Thoreau, just go to the woods? Go off-grid? And, if you can’t, does that mean that—despite the luxuries of free education, indoor plumbing, and polio vaccines—we might be living in a less free society than a hundred years ago?