Illustration by © Dr Eleanor Dare, courtesy of the artist

Dear corporation/military industrial complex,

Your machines represent the extracting logic which enabled slavery and the destruction of the environment in return for power and profit for a few already powerful people. The machines you make cannot grasp the pain and loss, illness and history entangled with the extraction they enforce. Personifying them or superimposing a construct of emotion is a sleight of hand which hides the corporate cruelty and lack of care behind the machine, so I do not address machines but the ceos, boards and investors who are continuing to destroy the planet.

You are not worthy of this letter and have only caused the death of species and habitats, you dress this up as convenience or innovative while making our lives unliveably toxic. Of course the poorest nations and people do the labour which makes you rich and you hide that in false constructs of automation and autonomy, as well as hating the planet you hate the workers who generate your wealth and reduce their ability to form unions and to challenge your often racialised, exploitation.

I wish you nothing but your own destruction, capitalism will eat itself and the machines you make will grind to a halt as the last oil refinery or nuclear reactor implodes. There is no hope of these men caring for the rest of us, your machines do what you want them to do, I long for the day they stop running.

Eleanor

Words by Dr Eleanor Dare | Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Cambridge