The new Facebook commercial announcing their intention to fix their problems and insinuating they’ll fix our country’s in the process should scare the hell out of everyone.
They’re admitting, with very little obfuscation, that they believe their algorithm and influence can change culture as we know it. They’re not wrong, but that kind of power in a company’s hands is unconscionable.
They hide it behind the veneer of pictures of families and videos of birthday parties, but they’re making a literal sales pitch to be the company that serves as arbiter of reality.
The implications are massive and indicative of a larger situation: a late-Enlightenment battle between representative politics, technocrats, and capitalism over which will determine the future.
That battle is as old as the Enlightenment itself. Technocrats have battled politicians with capitalist forces weaving throughout, but we’re now to a time where the three are pitted against one another more than ever.
The equation is so odd now. Technocrats are oligarchs, corporations rely on technology, and politicians are having to prop themselves up on both sides.
But this is a crossroads. If we allow tech companies, which are businesses with intrinsic motivations, to literally alter reality then there may be no road back.
On the other hand, politicians have violated the social contract, with perhaps no remedy possible at this point, meaning things might change in large fundamental ways.
The blatant Facebook propaganda should clue people into how large and important of a moment this is. People should be outraged and horrified.
