i cannot unbecome a technician.

there is nothing i can do. i have learned the ways of the silicon and it has rewarded me with a curse that dictates i must always, for the rest of my life, keep it under control. the only way to lose this curse is to unknow, and i can only unknow by implanting a bullet into my mind, which i will not do.

being a technician means i understand, approximately, what the technology i use is capable of, and the dangers it contains, but this knowledge is a cognitohazard because unless you want to live in fear and paranoia, you are then cursed to disconnect from many of the simple technologies and instead build your own. unfortunately, building your own, too, is a curse: you are forced to be the one to make it work - the technician.

the technician's role, in contrast to the user's, is an active one. where the user has merely to wait for the technicians of big to make things work once more, the technician has to expend a great deal of effort unmaking their own mistake, or worse yet, the mistake of the thousands of other technicians they were lulled into relying on. the tired technician mitigates this mostly though refusal: refusal to update, refusal to rely, refusal of complexity and comfort just to at least have something keep working for a little bit longer.

and once you are a technician, the only way out is to live in constant paranoia or not live at all.