(08-31-2026, 05:57 PM)Punatang Wrote: Millions and millions of people will be scanned by Flock, every day, to help protect each other.
When FB showed up it was like, how cool, I can stay in touch with the family, the kids. But by the 2016 election cycle their algorithms that not only included the aggregate of all the the posts and the photos of their users, but statistical analysis of their personalities coupled with predictive modeling and the best we’ve learned from a lifetime of commercialization on just what and how and when to suggest whatever and bingo a presidency was sold to the highest bidder.. targeted advertising time on FB gets results.
And now, add to FB’s files one’s location known by their phone’s IP#, coupled with their buying habits cataloged with bluetooth scanners and credit card receipts in retail outlets, their health statistics recorded with wearables, and facial recognition in transit hubs, their automobiles location with Flock tied together with every CCD camera and Ring like eyes, all folded in with their government stats, and the mundane data smart devices such as your refrigerator spits out, and the glories of massive data centers to house and sort through all that only begins to tap into the potential of those algorithms developed over a lifetime of nudging people to buy one product over another. And, bingo, we’re all just fodder for a fucking machine.
Global warming is real. The impacts are everywhere. And the real threat, the massive loss of crops, the disruptions of the supply chain, shortages of fuel, all loom heavy over a population so digitally known that the logical outgrowth of what some suggest is for the welfare of those in need will become the tool with which to dictate what one can and can not do. Todays there’s only so much water, you can eat only so many ounces of meat, have only so many gallons of or hours on the charger. You can, or cannot go to.. you must do this and you cannot do that.
All for the good of us all.
There was a reason George Orwell’s 1984 was required reading in my 8th grade English class. Though back then, long before ’84, it was interesting to watch folks fixate on the date. But who could blame them, they had no comprehension of the digital world.. no way to fathom how George's vision could manifest. And yet here we are, Heinlein's World as Myth (Pantheistic Solipsism) in all its glory, manifest.
To say Flock is for the good of the many, and suggest that it’s acceptable to sacrifice the good of the few in exchange for its benefits is to say control over the masses, not the betterment of our humanity, is the goal. Which is the same as was Hitler’s when he created a system of concentration camps and exterminated those he deemed inferior. There’s no difference. Accept now ICE agents, soon to be followed by robots, will do the dirty work.
Third Reich, Fourth Reich, what's in a name, eh brother ‘Tang?