I’VE POISONED THE WELL

TL;DR

“I’ve Poisoned the Well” is about surveillance, corporate greed, and the amount of privacy we’ve slowly traded away in exchange for convenience and the promise of safety.

It’s about companies collecting enormous amounts of information about us. It’s about data centers consuming resources to store and process an endless supply of data. And it’s about companies like Flock Safety building networks of automated license plate readers capable of recording where vehicles are seen.

The song isn’t saying technology is inherently evil.

It’s asking a question that I don’t think we ask nearly enough:

How much are we willing to give up before we finally say enough?

The Song Notes

“I’ve Poisoned the Well” came from something that has been bothering me for a while.

We are constantly being watched.

That sounds dramatic.

But is it?

Your phone knows where you are. Companies know what you search for, what you buy, what you click on, and what catches your attention long enough to stop scrolling.

Cameras are everywhere.

License plates can be scanned.

Vehicles can be catalogued.

Massive data centers are being built to support our seemingly endless appetite for information.

And every individual piece of it can be explained away as useful.

Convenient.

Efficient.

Safe.

That’s what bothers me.

Because I don’t think we woke up one morning and collectively decided that we were comfortable living this way.

It happened a little bit at a time.

We wanted convenience.
We wanted everything connected.
We wanted everything faster.
We wanted to feel safer.

So we accepted the trade.

And then we accepted another one.

And another.

I’ve poisoned the well.

The “I” in that line isn’t necessarily one person.

It’s all of us.

I use this stuff too.

I carry a phone. I use cloud services. I buy things online. I participate in the exact system I’m criticizing.

That contradiction is part of the song.

We built this world because we wanted what it offered us.

Now we have to live with what we gave it in return.

For Mr. Orwell

There’s a line in the song:

“For Mr. Orwell.”

Yes, it’s a George Orwell reference.

But I’m not particularly interested in pretending we’re living inside 1984.

Reality is more complicated than that.

There doesn’t need to be one government agency watching everybody from some giant control room.

We willingly carry devices capable of tracking our location.

We put microphones and cameras throughout our homes.

We give companies information about ourselves constantly.

And much of the time, we do it because the service we receive in exchange is genuinely useful.

That’s what makes this difficult.

Nobody had to force us.

We volunteered.

Flock Safety

Flock Safety is one of the companies that specifically pisses me off.

The company sells automated license plate reader technology that can capture information about vehicles as they pass its cameras.

And even the name bothers me.

Flock.

Maybe I’m reading more into it than was ever intended, but I find it incredibly condescending.

A flock is something you watch.

Something you track.

Something you manage.

A bunch of sheep moving together while somebody else looks down and keeps an eye on them.

That is a pretty unfortunate name for a company whose technology can be used to keep track of where people's vehicles are going.

Maybe we're supposed to be the flock.

If so, the sheep are starting to notice the shepherd.

Because people are fighting back.

Communities are asking questions. People are challenging whether this level of surveillance should be normal. And more of us are realizing that public safety doesn't have to mean quietly accepting every new system capable of tracking us.

Good.

We should be asking questions.

We should be difficult.

We should be suspicious of anyone who tells us that giving up another piece of our privacy is simply the price of being safe.

Because a flock only works when everybody keeps moving in the same direction.

Some of us aren't.

The company talks about public safety.

I understand the argument.

A stolen vehicle can be located.

A suspect can potentially be identified.

Evidence can be found.

Those are real benefits.

But I think we spend far too much time talking about what surveillance technology can solve and nowhere near enough time talking about what happens once the infrastructure exists.

Corporate Hell

Another line in the song is:

“Now here we are stuck inside this corporate hell.”

Because surveillance isn't the only thing bothering me.

There is an enormous economy built around data.

Collect it.

Store it.

Process it.

Analyze it.

Sell services based on it.

Build infrastructure to handle even more of it.

And somewhere underneath this supposedly invisible digital world are enormous physical facilities making it possible.

Data centers.

I hate the way we talk about “the cloud” as though all of this information disappears into some magical place in the sky.

It doesn't.

The internet is physical.

Data is physical.

It has to be stored somewhere.

That takes land.
That takes electricity.
That takes water.
That takes infrastructure.

And we're demanding more of it constantly.

More AI.

More streaming.

More cameras.

More connected devices.

More analytics.

More storage.

More data.

More.

More.

More.

Then corporations arrive promising that the next enormous technological expansion will somehow make our lives better.

Maybe parts of it will.

That's the problem.

The trade is almost never completely bad.

If it were, nobody would accept it.

The Safest Era

Something else kept bothering me while writing this song.

We have access to extraordinary technology.

We can communicate instantly.

We can navigate almost anywhere.

We can call for help from practically anywhere.

We have cameras everywhere.

We have tracking systems.

We have databases.

We have more technological tools for security than previous generations could have imagined.

And somehow we're still being told we need more.

Another camera.

Another system.

Another database.

Another piece of ourselves surrendered in the name of safety.

When does it stop?

What level of safety would finally be enough?

I don't know if there is one.

Because fear is incredibly easy to sell.

The Cycle Repeating

“The cycle repeating is so self-defeating.”

That line gets closest to what I was feeling when I wrote the song.

We create technology to solve a problem.

That technology creates another problem.

So we create more technology to solve that problem.

Then we build infrastructure to support the new technology.

Then we need systems to manage the infrastructure.

Then we need surveillance to protect the systems.

Then we need enormous amounts of data to make all of it work.

And somehow the answer is always:

More.

I don't have some grand solution.

“I’ve Poisoned the Well” isn't supposed to provide one.

I'm participating in the same system.

That's why the title isn't:

“They’ve Poisoned the Well.”

It's:

“I’ve Poisoned the Well.”

We wanted convenience.

We wanted connection.

We wanted security.

We wanted everything immediately.

Corporations were more than happy to sell it to us.

And somewhere along the way, we stopped asking what all of it was costing us.

Maybe the well didn't get poisoned all at once.

Maybe we did it one drop at a time.

And maybe the most disturbing part is how good some of those drops tasted.