10/18/2025
Social Media is not a place for debate. There may be places on social media where people choose to go to to do so, but those places of quality diverse opinion seem more myth to me than reality.
Social media is in all actuality, a treasure trove of truth that WE routinely reveal about ourselves openly and willingly to the public. What we feel, when we feel it, what our likes and dislikes are, the psychology of our state of mind in real-time as subtleties of our emotional state are revealed in our phrases and searches.
Any government or Corporate entity with the capital and access to the technology can find out anything they want to about you personally in invasive ways that now go far beyond your bank account and location.
Algorithms can track, analyze and compare behavioral patterns that are capable of quasi-predictability. They can't know the future, but they can use a global database of information to determine probability factors in your decision making, next likely purchase, destination, etc., and of course along with that, the scientifically guided attempt to influence and manipulate your choices.
I'm sure I've stated something like this before to a lesser extent, but this truly encapsulates what's going on here. It is IMPOSSIBLE, unless you are Musk or Zuckerberg, to use Social Media and AI tech, more than it uses us and steals our immediate intellectual property - with our consent, as we log on.
In politics and in this sphere I have always been conscious of the attempts of others to use me for their own purposes as I pursued my own goals. In many ways it was a classic game of strategy. Often I would allow myself to be used, knowing what it was for - even if I took a small hit to my reputation, if I determined it was the best or only way to accomplish my goals.
The point of mentioning that is to say that I was perhaps "semi-conscious" of the transactional nature of my motivations and those of others. I would be an arrogant fool to assume I was ever IN control of things much less truly aware of all of the motivations of others.
Which brings us back to social media. What we are seduced by, the ability to express ourselves as we truly desire the world to see us, IS ALSO, sleight of hand. It distracts us from the reality that we are in fact creating a Digital Profile of ourself, our moods and behaviors across space and time, downloadable, researchable, comparable and trackable.
Don't enter this dark forest in ignorance and without a flashlight. Don't think like a card counter in Vegas that you are somehow going to take advantage of the system unscathed. Card counters eventually get caught, roughed up and told not to come back. The house always wins applies to social media as well. Whatever you are making, it is making more off of you.
I routinely wrestle with using this platform knowing this. I occasionally default to the idea that the internet already knows all of my secrets at this point so what's to hide?
To this I would say that I'm no stranger to media using my social media history to manipulate meaning and intention. What I mean and say may be used against me, twisted and weaponized in the court of public opinion so be aware of that. I've also changed overtime, especially now in my thinking and I may want or need to turn off the spigot at some point and chart a new untraceable course.
I hope this serves as a flashlight in the dark forest of the internet and this New Age of Technocracy.
