Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you will probably be aware of Big Tech’s recent censoriousness.
Most measures to update social media’s Terms of Services, with deliberately nebulous wording, to cast a wide net in clamping down on so-called ‘hate’ speech.
We’ve heard it a thousand times: who gets to define what hate speech is?
The answer: they do.
Hate speech is simply counter-narratives they, Big Tech and other groups, disapprove of.
Sometimes they don’t even have to hold up to their part of the bargain in honoring their Terms of Service.
YouTube and Facebook recently banned several highly influential dissident commentators for their problematic content.
And now, they’re taking a proverbial e-Great Leap Forward in constructing a Chinese-Style social credit system.
Welcome to the future–we hope you enjoy your stay.
This, of course, will mean a monumental reduction in personal freedom.
Early Twentieth century thinkers such as Martin Heidegger and Oswald Spengler argued that the infinite growth of technology would impinge on personal freedom.
China’s social credit system–along with massive online restrictions–is designed to mold socially best behaviors, while eradicating undesirable ones.
Ne’er-do-wells, according to the social credit system, are harshly punished, while model citizens are granted a greater degree of liberty.
As Fast Company explains:
In place since 2014, the social credit system is a work in progress that could evolve by next year into a single, nationwide point system for all Chinese citizens, akin to a financial credit score. It aims to punish for transgressions that can include membership in or support for the Falun Gong or Tibetan Buddhism, failure to pay debts, excessive video gaming, criticizing the government, late payments, failing to sweep the sidewalk in front of your store or house, smoking or playing loud music on trains, jaywalking, and other actions deemed illegal or unacceptable by the Chinese government.
Superficially, some might ask if this is legitimately a bad thing–what’s the problem in creating a more harmonious social arrangement?
Unfortunately, the powers-that-be can exploit this system to further cement their own political power.
Likewise, Silicon Valley–which is creating this social credit system outside of the law–can exploit a social credit system to instill their progressive value structure, punishing those with dissident views.
As I point out in one of my upcoming books, ‘The Clowning of America’:
The way The Narrative Complex has reconstructed reality to further their revolutionary political agenda, taking society to uncharted territory, not for the betterment of mankind, but for the furtherance of their wealth and station; objective truth has to be obfuscated, misreported, or understated in order to retain credibility. Truth itself has been long abandoned by The Narrative Complex. All that matters is securing cultural influence and institutional power–by whichever means necessary.
But, singing a lie loud enough, won’t eventually make it truthful. The truth will eventually out. The truth will reveal itself to those who aren’t sold the grandiose lies of the Narrative Complex. The narratives will become, and, have become, so incredible that many have taken to the internet to evade the omnipresent narrativization of Pop Culture, the news, and practically every facet of contemporary living. We are currently living in a Panopticon where those who wish to express politically incorrect views must practice vigilance to ensure that somebody who may report them, isn’t listening.
People are self-policing their language, in many places, to avoid wrongthink being spoken in the wrong social setting. In liberal cities, confessing politically incorrect views can amount to total ostracism or worse. Multiple social pressures in the most liberal cities force narrative-aligned conformity to prevailing socially-acceptable politics. Incentive–or, more accurately, disincentive–structures are erected to remove wrongthink from the political arena, creating political enclaves on the coasts or Democratic-dominated cities–the Clinton Archipelago. But, is it right? Doesn’t matter, right is whatever the Narrative Complex’s stooges tell you.
You will feel a sense of accomplishment by merely agreeing with your moral and intellectual superiors with a NYT column. You’ll be an intellectual too. The main issue stems from a complete lack of exposure to contradictory viewpoints from an early age: every major institution thinks a certain way–correctly.
The point is, Big Tech doesn’t face any authentic competition from market forces.
Moreover, they can construct narratives to bring about their only social, political, and economic ends.
Big Tech is also acting outside the purview of the law. This begs serious questions about their almost untouchable status as a ‘private’ company, given their tremendous influence on culture.
I go onto say:
How you do you win ad infinitem? You rig them game. You introduce new moral frameworks which benefit your political ends; you demonize those who refuse to conform to your new moral framework; you import millions of new, hyper-fertile voters, who will statistically vote for you in exchange for plenteous social welfare at the expense of the host stock; you ally yourself with megacorporations and have the Narrative Complex’s backing to create inauthentic consumer demand and commandeer a monopoly on truth. Power is all that matters. Those who used to be your main voting base aren’t reliable. In fact, they’ve gotta go. They won’t become part of the beautiful unprecedented social experiment, WE, as moral and intellectual superiors, have concocted for you.
Society can be altered to make technology an irreplaceable mainstay and for planned obsolescence to periodically spike those profit margins.
Nowhere near enough has been done to tame the raging techno-leviathan of Big Tech.
