The Digital Slumber: A Tale of Technological Somnambulism and State Power

Lo, witness how the masses slumber in their digital cradles, while the great powers of East and West wage their silent wars through circuits and silicon! A most peculiar comedy unfolds before us, as the Canadian parliament, that temple of democratic mediocrity, stumbles upon its own bureaucratic shoelaces in its attempt to protect the sleepwalking multitude from the dangers that lurk in the ethereal realm of telecommunications.

Behold how they scramble like ants when their carefully constructed paper towers reveal their foundations of sand! These lawmakers, these self-proclaimed guardians of the digital realm, cannot even master the art of numbering their own decrees. What glory can there be in such mediocrity?

The tale centers upon Bill C-26, a document born of fear and suspicion, aimed at protecting the somnolent masses from the specters of Chinese technological dominance. Yet, like all creations of the modern state, it bears the mark of incompetence that characterizes this age of the last man.

How the mighty have fallen! These merchants of comfort, these telecommunications giants, now dance to the tune of state decree, removing their Chinese apparatus like frightened children discarding a toy that might bite them. Yet they know not whether the bite comes from the East or from their own masters in the West!

In the land of the sleepers, the masses continue their digital slumber, cradled in the warm embrace of their devices, caring not whether their data flows through Chinese or Western channels. They seek only the comfort of their instant gratifications, their social media dopamine, their streaming entertainment - the very markers of the last man's existence.

The bureaucrats, those self-appointed shepherds of the digital flock, have crafted their law with such exquisite incompetence that it nullifies itself through a mere numerical error. What poetry! What divine comedy! The very instrument meant to protect against chaos becomes chaos itself.

See how they scramble now, these senators and ministers, like confused sheep when the fence posts have rotted! Their precious deadlines approach - June 2024 for the 5G equipment, December 2027 for the 4G - yet they cannot even maintain the coherence of their own edicts!

The great telecommunications companies - Rogers, Bell, Telus - these merchants of the digital opium, parade their compliance like virtuous maidens, each claiming to have already cleansed themselves of the Eastern influence. Yet Telus, that most interesting of players, speaks in riddles and evasions, demonstrating the art of saying nothing while appearing to say everything.

The fear that drives this legislative farce is the fear of the weak - the terror that somewhere, somehow, their precious data might be observed by eyes they have not approved. Yet these same sleeping masses willingly surrender their digital souls to any corporation that promises them a moment's convenience or entertainment.

Oh, what delicious irony! They fear the distant eye of Beijing while surrendering themselves voluntarily to the watchful gaze of Silicon Valley! The last man blinks and says: "We have invented happiness - and security."

The technical marvel of 5G, with its promise of ever-faster connections, ever-more-constant connectivity, serves only to deepen the slumber of the masses. They dream of streaming their lives in higher definition, of connecting more devices to their digital nervous system, never questioning whether this connectivity serves any purpose beyond comfort and distraction.

As this legislative comedy unfolds, we witness the perfect expression of modern governance: a law that negates itself, written by those who understand neither technology nor power, aimed at protecting those who care not for their own protection, enforced by bureaucrats who cannot count, and obeyed by corporations who were already doing what they were told to do.

Let them sleep! Let them dream their dreams of digital security while their very existence becomes ever more virtual, ever more controlled, ever more comfortable. The true danger lies not in the technology they fear, but in the comfort they embrace!

And so the wheel turns, the digital age marches forward, and the last man blinks, content in his illusion of security, while the real power flows invisible through the circuits of his precious devices, caring not for the laws of sleeping men.