Silicon Forest (n): A high-tech industrial corridor in the Portland Metro area, primarily Beaverton and Hillsboro, known for its concentration of tech companies fabricating and applying semiconductors such as Intel, Tektronix, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and more.
Introduction
The speed of technological advancement feels like a train that’s off the rails. What seemed like a distant dystopia even just a few years ago has passed into the regular order of the present day, whether with a bang or subtly, without most of us even noticing. A degree of skepticism and nervousness towards this dystopia in progress is permitted and even affirmed in the mainstream, as long as no one starts to question the trajectory of technological advancement which those who dreamed up this virtual reality want us to see as the unstoppable path of progress. They want us to see their digital world as being all around us, and, at the same time, nowhere at all.
The reality that we are being dissuaded from seeing through the constant notifications, entertainment, and information overload is that the Earth is being decimated to make way for this “Silicon Forest”; it is very real, material, and it’s happening right now. We are standing on the precipice of a critical juncture for both the survival of all that remains wild and free, and the development of world domination. Over the past years, those in power, the old-money and start-up capitalists, their politician lackeys and the militaries at their disposal, have been laying the groundwork for a “renewable energy” industrial revolution. In reality, any possibility of halting climate change is far behind us, and those who promise solutions are only interested in the power and money that convincing us that they’re our only hope can give them. For civilization to survive, they tell us, the Silicon Forest must be built, and it must be immense.