~ WWM ~ World Without Mind

~ TETOBT ~ The Existential Threat Of Big Tech

~ TBTC-A-AOT-TMPGTWHEK ~ The Biggest Tech Companies – Are – Among Other Things – The Most Powerful Gatekeepers The World Has Ever Known

~ TS-MC-LTOTV-IPOC-IPON-HES-THPDS-THHAOPAC-ODBFAFHE-WMSV ~ To Survive – Media Companies – Lost Track Of Their Values – In Pursuit Of Clicks – Important Purveyors Of News – Have Embraced Sensationalism – They Have Published Dubious Stories – They Have Heaped Attention On Propagandists And Conspiracists – Old Boundaries Between Fact And Falsehood Have Eroded – Where Misinformation Spreads Virally

~ WHO-OS-TBSOSAMBC-WWNTARITWNJ-MWM-B-WTCTRTM ~ We’ve Handed Over – Our Secrets – To Be Stored On Servers And Mined By Computers – What We Need To Always Remember Is That We’re Not Just – Merging With Machines – But – With The Companies That Run The Machines

~ IIAIFOTHTTOOSFWTNEOB-P-A-C ~ It Is An Important Fact Of Technological History That The Outskirts Of San Francisco Were The National Epicenter Of Both – Psychedelics – And – Computing

~ AEC-TOFTABQATHI ~ An Engineering Challenge – That Often Fails To Ask Basic Questions About The Human Implications

~ TS-WAIBA-P-WCACODABOC-SI ~ The Singularity – When Artificial Intelligence Becomes All-Powerful – When Computers Are Capable Of Designing And Building Other Computers – SuperIntelligence

~ A-SU-AT-UTALRIIBE ~ Always – Surveilling Users – Auditing Them – Using Them As Lab Rats In Its Behavioral Experiments

~ TTLORIADIITSOC ~ Taken The Language Of Radical Individualism And Deployed It In The Service Of Conformism

~ ‘RT’ ~ “Radical Transparency”

~ ‘UT’ ~ “Ultimate Transparency”

~ TPTEMTCTHAN-A-TTCTTR-ASOPSTCBFM ~ Those Procedures That Enable Mechanical Thinking Came To Have A Name – Algorithms – The Textbooks Compare Them To Recipes – A Series Of Precise Steps That Can Be Followed Mindlessly

~ TAISTBDO:B/I/E/F ~ The Algorithm Is Supposed To Be Devoid Of: Bias / Intuition / Emotion / Forgiveness

~ TTATTDUIC-YTMCUI-D-LVOT-TIIWIWTH ~ They Talk About Torturing The Data Until It Confesses – Yet This Metaphor Contains Unexamined Implicitness – Data – Like Victims Of Torture – Tells Its Interrogator What It Wants To Hear

~ TPITWWOTTM-WAROTTTOTRTM ~ The Problem Is That When We Outsource Thinking To Machines – We Are Really Outsourcing Thinking To The Organizations That Run The Machines

~ TCGWIWAD ~ The Crowd Gets What It Wants And Deserves

~ TWEITMHBP-TATB-WMTETM-AAMTEFW-TRHOTBOC-TNTITRD ~ The Whole Effort Is To Make Human Beings – Predictable – To Anticipate Their Behavior – Which Makes Them Easier To Manipulate – Algorithms Are Meant To Erode Free Will – To Relive Humans Of The Burden Of Choosing – To Nudge Them In The Right Direction

~ AFASOO-TCBTOBCBA-WOEBAOTHGU-IASD-TABADOTEMS-AIMBIRIBISABTDAMPSW-WATSARITGD ~ Algorithms Fuel A Sense Of Omnipotence – The Condescending Belief That Our Behavior Can Be Altered – Without Our Even Being Aware Of The Hand Guiding Us – In A Superior Direction – That’s Always Been A Danger Of The Engineering Mind-Set – As It Moves Beyond Its Roots In Building Inanimate Stuff And Begins To Design A More Perfect Social World – We Are The Screws And Rivets In The Grand Design

~ TITSEOTNKM-TDAPK;TJSAOI ~ This Is The Strange Essence Of The New Knowledge Monopolies – They Don’t Actually Produce Knowledge; They Just Sift And Organize It

~ KITITRTEPOACOI-WK-TFAMBOPO-TM-OTLR-DTCFAE ~ Knowledge Is Too Important To Remain The Eternal Possession Of Any Company Or Individual – We Know – That Future Achievement Must Build On Past Ones – That Monopolies – Over The Long Run – Drain The Creativity From An Economy

~ OAUAP-TBOIPBAABP ~ Once An Underground, Amateur Pastime – The Bootlegging Of Intellectual Property Became An Accepted Business Practice

~ SVRTCAEG-WIOCARMIGIHH ~ Silicon Valley Routinely Trashes Cultural And Economic Gatekeepers – While Its Own Companies Are The Most Imposing Gatekeepers In Human History

~ TPOIOSALMED ~ The Population Of Informational Oligarchs Shrinks A Little More Every Day

~ DASVSABAMTW-TISATTOTO ~ Despite All Silicon Valley’s Sloganeering About Building A More Transparent World – Their Ideals Stop At The Threshold Of Their Offices

~ EF-MC-WWACOP-ACTCTFOWAI-B-TPHBSBAITP-BTDPATN-S-D-P ~ Even Free-Market Conservatives – Will Worry About Concentrations Of Power – Among Companies That Control The Flow Of Words And Ideas – Because – That Power Has Been So Blatantly Abused In The Past – Both The Distant Past And The Not-So-Distant Past

~ IAFOMI-TWROTITTCEST ~ It’s A Failure Of Moral Imagination – That Writers Respond Only To Injustices That They Can Envision Suffering Themselves

~ BVOTS-TFTTDMOTMFDI-CTOSLASG ~ By Virtue Of Their Size – The Fact That They Dominate Much Of The Market For Disseminating Ideas – Criticizing Them Often Seems Like A Suicidal Gesture

~ TITATCWFACIHN-WDNTATWATTCTFTCTSV ~ The Idea That A Tech Company Would Favor A Candidate Is Hardly Novel – We Don’t Need To Assume The Worst About The Tech Companies To Fear Their Capacity To Swing Votes

~ TTTCPLV-TCATMIAC-WCWURITCODB-CTAITDHAAURII ~ Though The Tech Companies Preach Liberal Values – They Crave Access To Markets In Authoritarian Countries – Where Compromise With Ugly Regimes Is The Cost Of Doing Business – Companies That Are Indifferent To Democracy Have Acquired An Outsized Role In It

~ DOTBTCIITPOTWATE ~ Dependence On The Big Tech Companies Is Increasingly The Plight Of The Worker And The Entrepreneur

~ AATMROOT-WLIAWOUBTPTBFEGEAP-IOWLFTN ~ Analytics Are The Managerial Revolution Of Our Time – We Live In A World Of Ubiquitous Data That Provide The Basis For Ever Greater Efficiency And Productivity – If Only We Learn From The Numbers

~ TETOTMEI:‘T’~ The Essential Term Of This Media Era Is: “Trending”

~ OEIDBP-WIGTHNG ~ Our Era Is Defined By Polarization – Warring Ideological Gangs That Yield No Ground

~ TBTM ~ Take Back The Mind

~ DITNO ~ Data Is The New Oil

~ TDFATOTHATMCPOU-TABE-AICOT ~ The Dominant Firms Are The Ones That Have Amassed The Most Complete Portraits Of Us – This Advantage Becomes Everything – And It Compounds Over Time

~ TTTPATCMANOATS ~ The Threats To Privacy And The Competitive Marketplace Are Now One And The Same

~ R-SWLRFTIPWGTS ~ Rent-Seekers With Little Regard For The Independent Producers Whose Goods They Sell

~ TOTDTI-BAT-TA ~ They Owe Their Dominance To Innovation – But Also To – Tax Avoidance

~ TASU-TF-TPHTTI-BTWLFE ~ They Aggressively Surveil Users – Thus Far – The Pubic Has Tolerated These Invasions – But That Won’t Last For Ever

~ H-ACTSC-ACBTT-EHTTAAFODL-AMPTPFIW ~ Hackers – Are Constantly Testing Security Cordons – And Constantly Bursting Through Them – Everybody Has Tolerated This As A Fact Of Digital Life – A Minor Price To Pay For Its Wonders

~ TBO-TIM-H-TWRSTIC-IMBAECOII-IMDOFS-OIMTAAE ~ The Big One – The Inevitable Mega-Hack – That Will Rumble Society To Its Core – It Might Be An Exposed Cache Of Intimate Information – It Might Disrupt Our Financial System – Or It Might Trigger And Actual Explosion

~ DPA ~ Data Protection Authority

~ TPITPTCOEOD-WAN-H-AC-AWCBCAWCBE-CSHTRTPDTSOS ~ The Point Isn’t To Prevent The Collection Or Exploitation Of Data – What Are Needed – However – Are Constraints – About What Can Be Collected And What Can Be Exploited – Citizens Should Have The Right To Purge Data That Sits On Servers

~ IA-B-I-R-WOE:C-NTCTSTT-SOTOD-TLSDTTCTTDWTGC-BIDBTT-PODIAHRTMCWEO ~ It’s A – Basic – Intuitive – Right – Worthy Of Enshrinement: Citizens – Not The Corporations That Stealthily Track Them – Should Own Their Own Data – The Law Should Demand That These Companies Treat This Data With The Greatest Care – Because It Doesn’t Belong To Them – Possessing Our Data Is A Heavy Responsibility That Must Come With Ethical Obligations

~ TIIA-BWSTI-AIIEOH-O-IEFOMS-EWTSANLTTFOIATFOD ~ The Internet Is Amazing – But We Shouldn’t Treat It – As If It Exists Outside History – Or – Is Exempt From Our Moral Structures – Especially When The Stakes Are Nothing Less Than The Fate Of Individuality And The Fitness Of Democracy

~ CATMAQOFHBASOSS-WRTQ-WCCF-B/E/J-ATSC? ~ Caring About The Morality And Quality Of Food Has Become A Symbol Of Social Status – Which Raises The Question – Why Can’t Concern For – Books / Essays /Journalism – Acquire The Same Cachet?

~ WMCAFA-TCNTDR ~ While Media Chase A Fake Audience – They Consciously Neglect Their Devoted Readers

~ STPEACVOABE-ETTRRSOR ~ Subscribers To Print Editions Are Considered Vestiges Of A Bygone Era – Even Though They Remain Reliable Sources Of Revenue

~ TTHATLMFTROA ~ The Time Has Arrived To Liberate Media From Their Reliance On Advertising

~ MNTSBTA-TRTTN-TRTLOCA-AMTWY-SE-A-SB ~ Media Need To Scale Back Their Ambitions – To Return To Their Niches – To Reclaim The Loyalty Of Core Audiences – A Move That Will Yield – Superior Editorial – And – Sustainable Businesses

~ TRT-MWNTCR-ARWNTP-CHNIPPFW-SLAPPAPTOT ~ To Rescue Themselves – Media Will Need To Charge Readers – And Readers Will Need To Pay – Consumers Have No Inherent Problem Paying For Words – So Long As Publishers Place A Price Tag On Them

~ TRRITSOP-WWRWOP-WRFT-N/P/AOU-SUAFOT-TPPU-FATIOD-TDFTMTTTOHC ~ Take Regular Refuge In The Sanctuary Of Paper – When We Read Words On Paper – We’re Removed From The – Notifications / Pings / And Other Urgencies – Summoning Us Away From Our Thoughts – The Page Permits Us – For A Time In Our Day – To Decouple From The Machine To Tend To Our Human Core

~ WHDOICMDA-CAE-TA-TTTL ~ We Have Deluded Ourselves Into Caring More Deeply About – Convenience And Efficiency – Than About – The Things That Last