Computer Shopper - UK (2020-01)

(Antfer) #1

MEL’SWORLD


8 JANUARY2020|COMPUTER SHOPPER|ISSUE


Rebelappliance

I’VEBEENTHINKINGabout
apps and slavery.Not bad
thoughts, like how humanity has
become enslaved by apps, but
good thoughts, like how apps
can help slaves shake off the
shackles of their oppressors.
Me? I’m awilling slave.I’ve
uploaded over 200 apps on all
sorts of devices. Iliketheir little
coloured icons, and Ioften
rearrange them by colour or by
function, which Ifind therapeutic.
Idon’t actually use the apps, but
Idoobeyall theprompts to
updatethem as soon as they
appear onscreen, which Iadmit is
time-consuming. Come to think
of it, what Ireally need is an app
that tells me which apps Idon’t
really need. Auseful app to help
me rebel against useless apps.
It was the Roman gladiator
Spartacus who kicked off the
most famous rebellion in history,
and pioneered the global media
struggle forworkers’ rights.
Spartacus was the escaped
slave who foundedthe #MeToo
movement in that film with
Kirk Douglas, and went on to
dominatesocialmedia across the

empire with the pithy domain
name FutuereCrassus.org (use
Google translatetowork it out).
Acouple of thousand years
later,thatwily old bird Ho Chi
Minh delivered much the same
message to the Yanks during the
Vietnam War. Ho had learned his
strategies witnessing the
production of soup additives
while working in the kitchens of
posh hotels in London. That was
before he became the president
of North Vietnam, of course.
By then the world had moved
on to electronic warfare as a
means of oppression. When the
Yanks installed anetwork of
sophisticated listening devices in
the jungles of Vietnam, they

couldn’t understand why their
gizmos kept sending out false
alerts of enemy movement, but
no enemies could be found. It
wasonlyafterexpensive delays
and replacements that they
discovered the enemy to be
red-shanked monkeys attracted
to the spy-monitors by strategic
pools of human urine.
Ho Chi Minh ordered his
troops not to destroythe devices,
but to exploit them by weeing
wherever theywere found.
Which brings us to the Houthi
rebels in Yemen taking the piss
out of the Saudi Arabians.

BATTLE READIES


The Saudi war machine has an
annual budget of $83bn, and it
spends most of it tryingtokeep
those uppity Houthis in check,
even though the Houthis don’t
have any defence budget at all.
In fact, the rebels are so poor
theyhad to resort to adiscount
sale on Amazon forhalf adozen
drones with strap-on GoPros for
navigation. Iexpect theyused
Google Earth to pinpoint the
coordinates of the world’s
largest oil-processing complex
at Abqaiq, and take out half
of all Saudi oil production.
They’re probably waiting for
Deliveroo to gain popularity in
their region, so theycan deliver
high explosives to the oilfields by
bike.Pepperoni pizza with a
Semtex deep-crust stuffing.
Spartacus would have spotted
the obvious methods of using
apps such as Deliveroo to fight
against slave labour.Everybody
knows that couriers employed in
the gig economy get arotten
deal,and because virtual
electronic bosses run the show,
there’s no human to complain
to or take strike action against.
But would that have stopped
Spartacus? No,itwould not.
Here’s what he would have done.
Obviously,the first action
that any self-respecting slave
rebellion must take is to set up a
WhatsApp group.This does away

with the old-fashioned rigmarole
of chalking subversive messages
on walls, organising rallies and
getting your head kicked in.
The next vital step is forthe
rebels to pick asuitable hashtag.
Agood choice would be
#IAmSpartacus. Then you must
make your demands to the
bosses, and be sure theyare
impossible to meet and
guaranteed to provoke strike
action by your fellow slaves.
Forexample,ifDeliveroo pays
acourier £7.50for an hour’s
worth of food deliveries, then
Spartacus must get the Deliveroo
slaves to demand £15 an hour,
plus comfier saddles.

WHEELIE GOOD IDEA
Now we come to the clever bit.
Spartacus peddles his delivery
bike to an alleywaywhere the
Deliveroo app forces its riders to
congregate. This is most likely to
be adiscreet location where the
restaurants and takeawayjoints
keep their wheelie bins. He then
whips out his mobile and sets up
anew Deliveroo account, taking
advantage of the introductory
special offer of a£4.99 meal with
free delivery,and orders it to be
couriered over to wheelie-bin alley.
As soon as the Deliveroo rider
arrives with his meal, he gives the
grub to the courier,and recruits
them intothe #IAmSpartacus
revolution with the promise of
double wages. The new recruit
then pulls the same stunt forthe
next recruit. Before the night is
out, every Deliveroo rider in town
has joined the revolution, the
system has been occupied, and
the bosses are powerless to
resist. There will be no strike-
breakers, because every new
recruit has the prospect of
double wages tomorrow.
As forthe app bosses, in the
words of Ho Chi Minh, “You will
kill 10 of us, we will kill one of
you, but in the end, you will tire
of it first.”And as forme, as you
already know,Iamnot Spartacus.
Iamavery naughty boy.

MEL CROUCHER


Tech pioneer and all-round good egg
[email protected]

Spartacus would have used apps such as

Deliveroo to fightagainstslave labour

Newtechnologymay bemaking slavesof usall, butMelCroucherbelievesapps

suchasDeliveroocould finally allowmankind tothrowoffitschains
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