Congrats! We've ruined the Internet.

A few years ago, when you did a quick search online, you, like almost everyone, expect that what you received as a result was accurate and unbiased. You expected, quite reasonably, that your query returned the closest results from a database of websites cataloged by your favorite search engine. Then, as an extension, you trusted and expected that those websites were, in turn, providing something worth your time.

I hope we all enjoyed that moment in time, because it seems like that's over. Permanently.

Before I go on, I have to say that I don't mean to be an old curmudgeon about technology. I truly don't. In fact, I'm of the opinion that we have a tremendous amount of power to do real, tangible good with the technology that we have at our disposal. The issue isn't the tech. The issue is how it's used.

We find ourselves at a cultural and societal precipice; a jumping-off point into a great and deep unknown. We're ready to jump into the wilderness of innovation, guided by the hand of those with the resources to do so. Herein lies our problem. Our dive, so to speak, is guided carefully by people whose only interest in us is the financial gain the can generate from us. We will land in safe waters or crash to a rocky death based only on which outcome will raise the profit margins.

This, of course, is not a new phenomenon. For millenia, those with power and resources have been using those resources to increase their wealth at the cost of the poor and marginalized. However, today's technological direction carries with it more than a risk for unchecked power. The risk has become the creation of a system that can only and inevitably collapse under its own weight. And when it does, it will indiscriminately bring us all down with it. That is, if we don't begin to resist it.