In New Zealand and Australia we grapple the ongoing spectre of colonisation. Two centuries ago, the British arrived on Antipodean shores full of entrepreneurial, explorer spirit - move fast and break things! - and uprooted indigenous people from land their ancestors had tended for generations.
Sacred forests made way for sheep. Rivers were redirected, swamps drained. Colonisers pushed traditional owners to the margins, wrote new laws, established new industries, and built towns, farms, and mines.
Colonisation 101
First, they promised peaceful co-existence. We're not here to take anything, they said. We're just hanging out. Don't mind us. You're still in charge.
Once they dropped that facade and the troops rolled in, the Brits implored locals to be practical. It's inevitable, they suggested. There's no opting out. Join in, or be left behind.
Besides, they laughed, it's good for you. You'll love it! Think of all the great stuff we bring. Take this plough, pop on this coat, and speak this language you barely understand, while we destroy your way of life and trample on your traditions.
Decades later, after violent land seizure and total domination of laws and customs, colonisers scoffed at accusations of wrongdoing. What are you talking about? Everything's better now! Where would you be without us?
While New Zealand was annexed by treaty, Australia was declared terra nullius. Free for the taking, mate. Traditional ownership? Never heard of it. (Copyright? Dunno what you're on about.)
Anyway, they said on both sides of the ditch, that's all in the past. Can't we just move forward?
Will technology colonise our minds?
Two decades of the attention economy have commodified our eyeballs and messed with our focus and deep thought. Now, we're offered a convenient path to outsource our judgement and creativity. Art? AI will do it! Writing? Who needs it? Thinking? We got you!
Throughout history, we've been subjects of systems that use social infrastructure and legitimising stories to shape our minds and lives - it's how monarchs and governments seize and maintain power. Rulers control social systems (legal, economic, education, political, natural resources) and circulate stories (rules, myths, religion, social norms) to justify the outcomes those systems produce.
Today, systems and stories are increasingly controlled by private interests in the form of technology companies. They're gobbling up key social infrastructure - payments, communications, broadcasting, news, education - and seizing the means of ideas.
The stories are familiar: it's just for fun get on board, no wait we're in charge now but it's good for you, also it's inevitable, why can't you move on?
The virtual -> political pipeline
Content consumed online is not a harmless sideline to real life. Watching Louis Theroux’s Inside the Manosphere, I was struck by the pipeline from online influencing to real-world politics. These guys aren't just shaping young minds on TikTok, they're helping underpin a regression of women's rights in the US and UK.
Of course people who perform well in the attention economy occupy positions of social, cultural and political power. Ideas themselves are a technology.
Which means the ideas we allow access to our mental territory, whether through passive consumption (ads, mindless scrolling) or active research (reading, debate, research) have the power to change the way we live. Words create worlds.
Exercise your cognitive sovereignty
Faced with this, we can choose to exercise our cognitive sovereignty. Like states claim sovereignty over their territory and subjects, we have sovereignty over our minds and actions
Cognitive sovereignty is intellectual self-governance. Our minds are our jurisdiction. We decide what comes in and out, we have the power to make binding decisions, and we have responsibility for the consequences.
Like states, while we have final authority, we're not totally independent. Just as states are influenced by trade and alliances, we are influenced by our information environment. Sovereignty might not be absolute control, but it is final authority.
Cognitive sovereignty is intellectual self-governance. Our minds are our jurisdiction. We decide what comes in and out, we have the power to make binding decisions, and we have responsibility for the consequences.
Theory vs power
That's not to say sovereignty is straightforward. Much academic and philosophical theory folds under the pressure of reality. Sovereignty is still fraught, complex - and contested, in a world still grappling with war.
Thomas Hobbes thought sovereignty should rest in a single ruler, with total power to enforce order and keep peace. For him, sovereignty was absolute, unified, and justified by a fear of chaos (the 'state of nature'). Jean-Jacques Rousseau, cheeky pre-revolution Frenchy, disagreed. He believed that sovereignty belongs to the people, collectively, and could only be expressed through the general will - not delegated permanently to a single ruler.
Both of these ideas are incomplete when confronted with real-world power. The single ruler is overthrown. The general will is overridden. We end up with something more like Michel Foucault's theory of power - not exclusively top-down or collective, more like invisible tentacles that touch everything around us: diffuse and dynamic, embedded yet permeable, always shifting and changing.
Cognitive sovereignty faces the same tension writ small: we have power over our minds, but social norms, algorithms and powerful ideas press in. They test the boundaries, pitch their tents - and if we're not careful, rule by proxy. You have final authority over what you think but if you're not intentional, your sovereignty in theory will cede to power in practice.
Sovereignty involves responsibility
You decide what enters your mind, what you believe, and what you act on - but that authority comes with accountability. Your words create worlds and your thoughts have consequences.
Your attention diet is not a benign force. That's why people spend so much time and money trying to stick a flag in it. What you scroll, read, listen to, watch and consume affects you, your behaviour and the world around you. If you consume unthinkingly and let defaults drive you, you become an unwitting foot soldier for ideas you didn't even notice.
Sovereignty is final authority, which is not the same as 'do whatever you want'. Like the political, cognitive sovereignty carries moral responsibilities: to act deliberately, choose responsibly, and live with the consequences of your thoughts and actions. If you're not keeping track of what's coming in, it's hard to control what comes out.
Hands off the brain
A final note: technological dominance is not in the same category as the violent dispossession experienced by Māori and Aboriginal peoples. Not even close. I’m drawing this analogy to spark conversation, not downplay a bloody legacy.
But the logic and playbook is uncomfortably familiar, eh?
And I don’t know about you, but I’m not letting algorithms settle into my mental territory.
Hands off the brain, bro.
Take action: Defend your mental territory
The Cognitive Sovereignty Playbook has ten kick-ass, practical ways to defend your mental territory - and includes a handy PDF you can download, print, reference, and share.
With these ten tips, you'll control your inputs, interrupt automation, rebuild independent thinking, and reshape your ideas to underpin a life and identity you're proud of.
Alicia McKay
