Frank Bacon - The Highly Independent School Big Shot | ...the Horrid Dystopian State of Privacy and Mass Surveillance.

"... like people groping in the dark; they call it a cause, thus giving it a name that does not belong to it." ~Plato, Phaedo 99

“Although closely related to some of the dirty tricks and negative campaigning we might expect in close races (and which have always played a part in political campaigning ), what makes this phenomenon unique is the deliberate use of computational propaganda to manipulate voters and shape the outcome of elections,” the study notes.

“Social media manipulation is big business,”

the researchers found.

“We estimate that tens of millions of dollars are being spent on social media manipulation campaigns, involving tens of thousands of professional staff.”

“Social media have gone from being the natural infrastructure for sharing collective grievances and coordinating civic engagement, to being a computational tool for social control, manipulated by canny political consultants, and available to politicians in democracies and dictatorships alike,” the study concludes. “We cannot wait for national courts to sort out the technicalities of infractions after running an election or referendum. Protecting our democracies now means setting the rules of fair play before voting day, not after.”

Teleology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Teleology or finality is a reason or explanation for something in function of its end, purpose, or goal. It is derived from two Greek words: telos (end, goal, purpose) and logos (reason, explanation). A purpose that is imposed by a human use, such as that of a fork, is called extrinsic. Natural teleology, common in classical philosophy but controversial today, contends that natural entities also have intrinsic purposes, irrespective of human use or opinion. For instance, Aristotle claimed that an acorn's intrinsic telos is to become a fully grown oak tree.

BIG SHOTS are usually a staple in ... movies but The Highly Independent School Big Shot here isn't really a delinquent in the usual sense of the word. Just the opposite: he's the smartest kid in school. Unfortunately, he's also living in a doomed, bleak, morbidly film noir world, and is madly in love with The Absolute Wrong Girl. Meaning the poor bastard hasn't got a chance.

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