Welcome to the Security-Entertainment Matrix: A Prophecy of Tech Dystopia in Trump’s America
A couple years ago, a musician friend was invited to perform at the corporate headquarters of a large tech company I’ll call Poople. During this visit, my friend was treated to a tour of the bowels of Poople HQ, where Poople’s strategy for the domination of the economy of the future was laid bare.
“In the 20th century, the technology sector was all about the Military-Industrial Complex,” explained a white man in a shirt, no tie. A mural of Jimi Hendrix loomed behind him, as if his prophecy were being endorsed by the spirit of rock n’ roll itself. “Tech companies competed for military contracts; new technologies were developed with military applications in mind.”
“The wars of the future won’t be fought by bombers, but by intelligence,” he continued. “The technology of the future will be developed, first and foremost, for entertainment. Comfort. Convenience. Every movie, song, or consumer object you could ever desire on demand. Technology will not just give you what you want, it will tell you what you want before you want it. How will this be achieved? Through complete and total consumer surveillance, of course.”
(I wasn’t there, but I imagine he ran his entire hand over his slicked back hair at this point, like Christian Bale in American Psycho looking at himself in the mirror during sex.)
“The Military-Industrial Complex is over,” announced our Hyperborean hero. “The era of the Security-Entertainment Matrix has arrived.”
Indeed, the Security-Entertainment Matrix has already begun to blanket us in everything we could ever dream of wanting. It is the soma of Huxley; the opiate of Marx. The Deep Dream. And the only thing we have to do to partake in this glorious future is stay plugged in, furiously scouring social media for our next endorphin hit.
Enter Trump.
In the past 48 hours, many pixels have been spilled over how and why Donald Trump got elected President of the United States of America, but that is not what I’m interested in discussing, at least not here. What I’m interested in pointing out is how plainly his shocking antics—whether he’s sexually assaulting women or retweeting the Ku Klux Klan—play into an infotainment machine that runs on clicks.
Donald Trump is a reality TV star who has been hired to perform the Apocalypse for a captive audience. It doesn’t matter if we love him or hate him, as long as we feel strongly enough to click ‘share.’
Hillary Clinton was the candidate of the Democratic establishment, Neoliberalism, and the Military-Industrial Complex. The Status Quo. The Devil We Know. Blonde Obama.
Donald Trump is the emperor-elect of the Security-Entertainment Matrix, an empire still in its infancy, but whose fuzzy baby camera-eyes are now beginning to come into focus.
Old Guard Republicans and other beneficiaries of the Military-Industrial Complex cannot distance themselves from Trump’s rhetoric fast enough. Their performative disdain will subside when they realize just how much money there is in owning all the information in the world. Meanwhile, soulless tech billionaires like Peter Thiel are already lining up to lead his transition team. The amoral vanguard.
From the bowels of Poople, a prophecy emerges: The profit Trump’s tech backers will rake in and the influence they will come to wield in the economy of the future will make Bush-era Halliburton look like a child’s lemonade stand.
Welcome to the Security-Entertainment Matrix.
