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New Gods of Tech and Return of Old Questions
The Morning Standard
|January 11, 2026
Every invention starts with the same vibe, 'this will make life easier'.
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It starts with the same low-key flex: fire meant food no longer fought back, and night stopped being terrifying. The wheel saved our knees.
Electricity killed the dark. The internet killed distance. Smartphones killed waiting. Each upgrade shaved off friction, effort, uncertainty. But here's the twist nobody puts in the keynote slides: every time life gets easier, we end up inventing new ways to feel something again. And now here we are, paying money to run on treadmills that go nowhere, lifting iron to recreate work our ancestors were literally trying to escape, subscribing to apps that remind us to breathe, stretch, sleep, hydrate, and occasionally look up from the screen. And, ah, "Digital detox" is now a luxury product. Everyone's talking about grounding routines, touch grass energy while holding devices that never stop buzzing.
Progress didn't fail. It looped so hard it glitched.
This is why Gates, Musk, and Zuckerberg don't feel like just CEOs anymore.
They feel like the new gods of how reality is supposed to work. Gates wants electronic tattoos on your skin tracking your body dynamics better than you can.
This story is from the January 11, 2026 edition of The Morning Standard.
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