https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/aug/05/yuval-noah-harari-free-information-extremely-dangerous-interview-21-lessons
> Why is liberalism under particular threat from big data? > Liberalism is based on the assumption that you have privileged access to your > own inner world of feelings and thoughts and choices, and nobody outside you > can really understand you. This is why your feelings are the highest > authority in your life and also in politics and economics – the voter knows > best, the customer is always right. Even though neuroscience shows us that > there is no such thing as free will, in practical terms it made sense because > nobody could understand and manipulate your innermost feelings. But now the > merger of biotech and infotech in neuroscience and the ability to gather > enormous amounts of data on each individual and process them effectively > means we are very close to the point where an external system can understand > your feelings better than you. We’ve already seen a glimpse of it in the last > epidemic of fake news. > > There’s always been fake news but what’s different this time is that you can > tailor the story to particular individuals, because you know the prejudice of > this particular individual. The more people believe in free will, that their > feelings represent some mystical spiritual capacity, the easier it is to > manipulate them, because they won’t think that their feelings are being > produced and manipulated by some external system. -- Kim Holburn IT Network & Security Consultant T: +61 2 61402408 M: +61 404072753 mailto:[email protected] aim://kimholburn skype://kholburn - PGP Public Key on request _______________________________________________ Link mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
