Your BDSM relationship with you tech
I often struggle to explain something about technology to people. Often time, I'm talking about computers, but it's a general principal. It's just that, when it's not about technology with electronics, the problem I'm addressing is largely moot. Like a hammer isn't affecter, but a computer or digital camera is.
That thing is: your technology should obey you.
And today, I just figured out an analogy I think will speak to y'all: any piece of technology should be your most devoted sub.
It should obey you on a whim. Never do anything your didn't specifically and explicitly asked it to do. If it does, you should have the power to change that behavior and engrave the expected behavior in it. Any piece of technology should be devoted to one thing and one thing only: serve you the way you wanna be served.
And the analogy works both ways: that means your are absolutely responsible for any technological object you use. You're responsible of understanding it, maintain and take care of it. If it's broken, you need to learn how and fix it. You are responsible to learn how it operates as to not damage it or through your use of it, damage others or yourself. And since it's absolutely devoted to you, anything it does is your responsibility. So none of that "my computer/sub did it". It's yours, your absolutely devoted sub. If you abused your position of power to make your sub do something bad or violent to someone, you are ultimately responsible, not your sub. Same for your computer, your camera, your car. Here, I'll just remind you of this quote "a computer cannot be accountable, that's why computers should not make executive decision". Think about that the next time someone is talking about pseudo-autonomous cars, AI screening resume or any piece of software/hardware having just a tiny bit too much power.
But it also means that any piece of technology designed to make choices of seemingly it's own volition has two issues:
- it's a bad technology. It's a sub that's brating, and you need to fix that behavior right out of the gate. Or are you the kind of dom that's just gonna let their sub dom them? That'd be embarrassing, right?
- Since technology doesn't have a free will, it means someone is manipulating your sub to get out of the contract you have with them. And that person should be confronted and made to stop. Immediately. Your sub, your rules. Your tech, your rules.
I am acutely aware that in this analogy, I describe a rather toxic environment for a human to be in a dom/sub relationship because, again in this analogy, the sub has no right to redefine the terms of the relationship. And that's why it's an analogy and not a one to one comparison: technology doesn't have feeling. It doesn't have wants, desires or anything. It's ok if it just obeys. It's supposed to.
Your computer should be your absolute sub.