The terms lock-in (noun), lock in (verb including different verb forms), or locked-in (adjective) have been around for a while. They have a surprisingly broad range of usages in technical, slang, social, business, medical, religious, and political contexts. Likewise, they have a wide spectrum of connotations, from highly positive to extremely negative.
A lock-in can be a supervised social event for young people in a school or church or a demonstration in which protesters lock themselves in a building. To lock in someone or something is relatively common, as in “I locked my dog in the yard.” Buyers typically lock in the lowest interest rate they can find when buying a house and securing a mortgage. In sports, coaches like to see entirely focused, locked-in players. We can say that video gamers and students studying for exams can be locked in (the opposite of “chillin”). Another prominent meaning for locked in is being incarcerated. However, no one likes to see a patient recovering from a stroke with the locked-in syndrome.
Another range of usages for these terms refers to business, social, and political commitments. We make lock-in decisions all the time. Typically, when signing up for a commitment to a cellphone service, we are locked in for two years. Sure, we can break the commitment if we become unhappy with our decision, but inertia, the monetary penalties, and the need to find a “better” solution are daunting. We are stuck.
In the information technology (IT) world, lock-in is ever-present. IT is a complex set of puzzle pieces that almost any organization must assemble and keep operational. What type of network should they have, how do they connect to the internet, what skills do the staff need, what products should they buy (or rent), etc. It is a constant struggle between finding the most cost-effective IT system and organizational sanity. Should an organization rip out the old systems, vendors, and staff training and replace it with a new array of products, architectures, vendors, and skills?
Transitioning from the more economically-based IT world to the political, religious, and social worlds, we find less dispassionate logic and more passion. The country’s economy can collapse into a depression caused by a tariff war, and some people will cling doggedly to a pro-tariff policy. Even in the face of irrefutable objective facts, some people are locked into their political, religious, and social positions. People across the personality and political spectrums are intractable in their ideas about politics, religion, and society. Despite contrary evidence, they say they are willing to be figuratively burned at the stake before they will change their positions.
How and why do some people become intransigent prisoners of their political, religious, and social beliefs while others work hard to remain free from being locked in?
We all seek or stumble onto a path in life, and some people doggedly follow and become locked into the beliefs embedded in the social world constructed by their family, friends, and authority figures. Others reject the comfort of their family and friends and lock into a different “easy-to-acquire” set of beliefs. Psychologists have shown that many people live and make decisions based more on emotions than rational decision-making. Therefore, it is unsurprising that many people become subservient to actual fake news, emotional attachments, and authority figures that undermine their long-term interests. Sadly, similar to pseudocoma (locked-in syndrome), the life decisions made by most of these people make it difficult for them to wake up from their fate and free themselves from their locked-in states.
One way to inoculate ourselves from the danger of being locked into a world of fake news and manipulation is to develop a baloney detection kit (see the “Detecting Baloney” post) and act independently.
