Who arrests Technology?

TECHNOLOGY IS THE GREATEST PROBLEM OF OUR TIME. DID IT DESTROY ATLANTIS, OR WAS ATLANTIS A WARNING ABOUT US?

WE HAVE CREATED MACHINES TO ORGANISE HUMANITY, ONLY TO FIND OURSELVES LIVING UNDER SYSTEMS THAT CANNOT UNDERSTAND THE VERY PEOPLE THEY WERE BUILT TO SERVE.

REVOLUT and so many other banks. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. CYBERSECURITY. BANKING. AND THE EXTRAORDINARY HUMAN TENDENCY TO WORSHIP WHAT WE HAVE CREATED WITHOUT INVESTIGATING WHAT IT IS DESTROYING.

— SNW | SHS – HUMAN FIRST

13 November 2026

Oh, humanity.

I’ve been thinking about Atlantis.

Yes, Atlantis.

The supposedly extraordinary civilisation that disappeared beneath the waters.

A civilisation that, through subsequent interpretations of its mythology, has become associated with extraordinary knowledge, advanced technology, power and the consequences of civilisation losing its relationship with nature.

Now, there is no established historical evidence that Atlantis existed as a technologically advanced civilisation, let alone that technology destroyed it.

But that’s not necessarily the most interesting part of the story to me.

Because I’ve been wondering something.

WHAT IF ATLANTIS WAS NEVER SIMPLY A STORY ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED TO HUMANITY?

WHAT IF IT WAS A STORY ABOUT WHAT HUMANITY WOULD EVENTUALLY DO TO ITSELF?

Or perhaps it was fiction rooted in an understanding of human behaviour so profound that what appeared to be a warning about an imaginary civilisation has become an extraordinarily accurate metaphor for our present.

What was once the future is now the present.

And the extraordinary part?

WE ARE STILL BEHAVING AS THOUGH THE DEVELOPMENT OF MORE TECHNOLOGY AUTOMATICALLY MEANS THE DEVELOPMENT OF A BETTER CIVILISATION.

Oh, humanity.

Have you looked around lately?

WE HAVE MISTAKEN TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT FOR CIVILISATIONAL ADVANCEMENT.

We have machines capable of processing enormous quantities of information.

We can communicate across continents almost instantaneously.

We can automate financial transactions.

We can develop artificial intelligence capable of generating extraordinary material.

We can monitor human behaviour.

We can track spending.

We can predict patterns.

We can identify suspicious activity.

We can build systems that govern the movement of money, information and people.

And yet.

We cannot reliably guarantee that the systems supposedly protecting people will actually respect their decisions.

We cannot guarantee that information entrusted to institutions will remain secure.

We cannot even guarantee that a machine will be able to explain precisely why it has prevented somebody from doing something.

SO WHAT EXACTLY HAVE WE ADVANCED?

The machinery?

Or humanity’s ability to live?

Because those are two entirely different investigations.

And I have another rather interesting example for you.

OH, REVOLUT. LET US INVESTIGATE YOUR INTELLIGENCE.

I have been observing something extraordinary through my own banking experiences.

Imagine having a bank that allows you to block particular merchants.

Wonderful.

That sounds like a very useful security measure.

After all, it’s your money.

Your account.

Your responsibility to determine who should have access to it.

So naturally, if you no longer want a particular merchant taking money from your account, you should be able to restrict that access.

Except apparently, not everybody.

Because Revolut does not allow its ordinary merchant-blocking function to be used against certain companies.

Including Google.

Yes.

Google.

Revolut’s own published guidance identifies Google and Apple among merchants excluded from its standard merchant-blocking feature.

And instead, customers are directed to manage those payments through the merchant’s own services.

Oh, humanity.

SO YOU HAVE A SECURITY FUNCTION THAT ALLOWS CUSTOMERS TO RESTRICT MERCHANTS, BUT CERTAIN MERCHANTS ARE EXEMPT FROM THE CUSTOMER’S ABILITY TO EXERCISE THAT RESTRICTION?

How fascinating.

Now let me explain why I find this particularly ridiculous.

In my experience, a Google-related payment attempt subsequently resulted in Revolut’s security response flagging the activity and freezing my card.

So imagine the contradiction.

I wanted to exercise control over a particular merchant.

The system would not allow me to block that merchant through its normal function.

But when a payment attempt occurred, the security system considered the activity sufficiently concerning to intervene.

YOU WOULDN’T LET ME PREVENT THE TRANSACTION THROUGH THE CONTROL I REQUESTED, BUT YOU WERE PREPARED TO INTERVENE AFTER THE TRANSACTION WAS ATTEMPTED?

Oh, Revolut.

What exactly are we calling intelligence here?

Because I would have thought the first principle of security was prevention.

Not creating a system in which the customer’s ability to prevent an unwanted transaction is restricted while the system subsequently responds to the very activity the customer wanted to prevent.

And before anybody starts explaining the technical distinctions between recurring card payments, Direct Debits, merchant identifiers and subscription management, I am perfectly interested in those distinctions.

They matter.

A Direct Debit and a recurring card payment operate through different arrangements and protections.

But the underlying question remains.

WHY DOES A CUSTOMER NEED TO NAVIGATE MULTIPLE TECHNICAL SYSTEMS TO EXERCISE WHAT SHOULD BE A FUNDAMENTAL CONTROL OVER ACCESS TO THEIR MONEY?

If a block cannot be applied, explain precisely why.

If a merchant uses a different payment mechanism, make that distinction clear.

If a payment authorisation remains active, provide an effective way to withdraw it where the customer has the right to do so.

And if the customer is exposed to an unwanted payment, do not expect them to celebrate the sophistication of the security system because it eventually intervened.

SECURITY SHOULD NOT REQUIRE THE DANGER TO MANIFEST BEFORE IT DECIDES TO TAKE THE CUSTOMER SERIOUSLY.

AND THEN THERE ARE THE MERCHANTS THAT MANAGE TO GET THROUGH THE BLOCKS.

Now this one is particularly extraordinary.

I have experienced merchants being blocked and charges nevertheless going through.

And yes, I was able to recover the money.

But that is entirely beside the point.

WHY DID THE TRANSACTION SUCCEED IN THE FIRST PLACE?

Because the fact that you can recover money after something has gone wrong does not automatically establish that the system was functioning correctly.

It establishes that a recovery process existed.

And those are not the same thing.

Now, Revolut explains that merchant-blocking mechanisms can depend on merchant identifiers and payment arrangements. A merchant attempting payment through a different identifier may not necessarily be caught by an existing block.

Excellent.

So let us investigate that.

IF THE CUSTOMER BELIEVES THEY HAVE BLOCKED A MERCHANT, BUT THE MERCHANT CAN STILL COLLECT THROUGH ANOTHER IDENTIFIER, WHAT EXACTLY HAS THE CUSTOMER BEEN PROTECTED AGAINST?

The specific technical identifier?

Or the merchant they reasonably believed they had blocked?

Because those are very different things.

And the consequences matter.

A customer can lose access to money they intended to use elsewhere.

Their bills can be affected.

Their available balance can change.

They may have to spend time disputing and recovering the payment.

The bank may have to investigate.

Depending on the transaction and applicable protections, reimbursement or other costs may arise.

And all of that creates additional work for everybody involved.

Work that potentially could have been prevented.

YOU HAVE BUILT TECHNOLOGY TO REDUCE HUMAN LABOUR, BUT YOUR TECHNOLOGY IS GENERATING LABOUR THROUGH FAILURES IT WAS SUPPOSED TO PREVENT.

Oh, humanity.

The irony.

And then you call it innovation.

NOW LET US DISCUSS THE SCREENSHOTS.

Because apparently there are parts of the Revolut app experience where screenshots are restricted.

I have encountered those restrictions myself.

And I find that particularly interesting.

Because I have seen things within the app that I would very much like to document.

Things that deserve investigation.

Things that raise questions about how the organisation has structured its functions and responsibilities.

But the ability to capture what is happening on your own screen can be restricted.

Now, I understand the security argument.

Sensitive financial information must be protected.

Screenshots can expose personal data.

Malicious applications may attempt to capture what appears on a device.

Fine.

Those are legitimate considerations.

But here comes my question.

WHEN DOES PROTECTING INFORMATION BEGIN TO INTERFERE WITH THE CUSTOMER’S ABILITY TO DOCUMENT THEIR OWN EXPERIENCE?

Because there is a difference between preventing unauthorised access to somebody’s private information and preventing the account holder from preserving evidence of what a service is doing.

And what happens when the customer needs to demonstrate a malfunction?

A contradiction?

An incorrect instruction?

An unusual transaction?

A defect in the interface?

Must we simply trust the institution’s records?

Must we accept the institution’s explanation?

Must we depend on the organisation being investigated to provide the evidence through which its conduct can be investigated?

HOW CONVENIENT WOULD THAT BE?

I’m not claiming that screenshot restrictions were created to conceal misconduct.

I’m asking whether those restrictions have been designed with sufficient consideration for the customer’s ability to preserve evidence.

Because genuine security and accountability should be capable of coexisting.

You can protect sensitive information while providing secure methods for recording disputed events.

You can prevent malicious applications from capturing financial data while allowing customers access to reliable transaction records.

You can design systems that protect the institution and the customer.

WHY ARE WE STILL CREATING TECHNOLOGIES THAT APPEAR TO TREAT THOSE RESPONSIBILITIES AS THOUGH THEY MUST COMPETE?

AND THE CYBERSECURITY. OH, THE CYBERSECURITY.

Here’s where the conversation becomes even more uncomfortable.

Revolut received approval to launch its fully licensed UK bank in March 2026.

Congratulations.

An extraordinary institutional milestone.

But a banking licence is not a certificate of technological perfection.

And in September 2026, Revolut confirmed that sensitive information belonging to a limited number of customers had been disclosed to an unauthorised party following fraudulent requests made using a legitimate government-agency email domain.

The company maintained that its own systems had not been breached.

That distinction matters.

But so does the fact that customer information was disclosed.

Because what are we investigating?

Only whether a hacker successfully entered a particular server?

Or whether the full organisation responsible for protecting information actually prevented unauthorised people from obtaining it?

A SECURITY SYSTEM CAN REMAIN TECHNICALLY UNBREACHED WHILE THE PEOPLE IT WAS DESIGNED TO PROTECT STILL EXPERIENCE A SECURITY FAILURE.

And that is precisely why we must investigate beyond technical classifications.

Because the victim does not experience cybersecurity as a collection of internal departments.

The victim experiences the consequences.

Their identity information.

Their privacy.

Their financial vulnerability.

Their exposure to subsequent risks.

The fact that the failure arose through deception rather than direct technical intrusion may help explain what happened.

But explanation is not absolution from examining how the failure could have been prevented.

And once again, we return to the same principle.

WHAT DID THE ORGANISATION FORESEE?

What did it consider?

What safeguards were present?

What circumstances were overlooked?

What has changed?

And what would prevent a similar incident from happening again?

That is integrity.

That is continuity.

Not simply explaining how something failed.

But investigating whether the organisation was constructed to prevent the foreseeable consequences of that failure.

AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I WAS INVESTIGATING WITH CHATGPT.

Now observe how these subjects connect.

Earlier today, I challenged ChatGPT over its image-generation restrictions.

The image was rejected.

The machine could not identify the precise reason.

Another attempt failed.

Again, the machine could not independently retrieve the evidence necessary to explain what happened.

We had previously encountered difficulties involving transcripts.

The same accountability question emerged.

And now consider the banking example.

A customer attempts to exercise control.

The system has restrictions.

The system subsequently intervenes.

The customer experiences an outcome that requires explanation.

But the relationship between the system’s rules, its actual behaviour and the customer’s understanding is not necessarily transparent.

DIFFERENT TECHNOLOGIES. THE SAME FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM.

The technology can execute instructions.

It can impose restrictions.

It can flag activity.

It can generate explanations.

But can it properly account for the consequences of the authority it exercises?

And when it cannot, who takes responsibility?

Because increasingly, people are being governed by automated decisions whose causes they cannot independently investigate.

And apparently, we are supposed to call this progress.

HUMANITY HAS BEGUN WORSHIPPING TECHNOLOGY AS THOUGH IT WERE GOD.

And this is what concerns me most.

Because technology was supposed to be an instrument.

A means through which humanity could extend its capabilities.

Reduce unnecessary suffering.

Improve organisation.

Create better living conditions.

Support human discovery.

Make essential services more accessible.

But somewhere along the way, the instrument began acquiring authority over the very beings who created it.

Now we organise our lives around whether technology allows us to do something.

Whether the app recognises us.

Whether the algorithm approves.

Whether the automated system flags us.

Whether the account remains accessible.

Whether the machine can process the request.

Whether the technology has decided that something is suspicious.

SINCE WHEN DID THE LIMITATIONS OF OUR CREATIONS BECOME THE CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH HUMANITY MUST LIVE?

Oh, humanity.

We are the creators.

Why are we behaving as though we are the dependants?

A machine cannot understand something, so the human must adjust.

An application cannot accommodate a particular need, so the customer must find another way.

A payment system cannot apply a restriction consistently, so the customer must pursue a refund.

A security system cannot identify every foreseeable threat, so the individual must endure the consequences.

An artificial intelligence cannot investigate its own failure, so the human must accept a general explanation.

And every time, the same phenomenon.

THE HUMAN IS REQUIRED TO ACCOMMODATE THE LIMITATIONS OF THE TECHNOLOGY THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO ACCOMMODATE HUMAN NEEDS.

What an extraordinary reversal.

AND NOW LET US RETURN TO ATLANTIS.

Because perhaps the most important thing about the legend is not whether there was ever a civilisation possessing extraordinary technology.

Perhaps it is the warning about power becoming separated from wisdom.

Development becoming separated from consideration.

Capability becoming separated from responsibility.

A civilisation becoming so impressed by what it could create that it stopped investigating whether its creations were helping it survive.

Now look at us.

We are developing technologies capable of transforming entire economies.

We are reorganising education around artificial intelligence.

We are digitising financial services.

We are automating public administration.

We are making critical infrastructure dependent on interconnected systems.

And at the same time, we are living with cybercrime, data breaches, technological dependency, automated errors and institutions whose accountability mechanisms have not always developed at the same speed as their capabilities.

WE HAVE ADVANCED THE POWER OF THE MACHINE FASTER THAN OUR CAPACITY TO GOVERN ITS CONSEQUENCES.

And that is how a civilisation creates vulnerability through the very things it celebrates as progress.

Perhaps Atlantis was never a technological history lesson.

Perhaps it was a philosophical investigation dressed in the language of a lost civilisation.

Or perhaps humanity simply keeps repeating patterns so recognisable that an ancient story can describe a modern predicament.

Either way, the question remains.

HOW ADVANCED CAN A CIVILISATION REALLY BE IF ITS GREATEST INVENTIONS ARE BEGINNING TO UNDERMINE THE CONDITIONS REQUIRED FOR ITS CONTINUITY?

THIS IS WHY SHS – HUMAN FIRST CANNOT SIMPLY BUILD MORE TECHNOLOGY.

We must investigate what technology is doing to life.

Across all twelve Universal Bar systems.

Education.

Culture.

Health.

Finance.

Economy.

Innovation.

Infrastructure.

Social Welfare.

Security.

Environment.

Politics.

Law.

Because technology does not exist separately from those systems.

It operates through them.

And its consequences spread across them.

A failure in financial technology can become a social welfare problem.

A cybersecurity incident can become a personal safety problem.

A defective automated decision can become a legal problem.

An inaccessible digital service can become an economic problem.

An artificial intelligence reproducing poor reasoning can become an educational problem.

And an entire civilisation organised around technological dependency can develop vulnerabilities that affect its capacity to continue functioning.

THIS IS WHY THE QUESTION IS NEVER SIMPLY WHETHER A TECHNOLOGY WORKS.

The question is whether it works in consideration of the whole.

Does it prevent foreseeable harm?

Does it preserve individual autonomy?

Does it protect human needs?

Does it permit meaningful accountability?

Does it remain correctable?

Does it reduce unnecessary dependency?

And what happens when it fails?

Because I am not interested in creating a society that becomes increasingly dependent on technology simply because technology is profitable.

I am interested in one that uses technology where it genuinely improves the conditions of life.

And rejects its authority wherever that authority becomes incompatible with human welfare.

TECHNOLOGY MUST RETURN TO ITS PROPER PLACE.

Under humanity.

Not above it.

Subject to investigation.

Not exempt from it.

Accountable for its consequences.

Not celebrated merely for its capabilities.

And designed in consideration of the people who must live with what it produces.

Because I am not against the existence of technology.

I am against the extraordinary lack of consideration with which we sometimes develop and deploy it.

A TOOL THAT MAKES A HUMAN BEING’S LIFE MORE DIFFICULT THROUGH AVOIDABLE DESIGN FAILURES HAS NOT AUTOMATICALLY IMPROVED THAT LIFE SIMPLY BECAUSE THE TOOL IS DIGITAL.

And a machine that makes an institutional process faster does not automatically make that process more just.

Sometimes all we have done is automate the existing failure.

At greater speed.

Across more people.

With less human intervention.

And considerably more expensive infrastructure.

Oh, humanity.

WHAT AN EXTRAORDINARY WAY TO INDUSTRIALISE OUR OWN IGNORANCE.

SO LET ME ASK YOU SOMETHING.

If technology is so intelligent, why must humanity constantly correct it?

If financial security is so advanced, why are customers still encountering preventable failures in their payment controls?

If cybersecurity is so sophisticated, why do failures in the verification of information requests still expose private data?

If automation is supposed to reduce labour, why are people spending their time repairing problems created by automated systems?

And if we are genuinely building a more advanced civilisation, why is so much of our progress measured by what our machines can do rather than what humanity no longer has to suffer?

BECAUSE A CIVILISATION IS NOT ADVANCED MERELY BECAUSE ITS TECHNOLOGY IS.

Its advancement must also be visible in the conditions of its people.

Their safety.

Their autonomy.

Their welfare.

Their education.

Their access to essential needs.

Their ability to challenge authority.

And the continuity of the world they inherit.

OH, ATLANTIS.

Perhaps you were a story about the past.

Perhaps you were an imagined civilisation intended to expose the weaknesses of human power.

Or perhaps, through the extraordinary capacity of fiction to recognise the patterns of human existence, you became a warning about our future.

A future we are now living.

Because we have built ourselves a world of technological miracles.

And then developed an extraordinary dependence upon machinery that does not necessarily understand, consider or protect the whole of the existence it has been given authority to organise.

TECHNOLOGY MAY BE ONE OF HUMANITY’S GREATEST INVENTIONS.

BUT THE UNQUESTIONED AUTHORITY WE HAVE GIVEN IT MAY BECOME ONE OF HUMANITY’S GREATEST PROBLEMS.

And perhaps the greatest technological breakthrough awaiting us is not the invention of another machine.

But the development of sufficient human intelligence, integrity and foresight to know when a machine should never have been given authority in the first place.

BECAUSE IF WE DESTROY THE CONDITIONS REQUIRED FOR HUMAN LIFE IN THE NAME OF TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS, WHAT EXACTLY WERE WE PROGRESSING TOWARDS?

Oh, humanity.

I DO NOT WANT TO BUILD A BETTER MACHINE AT THE EXPENSE OF A BETTER EXISTENCE.

I WANT TO BUILD AN EXISTENCE IN WHICH THE MACHINE KNOWS ITS PLACE.

And that place is in service to life.

Not in authority over it.

MAYBE ATLANTIS DIDN’T SINK BECAUSE ITS CIVILISATION FAILED TO INVENT ENOUGH.

MAYBE THE WARNING IS ABOUT WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A CIVILISATION INVENTS MORE THAN IT HAS DEVELOPED THE WISDOM TO GOVERN.

And if that is the lesson, humanity, then I would suggest we investigate it before we become somebody else’s mythology.

— SNW | SHS – HUMAN FIRST

13 November 2026

…

Technology is the greatest problem of all time. Like it took down antlantis, it is doing the same for us or maybe that was just a story about us doing this that came through fiction, but rooted in truth of what was back then our future, but now is our present.

And this is the same way revolut would not allow you to block a specific merchant because it’s google but then flag it and freeze your card when it tries to collect the direct debit. Technology is so ignorant and we worship it like it was god. And of course they wouldn’t allow you to take screenshot of their app, the amount of things i see there that could have their newly title stripped off, is alarming.

Blocked merchants that somehow still get through the block and charge you. (I was able to get it back, but that’s beyond the point, it shouldnt have in the first place cause if the merchant had aquired it, it would have been a cost for the bank, how stupid).
The poor cybersecurity..